Accommodation for Insurance Choice

[FiveFoxes]

Accommodation at several universities seems to be guaranteed only if you firm the uni.

Obviously, the students choose a firm and an insurance and some people then end up at their insurance choice.

What about their accommodation? There aren't homeless students everywhere so what happens if their insurance choice doesn't guarantee their accommodation?

They scramble for what is available. But remember that there will be stuff available since lots of people won't get the grades for their first choice.

Maybe if all the halls have gone, they look on spareroom or pop around to see the private accommodation providers?

My DS did an apprenticeship and had to move pretty fast. He had no help whatsoever and he found a room on spareroom and had a week in a hotel so it all linked up.

That’s unlikely to be necessary. Universities have a relatively fixed number of spaces and overall there will be enough student accommodation locally to meet that demand.

it might be necessary I guess in London but London is always difficult for student accommodation.

They have pay a small holding deposit - on a room of their choice.

Which city is it? Some universities guarantee a place for every student.

It's more that you may not get your choice of accommodation rather than not get any at all.

I am specifically thinking about Birmingham. Obviously as insurance, you wouldn't expect first choice of Halls, but I just want to know they'll get a space somewhere!

Uni of Birmingham say this..

Insurance students

If University of Birmingham is your insurance choice, we unfortunately cannot guarantee you accommodation. However, we would still encourage you to apply for accommodation from 1 December; we'll help you find somewhere to call your own either with us (subject to availability) or within the local community.

Thank you for looking that up for me. But what does that even mean?! I know there are private halls at Birmingham. Does it mean them?

I wish they'd confirm there is enough accommodation for all first years in halls of residence. And if not, why isn't there? They know how many students they'll admit.

Firm choices should definitely get first dibs, but there should be halls for all. They manage it at other Unis.

(Firm choice is significantly under predicted grades, so I am probably worrying unnecessarily, but I'd rather be prepared!)

Last year was madness at UoB and many struggled to find accommodation even with the number of halls they have. I understand they’ve block booked most of the accommodation for first years this year as a result, as some are moaning as they want to stay in halls for their second year and can’t book.

@MrsElijahMikaelson1 Eeek. That's not good news!! You definitely mean Birmingham not Bristol don't you, as I know they had problems. I hadn't heard anything about Birmingham

I spoke to someone in Birmingham accommodation office a while ago as DD was considering it as insurance. They strongly implied that, after firm students, they actually give preference to clearing over insurance students.

@PartoftheBand What?! Why?

It seemed like such a lovely caring university. Good idea about contacting them directly though.

to OP question, it depends a lot on the uni

Some are great with enough to go round (eg Lancaster) others could be scary (eg Glasgow in recent years) - not hard to find out what has happened in previous years

How unis deal with Clearing students compared to Insurance students is also interesting, seen a few that seem to help with Clearing more, not sure why - eg UEA (I think it was them) make a course place and accommodation offer at the same time

I guess it's a bit of a sales technique to attract clearing students if they really need to fill their courses. Definitely seems unfair on insurance students though.

I see someone recently put in a FOI request to UoB for this. They were a bit cagey and vague in their response:

"For the academic years 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25, how many
undergraduate students who had originally selected your university as
their 'insurance' choice but then attended your university did NOT get
allocated university accommodation?

All first-year students admitted via ‘insurance’, who had applied for
accommodation, were offered an opportunity to book a room in each of the
academic years listed above."

UoB did have a problem last year but so did a number of unis. I wouldn’t be surprised if UoB will be better this year but the way the accomodation system work seems like trying to get concert tickets and I’m not looking forward to it as likely to firm Birmingham. Birmingham has a lot of private accommodation blocks so I wouldn’t be be worried unless you are on a tight budget. I would never have London unis (accept one we can commute to), bath or Bristol as insurance.

I think an absolute guarantee is a hard thing for a uni to deliver on, as they have no control over how many students will miss their firm offers and come to them on insurance offers, or how many students who've firmed them will miss their offers and free up the space. They will have data from previous years but it's not an exact science. A few unis do manage to guarantee places to all, but I imagine they must have an excess of accommodation to do this. That data you got from Bham sounds promising.

From having just seen DD do her halls application for her firm - not Birmingham - uni accommodation can mean rooms in shared houses, as well as private halls.