Accommodation for insurance offers

[AChickenCalledDaal]

Just wondering what people's experience has been of arranging university accommodation for students taking up insurance offers. DD is applying for 2020 entry. Her top choice is highly aspirational and even if she gets an offer, there is a significant risk of not getting in. This is not because she's being rash - it's just the nature of the course.

Practically all her other choices don't guarantee campus accommodation - or even any accommodation - for insurance offers. From her point of view, this feels pretty terrifying and I've seen some press reports about accommodation shortages that are keeping me awake at night.

I wondered what people's experience has been? Unis on her potential list include Bath, Nottingham, Exeter, Southampton, Lancaster.

You don’t have to choose an insurance choice but obviously that means your firm choice needs to be achievable! Both my kids did not choose an insurance purely because of the uncertainty over accommodation. All of the stories you hear about kids being put up in Travelodges or waiting fir private’s halls to be built are due to late uptake via Clearing plus no cap on numbers on the part of the universities. It makes me cross!

I've been wondering the same thing. I've read the recent news articles about universities not having enough accommodation for their first years.

They say that accommodation is not guaranteed for those who put it as insurance. However, at most universities they still seem to be able to find accommodation for most first years who enter via an insurance offer, even if there's not a lot of choice left.

If the applicant puts a university as an insurance choice, their place is confirmed by 8am on results day, so they are slightly ahead of those going through Clearing. But only by a matter of hours (days at most), so they'd need to act quickly.

Option A: Apply for university-owned accommodation. Some rooms must become available as there are those who put it as a firm choice but won't make their offer.

Option B: Most cities have private halls run by various companies, and these sometimes have rooms left.

Option C: The university accommodation office might be willing to help by matching up those without accommodation and recommending private lets. Also worth trying social media as some have facebook groups.

This thread might be of interest.

Southampton seems to guarantee accommodation for those putting it as insurance.

"Won't guarantee" just means that they aren't promising anything. That doesn't mean its going to be awful, just that its unpredictable. There will be plenty of options for a few days after the A-Level results cone out but they will get snapped up very very quickly. There will then be dribs and drabs of opportunities as candidates who failed to get their offer grades gradually give up hope of appeal and surrender their accommodation places. These opportunities will go to those who are on the ball and actively searching until something is secured. If the university guaranteed a place then sitting back and waiting for someone else to to the work would be an option.

Its nothing to be frightened of - with any luck DD will be at the firm-accepted offer place anyway!

Also, it's worth remembering that even those going to their firm offer choice, who apply for accommodation as soon as it opens, can still end up being allocated somewhere that was not one of their preferences.

Hi op, if you head over to the 'huge' thread for this year's starters there's some discussion about Bath insurance accommodation, and also Bristol features on the HE board (I know that's not one of your dd's choices!).

It does depend very much on the university, and can be quite hard to predict where there will be problems - it may change from year to year as well, as universities build more or alternatively expand numbers more! i do think it may be a good idea to keep alive the idea in a dc's mind that in some extreme cases a gap year may be a good alternative to the insurance accommodation - but of course that isn't always possible!

My DD was able to put preferences for her firm and insurance. She asked for a shared room as she wanted company and to save costs. I appreciated shared rooms aren't so popular, but she actually got her first choice at her insurance (Edinburgh). She's in modern halls, with a nice outlook.

I did look online for available accommodation in case she had a wobbly for sharing and there was certainly accommodation available for students.

Just seen her choices, I've known students who got into Nottingham and Southampton, get their choices.

Dd had Southampton as her insurance.
One of the big plus sides of it was that they offered guaranteed accommodation to insurance as well as full.
That was quite important as her firm was known for being very slow to decide on just missed, so that could have meant she missed accommodation at insurance if she'd been in that situation.

Southampton do seem to be the best in this regard. They have plenty of accommodation and don't seem to distinguish between insurance and firm. Warwick similarly. They only allocate accommodation in September.

This is good stuff, thank you. Southampton may be coming rapidly up her list! The ironic thing is that she's focussed mainly on campus universities precisely because she wants the feeling of being on a very self contained, predictable site. And now we're realising that only works for those who are lucky enough to secure a room on site.

From my dc’s experience Leeds and Sheffield also guarantee accommodation for all 1st years. Both are city campus unis but quite contained with the accommodation close by

Although it’s not guaranteed and some will be unlucky (those you read in the press) I do believe the horror stories are the minority

Sheffield isn't a campus uni.