Current Oxbridge students - continued again...!

[Panicmode1]

Think the other thread is full....!

I can't comment on Oxford drop offs, but for Cambridge, I booked a 'Just Park' space on someone's drive really near DS' college so after we'd unloaded (total nightmare as he's fairly central and no parking - had to sit on double yellows and do shuttle runs) we could then park the car on the booked driveway.

We then pottered back for 'tea with the Master' which was somewhat underwhelming TBH, and then was shooed out by DS who was desperate for us to leave so he could go and meet up with all of the students he'd met at the pre start drinks....DH and I ended up having a sandwich somewhere on the river outside Kings (not his college!) feeling a bit forlorn before we headed home....but it was similar with DD the following year - and I do remember being left at boarding school and just 'wanting to get on with it', so perhaps similar for them.

@Cinaferna @JulesJules Thanks for the advice, this is also what her ADHD clinic has suggested as apparently the Oxford area service is suboptimal.

@Panicmode1 We've also got a JustPark space 10 min from college and so can drop DD and her stuff + 1 parent and then be back for the lunch (which I think is for parents and students, unusually).

D1's college were quite relaxed about arrival times, just as well as we are about 5hrs from Oxford, so we got there when we got there, but they never minded.

While parking is being mentioned, I can offer advice on parking for the colleges near Grange Road, ie Robinson, Selwyn and Newnham plus Clare Hall and Wolfson, by PM.

The roads east of Grange Road between Queens Road/The Backs have meters, the ones west of Grange Road are currently free to park on as far as I know but will become residents' parking at some stage. The internet thinks they are already, but I'm not sure about that. They are likely to be busy on moving-in days.

The residents' parking which is in much of Newnham (scroll down the link for the names of the roads) only operates between 11am and 2pm, so it's possible to find space outside those times. There are also one or two little-known spaces off Grange Road which are generally free all the time but you'd need to PM me for those.😗

I'm slightly wary of giving duff advice because of the curriculum changes. Any general questions, extremely willing to answer and take responsibility for :)

My ds seems to be getting very different information from others here from his college about the moving in arrangements and to make it worse he is refusing to let me read anything myself and is peering at tiny writing on his phone and just reading out selected excerpts interspersed with 'blah blah blah,' which is not filling me with confidence that what is being relayed is accurate.

He says he is to arrive at any time between 8.30- 5.30 on the 5th Oct. There is no mention of time slots or using the park and ride and no further information at all regarding the process itself. That could be great, but I am concerned that it could also be a bit of a nightmare if he has overlooked some crucial detail, but hopefully it's not the case. He says he would like to arrive as close to 8.30 as possible, which would mean a 6am departure. That's fine with me but there is also the tea at 3pm so I'm not sure what we would do in the interim, especially as he is adamant that the first year mentor he has been in touch with has told him to be bring as little as possible as whatever he thinks he needs won't actually be needed. The tea could be a bit of a non-event and I don't think I could actually cope if it was any sort of a big deal, but also not sure I want to miss it completely...

Has anyone been told anything about paying for the accommodation? DS thinks he has seen a specific figure on one of the attachments he has been sent, but all he can now find is a contract he has to sign about dates etc. Apparently he has to hand that to the porter on the day in exchange for his key, but no mention has been made of paying. We're planning to use the loan for the rent ((as far as possible) so not actually sure when that will come through and what the deadline will be for paying.

There is a lot to take in and plan for, but I'm just hoping it will all fall into place on the day!

I feel you @pinotnow. My DC aren’t generally too communicative either! It sounds as if you have what you need. My DD1’s Oxford college didn’t have a parents’ tea ( we took her out for lunch before saying goodbye); DS1 (C) had nothing because of covid; DD2 (O) had a tea but we didn’t go because of parking and because we figured it was just intended as a way of separating clingy parents from their offspring. So I really don’t think you need to stay for it if it makes the day too long… but you also could do it if it fits in.

@pinotnow welcome to the world of battels, the Oxford billing system. If you go to your DS's college website there should be a page which explains how their own system works. There is likely to be a series of random charges eg. Contribution to college punt, mint julep fund etc and the accommodation fees. Your DS will be sent a bill after he starts and a date for paying it. We always used to pay it by credit card to collect John Lewis vouchers.

@pinotnow if you google his college and 2025 arrival you will probably find the info

Glad it's not just me @AlsoAnon . I think I need to stop obsessing about this tea and see what happens on the day.

Thanks @Dearover and @Roomgigi - I'll have a look at the website and sidestep annoying ds!

https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/organisation/history/oxford-glossary

This may demystify a few phrases. Pidge in the plodge is post for the student in their pigeon hole in the porter's lodge. Bops are student parties

And a Cambridge version

https://ucs.clare.cam.ac.uk/applying-to-clare/glossary/

@pinotnow also you can set terms with DC - e.g. “ if you’d like me to take you and your stuff then I need to read the stuff from college - there may be a low emissions zone I need to avoid - I need to know where to park etc. to avoid fines” I’m very familiar with DC who will only share on what they deem is a need to know basis and have developed strategies- I imagine they have too to counter mine!

I missed the tea as DC went early as she had a pre term course. I don’t think I missed much but it’s a chance to see the buildings etc.

Incidentally we never used park and ride except for graduation day. It definitely depends on the college and location. Some colleges actually have parking! Parkopedia is also helpful sometimes.

To add to an earlier post:

Here's a non-college based list of Cambridge abbreviations - apologies for the adverts, and it may be out of date.

