Accom recommendations - St John's (Grad)

Hey,

I am due to start a PhD program (Comp Sci) at Cam and I am initally going to request accomodation with St John's College.

I have to submit my accomodation preferences by Aug 1st. I am hoping that maybe some of you guys that know the place might be able to help out in the decision.

My wish list is basically:
-close to town
-reasonable sized rooms
-manageable person:shower/bathroom/kitchen ratio
-internet (though it seems that basically all places have jacks)

Details of the hostels are available here:
http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/admissions/graduate_admissions/graduate_documents/hostel_descriptions/

I submitted some prefs a while back, but they were just off the cuff without real consideration :
1. 1 Madingley Road
2. Merton Arms (25 Northampton Street)-very little info provided
3. 23 Chesterton Road
4. Fossedene

Cheers guys.

Reply 1

d750

8

jat

Hey,

I am due to start a PhD program (Comp Sci) at Cam and I am initally going to request accomodation with St John's College.

I have to submit my accomodation preferences by Aug 1st. I am hoping that maybe some of you guys that know the place might be able to help out in the decision.

My wish list is basically:
-close to town
-reasonable sized rooms
-manageable person:shower/bathroom/kitchen ratio
-internet (though it seems that basically all places have jacks)

Details of the hostels are available here:
http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/admissions/graduate_admissions/graduate_documents/hostel_descriptions/

I submitted some prefs a while back, but they were just off the cuff without real consideration :
1. 1 Madingley Road
2. Merton Arms (25 Northampton Street)-very little info provided
3. 23 Chesterton Road
4. Fossedene

Cheers guys.

Hi. All of the hostels have quite a range of room sizes, so the size you get will depend on the price range you specified. Fossedene isn't all that nice - it's the furthest away of the ones you specified (although they're all close) and it's got quite narrow corridors and just a general feeling that everyone's living on top of each other. Merton Arms is the closest - literally just at the back entrance - but it's got some drawbacks. It seemed the liveliest / noisiest because it had a mix of undergrads and grads and is near a restaurant which can mean people stand under your window and talk loudly into the night. My personal choice would be Madingley - it's a nice size, it's very convenient for parking / unloading, and it's only 5 mins from the back of college. Not much character to the building, but that's hardly a problem. In terms of shower / kitchen facilities and ratios they're all about the same.

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me. I left the SBR last year.

Reply 2

Radagasty

jat

My wish list is basically:
-close to town
-reasonable sized rooms
-manageable person:shower/bathroom/kitchen ratio
-internet (though it seems that basically all places have jacks)

Welcome to John's. :smile:

Having been through the process myself, I know that accommodation is one of the more annoying aspects that has to be dealt with before one has a chance to come to grips with the lay of the land, as it were (unless, of course, you're already in Cambridge).

1 - There's not much to say about being close to town; you can find the locations of the hostels yourself on a map. I'd say that, for most intents and purposes, all the John's grad hostels except the one in Chesterton (you can ask Tommyboy about this) is close enough to town, or at least, to St. John's. As you're reading computer science, I assume that you will be on the West Cambridge site -- I'm at the Cavendish Laboratory -- in which case it you might want to consider the higher-numbered (i.e., 10, 12, 14, 15) Madingley Rd hostels, which will be closer to that site.

2 - This is a bit of a lottery. As d750 notes, since you have to nominate hostels rather than rooms, and the room sizes vary significantly within a hostel, it is difficult to take this into account. Even specifying a price range is no guarantee, since any given rent might get you the smallest room in one hostel but the biggest in another. If you are particular about the size of the room, it might be worth mentioning as a 'special request' on the form.

3 - I have not heard complaints about the person:bathroom/toilet ratio from any of the hostels, but do note that some hostels are rather tight on the kitchen situation, e.g., 12 Madingley has 13 people to 1 small kitchen, and some hostels have no kitchen at all. The importance of this is really dependent on how much you want to cook. I find the buttery an affordable place to obtain good (in relative terms) food, but some people find it objectionable, especially if they have particular dietary requirements.

4 - By the beginning of the next academic year, almost all hostels will have internet connectivity, either through the College network or via a commercial broadband provider (paid for by the College). It may be worth noting this distinction if it is important to you.

At any rate, I look forward to meeting you come Michaelmas. If you have any questions, likewise feel free to PM me, although d750 was most helpful last year when I had many of these questions myself.

Reply 3

jat

OP

Thanks for the info

Ragas: Where did you end up staying? And as for the college vs broadband internet - is the college network extremely locked down (e.g. blocked ports etc, I was definately keen onMSN Messenger/web conferincing with family/friends back home (cheaper than ph calls))!

I would definately consider Merton Arms, but I find it totally bizarre that there is hardly any description of it!

Yeah the new Bill Gates Lab is pretty far but I'd rather live close to town and commute to 'work' rather than the other way around.

Reply 4

tommyboy

1

jat

My wish list is basically:
-close to town
-reasonable sized rooms
-manageable person:shower/bathroom/kitchen ratio
-internet (though it seems that basically all places have jacks)

I submitted some prefs a while back, but they were just off the cuff without real consideration :
1. 1 Madingley Road
2. Merton Arms (25 Northampton Street)-very little info provided
3. 23 Chesterton Road
4. Fossedene

Cheers guys.

Ok - a slightly delayed reply. In principle, I agree with what has been said. Especially, the fact that you can end up in a tiny, crappy room in a grand hostel or in a huge, wonderful room in a horrible hostel, since rooms within hostels vary enormously.

As to your original prefernces; 1 Madingley is very nice, with two kitchens and a large common room - also some great people living there this year and possibly staying on for another year.

I'm unsure about Merton Arms. A friend of mine who lives there has a wonderful room, but I haven't really seen much else of it. Northampton Street is quite busy and the houses there don't look that great from the outside.

23 Chesterton Road: most people living there seem to be ok but not necessarily in love with the place - apparently depends to a large extent on the room you get.

Other places to consider: 12 Madingley and 69 Grange Road are very popular and renown as party hostels. However, they can cost a fair bit and are a bith further from town.
I've also heard very good things about 23 Park Parade - probably as close to town as you can get.

Not sure if this helps, or if you have been allocated accommodation in the meantime (I know most current Johnians got their letters towards the end of last week). All things considered, I'd probably recommend 1 Madingley.

Accom recommendations - St John's (Grad)

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