Bristol Uni accommodation application

[decisionz]

We've been looking at the Bristol Uni accommodation process. It says that they prioritise budget and the first question is "What is your maximum room cost? Give the highest amount you can spend on accommodation, including utility bills and internet". This is confusing us because my son is hoping for a catered room, which will obviously cost more than a non-catered room. Should he put the maximum room cost with or without catering? If he follows the letter of the instruction and puts the max for accommodation only then it might too low for a catered room and steer him to self-catered. But if he puts his max with catering he might be allocated a high-spec non-catered room and have no budget left for food.

I know they will ask for preference on catered versus non-catered in a later question, but they don't prioritise that as much as budget.

It's a new system of allocating accommodation with the details only released in the past couple of weeks. I don't think anyone can advise.

@decisionz We just did the accommodation applications for York, which are less complicated than this, but what I'd suggest is going all the way through the form, so you can find out about the catering aspect and the choices involved, and just take this first question about budget at face value - it mentions internet and bills but it doesn't mention food, so say what you can afford, excluding food. If you need to change anything you can go back before you press "submit"

FYI, there is a Facebook group called university of Bristol applicants and offer holders 2025 that I am going to join too.

That sounds new (we had 3 at Bristol in the past and they were asked things like hobbies and quiet corridor or not. It sounds like a weird change as most students first pick between catered or not (we had 2 at Wills Hall and 1 at Churchill - all catered by choice) and in our case the cost was irrelevant - they just wanted a catered hall in Stoke Bishop.

From what I read on the first post on this thread just put down the maximum cost of a catered hall which he might like.

The new system is complicated as some of the nicer older catered halls can I think sometimes be a bit cheaper than some kind of modern city centre with en suite bathroom one but I might be wrong on that... I went to check and see Wills Hall eg now offers self catered studio too. I would just put down £10k or something like that (IF you can afford that) on the new form and hope it has space for any other interests - eg Wills has a chapel which may be relevant to some and some might like sports on site at Wills or whatever it might be. https://www.bristol.ac.uk/accommodation/about/residences/wills-hall/

Is there a space to put max then make it clear it’s for catered ? We had this 3 years ago so we put the amount that the first choice were charging which included catering. I think she only put catered options on the form though (if there were 9 places that offered it). A friend put a much lower amount and was allocated a room within that budget.

Thanks. I've heard back from their enquiry team now. They said to put the higher budget but also add a note in "Accommodation Needs" to make clear we would have a lower budget for self-catered.

Hopefully they will tweak the form for next year to make it clearer. 🙂

Bristol has changed its accommodation allocation system several times in recent years.

Just firmed Bristol! Can anyone tell me whether you can put a minimum room cost down as well as a maximum? Keen to keep the costs right down but don't want the very cheapest or the most expensive

A lot of people seem to say the SB halls are sociable. But surely all student halls are sociable. Am I missing something?

We did the form a couple of weeks back. From memory, I think you basically choose a price band, so yes that would imply a minimum.

Muma yes as long as young people are sociable then every halls will be. However my 3 who were in Stoke Bishop halls and saw others halls did prefer SB. May be they were just lucky with the people they met. Going into a dining hall etc perhaps made people more sociable due to mixing with others I suppose and mine were all in catered halls.

They’ll have fun wherever they go. No one lives in 2 halls so they have nothing to compare, so not sure how they prefer somewhere. It’s a great Uni and there are pros and cons for every hall.

My twins were in different halls at the same time - one twin in one and one in another so probably were able to compare some things surely? They had friends in other halls and would often be in the other halls.

The main choices for students will be Stoke Bishop or more in the centre of Bristol and secondly if they want catered halls or not.

I think the choice, for most people, will be cost.

This year the first choice is cost and then catered / non catered / en-suite etc and then choosing 3 options. It's complicated because a catered option shared bathroom can be less than a non catered option en-suite in a newly built hall. I expect the system won't quite work and it will be more of a random ballot based on cost.

Yes, this is why I started the thread. As mentioned in my pp of 24/04/2025 15:21, I got helpful advice from the Accommodation team, which we followed, to use the 'Accommodation Needs' fields to specify a need for Catered and then, in the info box, write something like "If I can't get catered, my budget will be £1k lower". This makes sense, because Accommodation Needs are considered first, and budget second.

However, it's worth mentioning that my son had previously submitted the same query to a different team (for general applicant queries). They took much longer to reply, but when they did they gave a completely different answer - they said to just set the budget at the lower (non catered) level. That approach would make me very nervous because budget is considered before room type preference - the lower budget would immediately filter out any catered options.

@decisionz , thanks for the tips, my ds wants SB area en-suite and doesn't mind if it's catered or non catered, it's tricky to set a budget against these options. I think he will just get on and do it and put it to the back of his mind.

My son put a preference for a shared bathroom, mostly as a budget trade-off, but also because he might as well get used to sharing - he'll certainly be sharing one in year 2 in private housing. He did specify a preference for a sink in his room though, which is a decent compromise.

@decisionz , yes sink in the room is a good compromise too.

It sounds like a silly new system as vast amounts of students know what they want - eg city centre or catered Stoke Bishop. The advice given to the parent, not the teenager, above sounds sensible and perhaps that should be on the guidance for those applying as everyone is going to be up against the same issues. Obviously there will be some people (not the very poor because they get a massive extra loan but those in the middle) for who the very cheapest is all they can afford, but for others cost is not the factor really at all.

Cost is a factor for the majority. Unless you’re offering to pay Xenia ?

There are a number of halls at SB all grouped together so there is a lot of overlap socialising. My son was at Badock but made good friends at other halls and made friends on the bus (that serves this while group too). Also its proximity to the downs means there is somewhere they all go outside to sit tk socialise, study, play games, Frisbee, football etc.

All halls are sociable. In town ones are walking distance from each other (& Bristol nightlife) and students meet on College Green. Wherever they end they’ll have fun. Wouldn’t worry too much about anything except budget, so they have enough left over to be able to afford some fun.

The maximum maintenance loan is currently £10k approx. Hardly a "massive extra loan" and often not enough to cover the cost of halls plus all living expenses. Not really realistic to suggest that the "very poor" are going to be rolling in, and not have to worry about, money.