Insurance

Sorry in advance but this is long - I figured it may be useful to just give you a guideline of the process as I really wanted this last year (as I was an insurance student too).

The process last year was that you wait for them to contact you (and they will soon hopefully) and then you are given three options: try to live on campus, go into a student flat off campus (which are very common around Loughborough and are like off-campus halls) or live in a house. Naturally pretty much everyone goes for the first two options but there is no guarantee you will get to live on campus.

I went with the first option and it was quite tough. Some people are provided with accommodation in Village Court (which is on campus and is like a temporary hall, but I doubt this will happen this year as people are living there if they applied for Falk Egg as that's being refurbished, but I don't know if it will or won't happen so I thought I'd mention it) and some are given accommodation in the University Lodge (a hotel on campus) or the Link hotel (next to campus). There is limited space in this case and the rest who apply for the option to live on campus are offered accommodation in a private hall instead. It's completely by chance if you'll get to try out to live on campus or not as most insurance/clearing students always apply for that and they don't have the temporary rooms for all of them.

Now a few who apply to live on campus get accommodation straight away as people drop out before Uni, but this is a small number. Those in the Link hotel normally are out of there within a day or two of coming to the Uni and those in the Lodge take a few weeks (generally). They will tell you that it may take until November though, but I can't see that happening. You just have to wait for rooms to free up as people drop out all of the time. Those in Village Court can take up to a few months and in some cases, people rather just live there all year than move (but again, I don't know if this will be an option this year because of Falk Egg students living there). When you are offered a room, normally they expect you to take it, but you can decline and wait for one you prefer, but this takes a while. With the Lodge people and the Link hotel people, they normally provide you with a list and as a group, you choose from them together (there will probably be about 20 in each hotel). It's difficult though as they try to get people out of the hotel quickly but people always want certain rooms, so it's tough to get what you want. In that case, you can end up taking something you really don't want, JUST to get a room and get settled. But yeah, they provide transport to help you move, which is nice, but if you take up a room and wait to get one in a hall you like after, they won't help you move the second time.

Those who apply for private halls are pretty much guaranteed a room straight away and it's very easy.

Now from my experience, I was put in the Lodge last year (and it cost £125 a week, which included food at DC hall and the Village bar at weekends) and while I had the time of my life for the first few days with the other Lodgers, we eventually were moved out 2 weeks in and I struggled moving into my new hall. Everyone was close after freshers and I couldn't get into it, whereas friends I have who went for private halls from the start still managed to get close to people as it was very hall-like. But then again, at least I got to experience hall-pride during freshers as we were affiliated to DC and did freshers events, but I'd rather have taken a year of being close to people than a few weeks of fun and meeting people I couldn't really keep in good touch with. All the Lodgers went into different halls and I didn't see my DC friends much...so unless you are sure you can make good friends in a new hall, I'd think about this option.

But yeah, I hope that helps if the process is the same this year

Thanks for the insight. However, seeing the amount of clearing spaces for loughborough university and the overall drop in applicants I think that the odds are in our favour when applying on campus (Compared to last year).