Room Ballot
Effectively there are 2 room ballots (room ballots are random systems for allocating a priority order as to who gets which room); one for ‘standard rooms’ with contracts of 9 weeks each term, and one for tenancies with 40 week contracts
Each room is in a certain price band - the price for each band is shown on the room guide (the table shows last year's prices, so it is likely to be slightly higher next year to account for inflation)
The JCR website has a room guide allowing you to get details of which rooms are available to you, and what they are like.
General Ballot
There are three separate ballots for the standard rooms - the A, B and C ballot. The A ballot chooses rooms first, followed by B and then C.
Students on a 3 year course will be on the B ballot for their second year accommodation and the A ballot for their third. Students on a four year course will be on each ballot once, the default order being B,C,A. If you wish to change the order of the ballot you are on, you must contact the JCR President when the notice about rooms is sent out.
The JCR President has first place on the room ballot. Scholars, Exhibitioners, Ball President, and the JCR Vice President and Treasurer will all be placed in the top half of the relevant room ballot.
Tenancies
There three person tenancies, two person tenancies and single occupancy tenancies.
There is a priority order to allocating tenancies that ensures that those who need them most get them, the order is as follows:
- 4th year scientists.
- Overseas students.
- Finalists.
- Blues athletes.
Within these priority groups the ordering is completely random.
After all of these categories of people are allocated places, the rest of the people are added to the ballot in random order.
The ‘tenancy ballot’ is actually 3 ballots, a single-room ballot, a two-person room ballot and a three-person room ballot. You may enter one of these ballots.
In the two and three person room ballot the group of 2 or 3 people will be entered as one entity on the ballot, the highest ‘priority rating’ of any one person in that entity will count as the rating for that entity as a whole.
If there are more people on the tenancy ballot than there are tenancy rooms then people on the bottom of the ballot are moved onto the normal ballot.
Other Information
If you wish to live out, you should let the JCR President know.
If you have any special requirements for your room (i.e. regarding a disability etc.) please email Sabina White. Any problems contact the Domestic Rep.
If you have any questions:
About how the ballot is run, contact the Domestic Rep.
About any of the rooms, e.g. pricings etc. then email Sabina White.