Every year King’s Residences houses over 5,000 students across 11 of their residences. Whilst that doesn’t seem like a lot of spaces, King’s has now made accommodation guaranteed for first years, even if you already live in London! Make sure you submit your application before the 24th of May, so you don’t miss your chance to apply. Applications made past the deadline will still be accepted but will not qualify for the accommodation guarantee.
The process of applying to accommodation is really simple, just put in the accommodation you want to live in and submit! Do your own research before deciding which accommodation is best for you.
Here are our top things that you might want to search for:
- Price Point: How much do you want to spend per week?
- Travelling: How far and how long are you willing to travel to get into campus?
- Ensuite: How do you feel about sharing a bathroom with other people?
Make a list of the things you’re looking for, and make sure to rank their importance! If you are the type of person who enjoys walking everywhere, you may be able to budget more into your weekly accommodation cost, and save on travelling. If you’re interested in living less central and maybe a less hectic environment, you may want to look into accommodations which are further out. Take a look through the King’s accommodation website and explore all the different residences. Try to find information on student forums and see how past students have found their experiences.
Liv is now going to talk you through how she decided upon first-year accommodation:
When deciding where I would live during first year I considered two options, King’s halls or Intercollegiate Halls. There are pros and cons to both which I will briefly explain in case you haven’t heard of the latter option.
Kings halls:
- Pros: distance, most are close to a King’s campus. People, you’re surrounded by King’s students which makes it easier to join societies with flatmates, commute together, etc.
- Cons: price, most rooms are ensuite and therefore quite expensive. No food included.
Intercollegiate:
- Pros: price, these halls tend to be cheaper given they are normally non-ensuite. They include food, so one less thing to worry about! They accommodate students from all Universities of London so you get to meet a wide range of people.
- Cons: location, they are not necessarily located close to campus.
I finally decided to go for King’s halls, as I figured it would be easier to get to uni, and I chose cost as my preference when applying, to ensure an affordable room. Luckily, I got Wolfson House. This turned out to be the perfect combination of both distance and price! The biggest perk of all is its location, right next to guys hospital and basically ON CAMPUS. It took me literally 3 minutes to walk to lectures every morning (although that didn’t stop me from always being late…)! The building has 15 floors, each floor divided into two flats, one for post-grad students, and the other of us undergrads. Everyone in my flat was doing a different degree so we all had different timetables, which works nicely. The building is located right behind the shard so if you were lucky and got a room in the top flats (I was in flat 14!) then you also got an amazing view! I met so many different people, studying different degrees, from all over the world, and the atmosphere was great.
- Watch this short video about what moving into accommodation will be like!
- Make sure you check out the frequently asked accommodation questions for more information!
- We also wrote a blog about accommodation last year, which you may find helpful:
As ever feel free to ask us any questions you have on the Facebook offer holder group
Until next time!
Val, Liv and Pauline
Finding student accomodation can be tricky. Where do you need to be in the city? Rents get cheaper as you get further away from the centre, but then your transport costs go up. So you would need to factor in these extra costs on top of rent. London is a fairly accessible city, easy to get around by public transport. Maybe not as bicycle or pedestrian friendly as some European cities, but the tube, buses are pretty ok. Budget of course is probably always the deciding factor, and this is difficult in an expensive city like London. Flat sharing is always an option for students and fairly common across the city. I personally would check out coliving london some companies have shared flats, others have studios, 1 bedroom flats. They usually have properties in a variety of locations, so rents can vary and in some areas be quite reasonable. Plus they tend to all be fully furnished, no need to stress about buying and finding furniture. And rents include bills and wifi, so also you don’t have to mess about with setting those up and paying them each month, Just pay the rent! I would check out, https://www.vondereurope.com/location/London