Guest Blog by Bethany Pawson on accommodation and Clearing.  

Many people think that there is no chance that you will be able to get in halls if you have gone through Clearing because they fill up so fast, but did you know that Bournemouth University offer an accommodation guarantee for Clearing students too!  When I found out that I got into Bournemouth through Clearing, I was so happy, but I knew that I had to be quick sorting things out so that I could hopefully get everything that I wanted.

On the afternoon of results day, I received my email saying that I had a place on the course that I wanted to do and I also received an email which gave me a link to click on to take me to a page where I could choose what accommodation I wanted to live in for the year. So straight away I clicked on the link and looked at what was available. The website was excellent as it gave a brief overview of each of the different halls of residency, showed pictures of the bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchen of each of the halls. It also gave information about how far each of them was from both the Talbot campus and the Lansdowne campus which was very handy in helping me make my choice.

Initially I had an idea of which halls I wanted to live in before I had even appropriately looked at all of the available choices, but unfortunately, these halls weren’t open when I looked on the website, so I kept looking at what else was available for something similar. And something similar is what I found! The halls that I went for in the end are very similar to what I initially was hoping for, and I am so glad that I chose them because I’ve met some fantastic people. If you are thinking of applying through Clearing I would definitely recommend looking at the different accommodation options available. You can do this by looking at the accommodation pages. I also found the virtual tour guide useful so I could physically visualise the rooms (I also quite enjoy spinning around on the 360’s).

Once I had chosen were I wanted to live I was given my flat straight away, and I was able to determine which room I wanted out of what was still available. At this point, I was able to see who else was in the flat which was really good because it meant that I was able to get in contact with them, prior to moving into halls, so that we had a chance to get to know each other. This was very useful as it made it a little less awkward on the move in day when we first met each other as we already knew a bit about each other. Halls has been an amazing part of my university experience. It is an important factor  and here at BU nobody has to miss out!