accomodation at oxford

Which college has the highest standard of accomodation, and best food?

Phil

Best accomm is probably Christ Church, though their first years are housed in a sixties monstrosity block (the rooms themselves are ok though) and I think St Johns arent bad. Worth looking at which colleges will guarantee accommodation for the whole degree too, it will make life much easier if you can get college accommodation all the way through- many colleges own some houses as well as just college buildings- I know Balliol, Jesus, Lincoln and Johns all do and I think there are others.
Lincoln has a reputation for having the best food and Merton reckon theirs is even better. Queens is meant to be quite good for food though their first year accommodation is reputedly shit. Wadham food is foul and I've heard bad things about St Peters though I havent eaten there myself.

Best accomm is probably Christ Church, though their first years are housed in a sixties monstrosity block (the rooms themselves are ok though) and I think St Johns arent bad. Worth looking at which colleges will guarantee accommodation for the whole degree too, it will make life much easier if you can get college accommodation all the way through- many colleges own some houses as well as just college buildings- I know Balliol, Jesus, Lincoln and Johns all do and I think there are others.
Lincoln has a reputation for having the best food and Merton reckon theirs is even better. Queens is meant to be quite good for food though their first year accommodation is reputedly shit. Wadham food is foul and I've heard bad things about St Peters though I havent eaten there myself.

Which would you say is the friendliest?

Phil

Do you know which colleges have a system of charging the same rent whatever the room and which ones charge different rents - someone mentioned this earlier?

I'd say Lincoln but since thats my college I'm biased! Actually, the friendly atmosphere is what tends to appeal to people who apply to us but there are others too.
Basically depends what you want- think about what size of college you want to be in. The advantage of being somewhere small ie Lincoln, Corpus, Mansfield etc is that there will be a real sense of community, everyone will know your name and it is very friendly. However, you might want a bit more anonymity and for eveyone not to know who you are and what you're doing, in which case a big college like Wadham, Johns or Balliol would suit you better. Kind of depends what you mean by friendly- whether you want everyone to know your name or not.
In many colleges the bar is the centre of the social life so think about whether you want this or not. At colleges where it isnt like this such as Christ Church and S Hildas the students are more likely to make friends with those in other colleges because there isnt such a strong feel of community. It does give you a wider outlook in some ways but not necessarily the sense of belonging to a community. That said students at smaller colleges may well make friends elsewhere and the fact that a college is big doesnt stop its students forming tight knit friendships.
Myself I would say that the atmosphere in smaller colleges is friendlier but others may find it claustrophobic. If you cant decide you can always go for a medium one! Best thing is to visit the colleges and see what you think- some people do just immediately fall in love with a certain place.

Thanks for that great answer. I want somewhere fairly small, which has a community feel, but not somewhere so small that there's almost no other undergrads. That's why I was seriously considering Pembroke, but the rooms put me off slightly. I saw Christ Church and another large college, and whilst they were far more impressive in terms of appearance, and probs better for teaching and getting contacts etc, it seemed too big and there seemed to be no real community feeling.

Phil

Phil

Let's be honest though, if the food really is terrible, you can always do what most of the people I know who are at uni do. survive on beer, which is very nourisihing and healthy, not to mention tastes good

Phil

why dont you ask at uk-student.info, theres uni students and ppl like you there now!