Sentinel Towers or Central Village?

Hi, I'm really confused about choosing my accommodation for Leeds (they're my firm choice)!

I need self-catered and en-suite accommodation, and I'll be doing BA Geography so closeness to the School of Geography would be ideal. From the website it seems like Sentinel Towers and Central Village fit the bill best, but what are their reputations like? Am I likely to make it into Sentinel Towers, which is a bit cheaper and close to the local ASDA?

Also, how many choices for accommodation do you have to make when applying?

Okay. I currently live in Sentinel but you have pretty much chosen two polar opposites in accommodations

For a start, there is no local Asda. It's something like 2 miles away and it's one of those little mini ones, not a full sized superstore. Unless you order I'd say 98% of people in Sentinel shop at either Aldi (about a mile walk) or Morrisons (about a mile in the other direction, city centre) and almost all from central village shop at Morrisons as it's much closer to them.

I really do love Sentinel. If you look at the big accommodation thread I posted some photos of my room, as they've been updated since the photos were put on the website, and are much nicer. It's obviously much cheaper. (about £500 a year cheaper). Location wise it's on the opposite side of campus to CV (not too sure where Geography is taught I'm afraid). Though there is a bus that goes from right outside the building all the way to that side of campus for only £1 each way an it's frequent.

Though Sentinel is seen as one of the quieter residences, as we only have 240 students and some of those students are post graduates, and it's also popular for exchange students. CV is the opposite with 980 students! It's seen as a more 'lively' residence in comparison. Though if you like sleep and being able to revise occasionally Sentinel is good! We still have events and socials and stuff, and there are still parties, but less so than CV.

However Sentinel is very nice, decent location, and the second cheapest en-suite on offer! The kitchens are a little small I guess, but we do get our bins taken out for us, so one less thing to argue with your flat mates about! All the on site staff are lovely, and there is a Nisa local across the road for bread and stuff if you run out.

You get one choice in the application process, and then fill out a questionnaire ranking how important certain factors are to you. They then allocate about 70% of people in their first choice, and use the questionnaires to allocate the other people.

Also if you choose Sentinel you are almost certainly going to get your first choice. Central Village however is oversubscribed every single year and many people are placed elsewhere, some being placed in Lupton, which is quite far from campus!

But it's a personal preference thing I guess. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Sentinel, it's just not as 'exciting' perhaps. So it suits me fine

Oh my, you are an absolute lifesaver thank you so much! I'm not too fussed about the Asda being small, but I'm glad there quite a few grocery options nearby (where I live you can only really go to a titchy Iceland if you're not feeling buses.....)

And I do quite like sleep, maybe not revision so much But I'm not exactly a social butterfly so your description of Sentinel Towers probably seems more my style ! I mean there's more than enough societies I could join for talking to people so I don't need accommodation too hectic

And your room looks wonderful ahhh (and your pokemon plushies and bh6 poster are super cool too) !! You said it's popular for exchange students, are there a lot of exchange student at Leeds? Oh, and what's the internet/wifi speed like at Sentinel?

Thank you again, this is so useful and it means I'm probably going to make Sentinel my first choice. Especially with CV being so popular, I really don't want to end up in a residence where I have to travel too much

Sleep is honestly the best thing ever! Well next to chocolate! And yeah, I wasn't a big fan of Morrison's, but the one here is nice and very central. You can easily walk back from there, but if you have a couple of heavy bags you can get the number 29 from right outside the shop and it will take you all the way to right outside Sentinel for £1. It's honestly a life saver!

And yeah Sentinel is nice because there are 'party flats' and people will put on the facebook group pages inviting people, so if you ever did fancy a drink or whatever, it's not like it doesn't happen at all here, just maybe less so than some other places! I'm pretty much a hermit. I like to hide in my room all the time!

The poster I got at a poster sale in the union during freshers Also got a teeny tiny little baymax colour changing light on my desk. And I only have snorlax and pikachu here. Back at home I have something stupid like 20 pokemon plushes. And 3 pokemon hats...and a pikachu onesie...and my dog has a pikachu onsie...and I have 2 pokemon cosplay hoodies and one 'normal' hoodie. As well as all of the games of course. Honestly. It's a bit out of hand.

As for exchange students there are LOADS. There was a girl from Japan staying with me first Semester, and now a girl from Korea this semester There are loads of international students as well. In my randomly assigned group project group at university I am the only person born in England out of the 6 of us! I've spoken to people from Australia, the states, canada, pretty much every european country, korea, japan, china, Taiwan, Indonesia, many south African countries as well.

The internet speed is fine I stream internet tv through a now tv box and also use the internet to play games on my wii u (ethernet cable for those things though) and yeah never really had a problem Bonus is, it's the same network the university uses as well, so you only need to remember one log in!

Ooh nice!

Which of the flats are the 'party flats'? I only just realised The Tannery is accommodation that exists (I must have skipped over it when I was searching by accident, oops) and it looks basically the same as Sentinel? And I feel you on that one, as much as I'd like to be more social at university I'm still going to need lots of time alone in my room to be scared of people. And sleep. Mostly sleep.

And that's so cool ahhh, I don't know how much of my various merch I'll be bringing with me to uni......as much as I'd love to cart all my books and anime/kpop stuff I've got building up over there I'm scared of over-packing Your pikachu onesie must be sooooo cute, I've low-key wanted a onesie for ages I swear haha

That's really good to hear - one of the big reasons I'm firming Leeds is because I wanna study abroad at some point, so being able to talk to exchange students would definitely be my cup of tea! Plus it means I have an excuse to learn more about other cultures which is always a nice thing aaaah

I'm glad the internet it alright, I've heard so many horror stories from uni students about their speeds......god knows I'm going to need it when I'm stress-watching youtube videos at 3am before a deadline! And the log in thing is super handy too!!

Thank you so much for all this info, it's so useful <3