Accommodation at Cambridge College

Which college has, in your opinion, the best accommodation? (En-suites, on site, accessible etc.).
Thank you!

(edited 8 years ago)

Which college has, in your opinion, the best accommodation? (En-suites, on site, accessible etc.). And are there any that are particularly good for modern languages?
Thank you!

They generally all have a wide variety from very old to relatively modern with different facilities etc. Rooms are usually allocated via a ballot and it's worth noting that if you get a "poor" room one year it's more likely you will get a "good" room next year.

Best bet is to visit some colleges.

If "has the most MMLers" is a way of identifying "good" (which it isn't...) the chart below shows the number of acceptances for MML per college in 2015 (it will vary a little from year to year).

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(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 2

username1865079

Original post by jneill

Not sure where you got such an idea from, but it doesn't work like that, I'm afraid.
Except for the first year when all rooms are allocated by the college, you go into a ballot with your friends you want to live with in a same house or a part of corridor, and the result of the ballot will purely determined by your luck (or lack of it...).

Reply 3

Doones

Original post by vincrows

Downing, for one: "In the second year, rooms are allocated by means of a student-run ballot, which is reversed in the third year to ensure fairness."

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Reply 4

samb1234

Original post by vincrows

The ballot varies by college. In some colleges such as trinity, johns and i assume some others the ballot is done by exam results (at least partially), at others such as jesus, downing etc it is random and then the order is reversed for year 3

Reply 5

SakuraJ

Ok thanks for your help! I'll look into it :smile:

Reply 6

username1865079

Original post by samb1234

Yes, I DO know some (actually many) colleges give priority to students who got a first to decide where they want to live before other students. :wink:

Reply 7

username1865079

Original post by jneill

Downing, for one: "In the second year, rooms are allocated by means of a student-run ballot, which is reversed in the third year to ensure fairness."

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How can they 'reverse' it?
Not everyone goes into a ballot with same people every year.
Also, depends on how many friends you go into a ballot with and what sort of accommodation area with available rooms to fit your group of friends varies, too.

Anyway....
I'm just saying what your statement is quite misleading.

Reply 8

HagueBlue

Hi, Downing and Jesus are known around the university to have excellent accommodation! Trinity and John'setc. should be able to provide the old magnificent rooms most consistently though, but you loose things like ensuite. Also, all colleges which are that old would have rooms like this. The website 'ask a Cambridge student' is run by an ex downing student, and there's a ton of information about it ( and all the other colleges) on there. I'd definitely say the info I got from there helped me get my offer, so many personal experiences. You can ask anything and the feedback is amazing and fast. Please remember that, a lot of central colleges ship students out, eg. My hopefully if I meet my offer college, trinity hall, first years live on site, second and some unlucky third years on a site near Fitzwilliam college( 10 minute bike ride, 25 minute walk, cars, road). However, Tit hall are making 72 ( a year has 118 people, so not much, but remember about 20 people end up back in college to share a room with a friend) central excellent ( double beds, and I read somewhere free view TV, ensuite in every room etc,) in the centre of town! They have some videos on YouTube about MML at Tit Hall too. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=azJeLUIGEsI They also have a mock interview, supervisions.

Reply 9

Helenia

Original post by vincrows

At Clare, we received individual ballot numbers for second year, which were reversed for third year (so number one person in second year would become number 130 or whatever for third year). However, third years picked before second years, so even with a relatively low ballot number in third year you still had a chance of a decent room.

For people going for group accommodation, the average ballot number of the group was used and ranked against everyone else applying for group accommodation in order to determine who got what. I am aware that some colleges have more group accommodation than others, so the systems may work differently, but it was certainly true for us that a poor second year room often meant better choice of nicer third year ones.