This is a different college one : another , another and another. I find them entertaining to read, but they may also contain useful information.

They do indeed. We were fortunate to be able to avail ourselves of that on many occasions at C over the last 3 years. But good advice here - especially about being genuinely pleasant to porters. We only encountered one jobsworth in 3 years (American) but then the other American, ex-marine (rangy, ramrod straight, Semper Fi(delis) and all that), was absolutely lovely. O does sound hellish on move in, though. Good luck to all on the day. We'll be there (C) in October but further out - it's 4th year, outside the embrace of in-college accommodation, and move out is not until July 2026. Hooray! However, if DS's plan to do his Phd in France comes to fruition that is another challenge of a very different order.

Hello everyone,
My Dc's college (O) had an afternoon tea for parents and family on moving in day.

One master's student attended with his wife and kids and was very disappointed to be the only student there (although his child was very cute).

The rector explained that the point of the tea was to stop the parents hanging around their kids and allow the students to start settling in to college, without their parents' 'help'. Apparently they often don't go otherwise 😁
It was not a particularly fancy cream tea, so don't get high hopes, but the dining hall was very nice and we had some pleasant conversation with other parents, some of whom we have seen again on picking up/dropping off trips.
And we felt like we had done our duty and we just ambled back to the car after.

DC's college has a very flexible approach to drop off - turn up, park on double yellows outside college, send DC in to get parking permit to put in windscreen,
mad dash of 20 minutes to unload all stuff inside college quad, then return permit for next parent and go park car. then help DC unpack in their room.
Most students seem to turn up about 10-11am so maybe try to avoid that slot?

It's a long time ago now but when we dropped DD we were able to park at her C college. There was a tea for parents and other hangers on e.g. younger siblings in the Master's Lodge. It was tea/coffee and tray bakes which the Master joked he had baked himself. As we had a long journey, we went to the early afternoon tea then drove home. Parents were expected to spend about half an hour there - it was all quite informal.

Park and Ride in Cambridge is really good. However, we tended to use the Premier Inn at Orchard Park. You can park for free there and it is a quarter of a mile walk to the guided bus stop which goes into the city centre. It can be expensive at interview time but for DD's graduation, we got it for 3 nights and spent less than one night in the city centre (and the parking was free). That justified the taxi fares to college. We can't travel to C by public transport because our part of Devon doesn't have any. If Premier Inn is full, there is a Travelodge along the road but I'm less keen on it.

At the end of term in December, I drove down leaving home at lunchtime on Saturday. Got to Orchard Park just as it was getting dark, so had dinner etc there. I was up at the crack of dawn to get to DD's college and at 8am, could always park there, load up and set off home, getting back early afternoon. I do not miss those days!

DD’s college in C is not ultra central but is about 7 mins walk into the town and about three mins from where the Park and Ride drop off and there has never been an issue parking in the road. There are on street parking charges 9am to 5pm and it uses the Ringo app which for us was the same as our local parking app but mention it in case it is helpful for anyone else to download in advance. DD fills in a form for when she would like to ‘go up’ and ‘come down’ and apart from Freshers arrival day the students trickle in over the course of four or five days so it is rarely busy.

I have driven up watched DD in a show of an evening, had a blow up bed in her room, parked overnight, paid two hours parking whilst having brunch with DD and then headed home. Quite civilised.

I am currently in Cambridge, at the very Premier Inn recommended by @Malbecfan, no less. I'm helping move my DD out. She has recently graduated from Cambridge School of Art (part of ARU), not Cambridge University. While we're on the subject of parking, I discovered that if you park in the station car-park, the minimum charge is for a whole day!! So don't do that. (Also, check that your SatNav knows that the Mill Road Railway Bridge is now closed to private vehicles.)

I now have a year off from driving from the North-East to East Anglia while DS is on his gap year. I won't miss the Doncaster By-Pass and the bridge widening work.

This is all incredibly thank you. I’m another whose DC is sparing with the information received (🙄) and who is, to compound matters, about to head off to visit family overseas for a fortnight - which will further limit time and opportunity to ensure everything’s in order.

Nice to hear your update re D1, congratulations on her graduation @PhotoDadI remember from the Art degree thread! My D2 is now doing an Illustration degree.

Bringing D1 to Oxford, we would drop off her and her stuff at college, then go and check in at the Prem Inn at the end of Cowley Rd (free parking) and come back in on the bus. On Sunday morning we'd drive back into Oxford and park just off St Clements (always got a parking space there) meet up with D1 for brunch, a walk in Christchurch meadow, the Botanic Gardens or the Ashmolean before heading home.

For her graduation we stayed at the city centre Premier Inn, using park and ride.

My DS has had an email from his C college telling him that he has to attend a bridging course so he will be starting his journey early. He is a little upset at this as he thinks that it means his results weren't up to par (3 A* in Further Maths, Physics and Maths and an A in Chemistry). I have told him that he should look at it as an opportunity as he will be there a week early and will get more time to settle in and get to know his way around etc. Has anyone had any experience of the bridging course and why students are selected?

It's nothing to do with grades, more to do with confidence & adapting to a very different study approach. DD benefited from this under the Oxford UNIQ programme at the application stage and regrets not having that slight extra support from Opportunity Oxford to build her confidence when she actually started for study & essay skills.

God if I had had a bridging course I might not have taken about 4 terms to understand what a supervision was actually for. Reassure him.