The Student Room Group

Accommodation or staying at home?

Hi!! Just wanted to ask a question about student accomodation if that's okay!! I live very locally to a few drama schools so I feel that spending more money on it is a pointless idea, however I don't feel that I will be getting anywhere near the independence that I should be getting at home. Are you allowed to stay a few nights at a student acommodation - just as an idea as then I don't spend any additional money? Are you allowed to change whether you stay at home or not after your UCAS has been sent? Any guidance on this would be fab please x
Original post by tallulah.alice
Hi!! Just wanted to ask a question about student accomodation if that's okay!! I live very locally to a few drama schools so I feel that spending more money on it is a pointless idea, however I don't feel that I will be getting anywhere near the independence that I should be getting at home. Are you allowed to stay a few nights at a student acommodation - just as an idea as then I don't spend any additional money? Are you allowed to change whether you stay at home or not after your UCAS has been sent? Any guidance on this would be fab please x

Hi @tallulah.alice

It can definitely be a great money saver staying at home for uni! Some of my uni friends commute, so their main costs are for travel expenses, but they've found commuting has worked well for them and they've still been able to enjoy the 'uni experience' without moving into student halls.

Are you asking whether you can stay in student halls for a few nights at a friend's accommodation? Or more like you pay for select dates/only pay for when you're there? From my own experience, having guests stay over is usually okay with most accoms, but they sometimes have limits on how many consecutive nights you can stay. This could also become trickier if the accommodation provider views your visits like 'subletting', which may potentially be an issue - but this is just a worst case scenario to consider. If you're thinking about only staying at your own student accommodation for certain nights, you are able to stay at your accommodation as and when you please, however, I've always known student halls to charge weekly rent whether you're present in the accommodation or not, so this might not be a money saver after all. For example, I'm not currently in my accommodation as I'm back home for Christmas, but I'm paying rent for my room regardless.

I've stayed in student halls for all three years of my degree and I've personally found it a great experience to becoming more independent and comfortable with living away from home - so I would say it could be beneficial for you.

Something else you might want to consider, which some of my friends have done, is to live in student halls in first year as you're building your friendships and becoming used to your uni and new environment. And then for the next few years of your degree, you could then convert to commuting from home. This way you can experience student halls and independent living as you're making new friendships, but can then move home to start saving more money later on in your degree. I've also had friends do the reverse, and only move into halls in their final year too.

I believe you can also change from a commuting student to student accommodation after your UCAS application has been sent.

Hope this helps. 🙂
Emily
Student Rep at BCU
Original post by tallulah.alice
Hi!! Just wanted to ask a question about student accomodation if that's okay!! I live very locally to a few drama schools so I feel that spending more money on it is a pointless idea, however I don't feel that I will be getting anywhere near the independence that I should be getting at home. Are you allowed to stay a few nights at a student acommodation - just as an idea as then I don't spend any additional money? Are you allowed to change whether you stay at home or not after your UCAS has been sent? Any guidance on this would be fab please x

Hi there @tallulah.alice , I stayed in halls during my first year of uni and rented privately a house with friends in my 2nd year! Regarding your question about staying a few nights at halls, this depends entirely on your arrangement with the halls of accommodation/ friend staying there. A few of my peers who commuted would occasionally stay over with friends when it was close to the busy submission season!
Whether or not you decide to stay or home or in halls, just remember to take note of the email when your Uni's student accommodation are available for booking as rooms get taken up really quickly (you may want to book a place first and cancel later) Some uni's also offer Resident Life programmes where you may be able to get paid/ stay in student halls for free 🙂 I hope this helps

Zhi En
(Kingston Student Rep.)
Hi there,

I stayed in uni accommodation and private, rented residences with my friends from uni for the whole 3 years of my undergrad degree, because I lived too far away for it to be possible to commute everyday. However, I’m our friendship group we did have a girl who lived really locally to us and commuted. Every time we went out she always came with us and was actually one of the most go ahead to get us all together to do something, so I don’t think her not living on site had any impact on her student experience. She did stay over occasionally during first and third years when we were in halls, and more often in second year when we privately rented but as far as I know there were no stipulations made by the uni as to how many times she could stay.

From a personal point of view, for all my subsequent postgrad degrees, I’ve remained at home for financial reasons and also because I live close to the unis. I haven’t found that this has detracted in any way from the student life. I think a lot more students commute into uni now as finances are more straitened and at Chester, we have a commuting students rep in the union who ‘campaigns’ for improvements such as lockers for us, cheaper public transport etc.

I think the most important thing whether you commute in or not is to get involved in all the clubs and societies on offer to make sure that you meet people at uni with similar interests, but given that these are available to all students I think its important for everyone, not just those not living in.

As the other replies have said make sure that you are clear about when you need accommodation to be booked, as unis do have closing dates on acceptance of accommodation and the best rooms often get booked up quickly so keep this in mind,

I hope this helps,
Good luck with your course
Jess
PhD English
University of Chester

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