Living in London?

The uni website will have info on estimated costs so start there.

How easy it is will depend on how much student finance you're getting and if you qualify for the Imperial bursary (if your parents earn under a certain amount you automatically qualify). Overall I'd say you'd need a couple of thousands pounds on top of the basic student finance loans to be comfortable, but more than that if you want to go out a lot.

I didn't qualify for the bursary or any additional funding from student finance and I survived so you'll be fine as long as you're sensible! In the first year most of my student loan went on accommodation (I only had about £100 left and I didn't even have an en suite room ). Luckily I had some money saved up so I could still go out and have fun. I would spend around £10-20 a week on food, around £20 a month on transport and I'd have about £50 a month to go out and do things. After the first year you'll have to find your own place (unless you stay on as a hall senior) and I found it was much easier then. I chose to move outside of London where rent is much cheaper, but I have an hour commute everyday.

My advice is to keep an eye on your money and make sure you have enough money to cover rent and food. After that you can go out and enjoy yourself. If money is tight there are lots of free things to do as well so don't worry about getting bored. I love going to Hyde Park and the Natural History Museum, both of which are free and under a five minute walk from uni. I think it's also worth getting a student bank account because of the interest free overdraft. I don't know if they're doing this anymore but Santander offered a free railcard with theirs so you can get 30% of train tickets (great if you don't live near London!).

Imperial has a huge mix of people so you'll get people coming from very disadvantaged backgrounds and people who come from very rich households (although most people are somewhere in the middle!), so it may be worth making a budget for yourself based on how much money you know you have. Just assume you're going to spend more than you're planning on and don't worry if you don't stick to it! If you want to go out to parties as well then plan on spending a lot on alcohol because it's very expensive to have a drink out in London (I've seen £6 for a pint).

If you have any specific questions then feel free to ask me!

Wow thank you for such a detailed response! If I get in I'll probably receive a figure of around 13-15k Inc bursary. Will this be enough dya reckon? Cheers

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That's around what people I knew were living off and they were all fine . When I say you'll be fine I mean you'll have enough to live off and go out and have fun, not fine as in you can buy whatever you want! I'm sure you've heard it before, but don't have a shopping spree when you first get it

Ah thanks! Just hope I get the results I need now

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Wow thank you for such a detailed response! If I get in I'll probably receive a figure of around 13-15k Inc bursary. Will this be enough dya reckon? Cheers

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Good luck! What are you hoping to study?

I'm going UCL and receiving a similar amount, I've done a lot of budgeting with quite a lot of research and it'll be enough! (I assume your accomodation is a similar price to the UCL one). As long as you have sort of £13.5k+ you'll have enough for everything (but the lower the figure you end up with, the more strict you're going to have to be with just recording all your outgoings on a spreadsheet or something. Not to limit you massively or anything, just so you can be sure you won't end up with nothing for the last week before the next payment lol).

Chemistry hopefully, fingers crossed

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