Emmanuel College / Wolfson College Cambridge Postgraduate Accommodation situation

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I'm looking at the accommodation and can't seem to find any official information on the room sizes and toilet availability. I'm planning to use a grade 1 room as I will be staying here for a year only, but I wanted to know e.g. how many toilets per unit, room size, distance from the central site, rent duration (e.g. 48 weeks or 52 weeks..?) and stuff like that. Can anyone whos been to Emmanuel help me out here to get an idea about the different types of rooms offered? My only major issues with accommodation are the toilet situation + rent price, and maybe a bit on the distance from major sites. Also, I'm going as a postgraduate, so what are the realistic chances of being offered an accommodation without having to look for private ones?

I've also put down Wolfson as my second choice, and if Wolfson accommodation seems to be better, I will probably switch my preference on the portal. Would be amazing if anyone shares their accommodation experiences at Wolfson, too!

(edited 1 month ago)

Reply 1

threeportdrift

Careers Forum Helper

20

Original post

by whitespider

I'm looking at the accommodation and can't seem to find any official information on the room sizes and toilet availability. I'm planning to use a grade 1 room as I will be staying here for a year only, but I wanted to know e.g. how many toilets per unit, room size, distance from the central site, rent duration (e.g. 48 weeks or 52 weeks..?) and stuff like that. Can anyone whos been to Emmanuel help me out here to get an idea about the different types of rooms offered? My only major issues with accommodation are the toilet situation + rent price, and maybe a bit on the distance from major sites. Also, I'm going as a postgraduate, so what are the realistic chances of being offered an accommodation without having to look for private ones?

I've also put down Wolfson as my second choice, and if Wolfson accommodation seems to be better, I will probably switch my preference on the portal. Would be amazing if anyone shares their accommodation experiences at Wolfson, too!

I very much doubt you will find the level of detail you are seeking

1. Culturally, students have not been expected to be choosy about their accommodation, it's generally basic, and anything more than basic is lucky. Colleges are academic institutions, not housing associations. I a student's funding allows them to be choosy, then they need to choose the private sector - and that's not a Cambridge thing, that's the UK university experience.
2. Cambridge Colleges tend to have a very diverse range of accommodation, if they had plans for each room they would run into multiple hundreds of different pages to keep updated.
3. When it comes to the allocation of rooms, MPhils are the last in line. There is no mechanism to book a specific room. Returning students and continuing students get priority through a room ballot in the prior Easter term. Then all-age Colleges tend to wait until UG admissions are completed in August to confirm what remaining rooms they have for incoming students. Only then to incoming PG students get allocated any remaining rooms.
4. Your chances of getting accommodation depend on the number of rooms your allocated College has, compared to the PG population and how the student body has agreed to prioritize it (its a student led, college approved process). Some Colleges end up with almost no MPhil accommodation, all PG and large Colleges tend to have proportionally more.
5. Most Colleges run a 'first confirmed, first allocated' process. So the earlier you have everything in your application confirmed, including funding, the earlier your name will be on the list when they get around to allocation in September.

So that means unless you are applying to/offered a place at a College with very uniform accommodation, the whole preference form they might ask you to submit is a very loose approximation to what room you might get, if any.