Reputation of halls!!

Ah right, so actually the whole 'rah' image of some halls will probably disappear all together then, if they have to relate the people in each hall proportional to the entire 1st year intake. I am not sure of the exact figures of state/public schooled people Bristol admits, but I thought it was fairly even, so theoretically there should be an even mix of people in each hall/ As well as an even mix of subjects etc etc. Maybe I am completely wrong, I'm not sure! I think I'm going for Wills as first choice anyway, and then deciding on a second choice at some point in the future!

Also, if I put down two catered halls, would they ever give me self-catered??

It's 2/3 private school. That's not to say they'll all be rahs though

It's 2/3 private school. That's not to say they'll all be rahs though

I'm gonna call bullsh*t on this one. Oxbridge get enough stick for being around 50:50 and there's no way Bristol is worse than them for private school kids.
At least I seriously hope not.

Also, if I put down two catered halls, would they ever give me self-catered??

I'm gonna call bullsh*t on this one. Oxbridge get enough stick for being around 50:50 and there's no way Bristol is worse than them for private school kids.
At least I seriously hope not.

It's 42% privately educated (at least in 06/07)- not sure why people feel the need to spread fabricated numbers when the true total is this high anyway.

You're right, my bad - I re-read the source (TimesOnline) and it said one third not two



It was a genuine mistake, I wasn't trying to spread a fabricated rumour Thanks for putting me straight, anyway

Yeah don't worry about it.
Lots of Rah's isn't really my thing. Infact it put me off Oxford, but like you said, they aren't all bad.
I want to go to a nice hall, but with a good mix of people (mainly state school. Ha) Am I right in thinking it's just random the types of people that get allocated to each hall?

Halls are gradually improving as the quasi-random allocation system for accommodation gets better as well. At least in terms of raw stats (which admittedly can be misleading) the demographic mix is a good deal better in some than it was a few years ago.

Any idea as to why they go to the effort of doing anything other than purely random allocation?
I don't see any reason why the oft heard argument of "putting people with similar interests together means you get on better" can't equally be countered with "meeting a wider range of people gives you a more diverse and satisfying university experience".

Sorry, slight confusion here. There's a difference between who is allocated to which hall, and then within a hall how people are allocated to flats etc.

Hall allocation is done first and is now centrally controlled by accomodation office. They have a very clever computer system which number crunches along about 8-10 different 'demographic' lines to produce a kind of block system for each hall (basically, it comes out with a result like "need 2 international arts students, 3 former private school students in science etc").

It then tries to produce a best match to this ideal, taking into account peoples listed preferences where possible and ensuring no-one ends up in a hall more expensive than either of their listed preferences. The idea being in the end you get an 'as good as you can get' mix across halls. This is necessarily imperfect, however it does seem to have produced a better demographic mix (statistically and based on some anecdotal evidence).

Once people are allocated to halls it is then entirely up to the warden how the allocate them to flats, corridors etc.

Yeah don't worry about it.
Lots of Rah's isn't really my thing. Infact it put me off Oxford, but like you said, they aren't all bad.
I want to go to a nice hall, but with a good mix of people (mainly state school. Ha) Am I right in thinking it's just random the types of people that get allocated to each hall?

I've never actually met one, but they don't really sound like people I'd get on with either
I'm not sure, in the accomodation prospectus (last year's) it says that they use the "about me" section to match you with the people sharing your flat/corridoor, but isn't used to decide which residence people are offered. So it sounds like people get randomly allocated to each hall, but you should have stuff in common with the people living nearest to you.

Dont think that would work well. This year if you didn't put Badock as first choice you didnt get in. I heard it was nearly as popular as Wills.

I have, on a vaguely related note, come to the conclusion that in one year at Wills I'll wear a gown on more occasions than I have in four years at Balliol...

This doesn't seem to make any sense, but it's true. It might actually be worth my while buying a BA gown...