Parents won't let me pick mixed sex accommodation for uni.

Show your parents snippets of this thread that put things in your favour. Also do some hard research into the accommodation policies of your firm and insurance choices. Sit there and lay all your cards out on the table. Tell them how hard you are working to get into university and how much this means to you. Also tell them how slim the likelihood is of you actually getting same sex accommodation in comparison to normal accommodation, as well as showing the safety features of the room you're expecting to stay in (most doors will have a lock so even if you are sharing with men, in their eyes you can protect yourself from them).
I understand your mum may get violent towards you but document the violence in any way (if this does occur). You can use this as evidence against her if she does do anything. Whatever you do, always take the moral high ground in this situation, anything that can make you look like the bad guy will work in her favour.
If all else fails, tell it to her straight because all the arguments in the world is not going to change the fact you are a grown adult and you can do whatever you want. As she has already told you that you cannot depend on her financially, it is definitely not any of her business as it is not her money.
But whatever you do, please try and keep safe and seek a safe space should you need it. Good luck with the convincing!

Did I say that? Really?

What I'm trying to say is, after your parents have done so many things for your, in the end why is it that some children just bite the hand that feeds them?

This explains alot actually.

I have family friends that are in a similar situation to yours, where the daughter went to Standford, and the son to Cornell.

Despite such an achievement, her mum still addresses her daughter's weaknesses in casual conversations, whereas praising 'her boy' to the extreme.

Trust me I get where this is coming from, this is strictly because of how your mother was raised.
You don't have to tell us, but I can bet she hinted to you regarding future marriage arangements because she herself possibly went through an arranged marriage. She tends to have this attitude since your grandparents were attempting to perfect her into a suitable bride many years ago.

This sounds wrong and cruel, but everyone needs to understand this was very common in many regions of India back 50 years ago, as it was performed for thousands of years. The thinking behind this conservative tradition applied to all classes, educated and non educated.

Nope she's actually told me not to marry until I'm like 30. But she's just unnecessarily controlling and she tries guilt tripping.

Then she'll mention it later in your 20's for sure.

Can you ask if your mum is part of the 90% in arranged marriages (In India), if so, use it against her by reminding your mum that her thinking is outdated and not practiced in the Uk anymore.

I know this is something your passionate about but can't you just let this small little thing go?

At least you are actually moving out. When you're in uni you won't have her watching over you.

Whether accommodation is mixed or single-sex seems like a bit insignificant to me. Not worth getting "violent" over.

As someone in all-female accommodation (all female college, although the rest of the uni is mixed):

Being in all-female accommodation really isn't that bad - in fact it has it's advantages. Also, you may find that your uni just puts you in an all-female flat/ corridor/ floor of a mixed-sex accommodation block anyway, they probably don't get enough people requesting all-female accommodation to make it worthwhile having a whole separate accommodation block, my uni's pretty big but something like 90% of students at my college didn't request to be there...


Negatives:
- Slightly harder to socialise with guys, since they have to walk a bit further/ don't hang out in our common room (but you'll have loads of other opportunities to meet them, e.g. lectures, societies, sports, clubbing)
- More expensive (pretty sure this is just my college though, not the case for all all-female accommodation)

Positives:
- MUCH cleaner bathrooms (I know it's a stereotype, but it's certainly true that ALL the bathrooms I've seen in mixed accommodation have been gross...)
- Bigger/ cleaner kitchens (again, probably just my college)
- Less worries about leaving my door unlocked/ wandering around in PJs
- Tends to be a bit quieter (not sure why, but girls seem to have slightly quieter voices and perhaps less wild parties? Or maybe they go to other accommodation blocks to socialise with guys)
- You can still have guys over anytime/ stay over

If they are paying then you need to try and argue your case. If they are not paying, its your call.

When parents are controlling, you are inevitably going to have to go through conflict to establish your independence and they won't like it. It is just a case whether it is now, over this issue or later.

If you are concerned for your safety, I don't really have any advice. You need to be more careful.

Out of curiosity, what uni do you go to?

Cambridge

I'm worried I'll be stuck with really quiet/religious room-mates :/

do u wanna bang though

Hmmm, in first year I ended up with a load of people on my corridor I didn't really get on with (too noisy lol...) but really very few people actually make close friends with the people they live near in first year halls - we were just 16 students thrown together with completely differing interests, personalities, etc. Instead, pretty much all my friends were made through meeting people in university society meetings, sports and lectures - since these people actually had similar interests to me. So I wouldn't worry about having quiet flatmates, it's probably better than having too noisy ones tbh...

Also, there are probably other students in a similar situation to you - being forced into single-sex accommodation by their parents. Most students take university as an opportunity to enjoy themselves, meet new friends, etc. so they won't all be quiet, super-religious types.

How about you phone the university up and ask them what kind of single-sex accommodation they actually provide. As several of us have mentioned, it's probably just a single-sex corridor in a mixed accommodation block. Taking my uni as an example, there are around 200-300 students a year in single-sex colleges - but only around 10-20% of these actually directly applied to an all-female college, most just got put there because the other colleges ran out of space. That makes at the most 60 students a year who specifically wanted to attend an all-female college, many of whom actually applied there because of other reasons (e.g. I chose my college because of it's career development program and nice accommodation, not because it was single sex, often people apply to the all-female colleges because they think it will be easier to get an offer, etc.). Even assuming all 60 of these students were choosing an all-female college for religious/ cultural/ hating men reasons, that's still not really enough students for it to be worthwhile for a university to build a whole separate accommodation block...

Are u gonna be helpful though

LMAO. Are u muslim?

Yeah I might just call up the uni and ask them :/ My dad says it'll be more fun being in single sex but idk.

Good idea

Hmmm, not sure it's necessarily more/ less fun - tbh it's not an awful lot different to mixed accommodation, certainly not worth falling out with your parents over...

Nah.