Rory O’Donovan
Towards the end of the summer of 2008, I received a bulky package from Trinity College Dublin welcoming me to Ireland’s finest university. The ‘welcome’ was perhaps the only reassuring part of the package, the bulk of it was made up of seemingly endless lists of things I needed to do before the beginning of the college year. Coming from England, applying for a place in Halls went straight to the top of my priority list. Perhaps naively, I wasn’t particularly worried about the chances of my application being rejected. Firstly, the vast majority of universities in England guarantee some sort of accommodation for first year students and, secondly, I lived outside of Ireland, surely I would be given a place? Just a few short weeks before term began, I was informed that my application had been rejected. Actually, I wasn’t even informed. A list was published with the student numbers of those whose applications had been accepted; mine wasn’t on it. Looking back, it would be easy to say I took this on the chin, dusted myself off and got busy finding somewhere to sleep at night. But I didn’t. I was leaving home for a new city, to attend a prestigious university, and I had nowhere to live. I was shitting myself.
Thankfully I got in touch with friends in Dublin and eventually managed to find myself somewhere to live with relatively little stress. But I know countless people who weren’t so lucky. I know students from abroad who were also rejected from Halls and who didn’t know a soul in Ireland, let alone Dublin. Naturally, they sought advice from the accommodation office of the university they were coming to attend. Disappointingly, their desperate pleas fell on relatively deaf ears. Most were advised to travel to Dublin, to (maybe) get a room on campus for a few days and to go about conquering the mission of finding a home alone. One student remembers this time with little fondness: ‘Having been rejected from Halls I called and was told to come to Dublin and find somewhere to live. I was informed that a notice board had been established – how very good of them – with adverts for houses and apartments for students. When I asked why this ‘notice board’ wasn’t online so that international students could at least have the security of knowing they had a few viewings arranged, I was told that it ‘just wasn’t possible’. Another time I rang I was assured by the lady who answered that I was ‘sure to meet other students in the accommodation office in the same situation and could look for somewhere to live with them’. Now I was as open minded as the next fresher, but, call me old-fashioned, I wasn’t too sure that desperation was the best terms on which to move in with a person.
Stories have also emerged of Trinity students, having just received news of their acceptance into the college, calling to enquire about accommodation, to be told that all accommodation had already been allocated. This means that there are international students who are accepted to the college and not even given the chance of living in college-provided and organised accommodation. Imagine if you arrived, as a fresher, to a college in America to be told to go and find yourself a place to live? In a strange city? You’d be appalled, you’d consider going home.
Fresher's Mecca, Trinity Hall can seem a distant prospect for many rejected first years
International students have also told me of their dissatisfaction with the fact that just a few days after exams begin, the lease on the ‘college year’ of accommodation ends and any students who wish to extend their stay will be forced to pay nearly €20 per day for the privilege. Two international students in Goldsmith Hall told me that they are ‘considering moving into a hostel for the exam period’. In order, one might speculate, to encourage the evacuation of a number of rooms in time for the highly profitable summer letting period, Trinity College are forcing visiting students to resort to staying in hostels during the exam period.
Furthermore, as a previous article in the University Times outlined, rents charged by the college for on-campus accommodation exceed Dublin city norms by 25%. Not only does campus accommodation operate on an illogical timetable and at far below an appropriate capacity, but it charges excessive rents and even more excessive charges during extension periods. Worryingly, capacity, calendar and charges are not the most concerning aspects of the Trinity accommodation system. In fact, these could all be forgiven if the system didn’t lack a transparent and, at the very least, reasonably unambiguous explanation of the criteria for room allocation.
Moreover, even this pales in comparison with the quite startling policy of charging €15 just for applying.
The website for the registrar of chambers, the mystical figure who supposedly has the final say on whether or not your application will be accepted, cites only one apparent criteria for the allocation of rooms, that of a candidate illustrating ‘evidence of significant contribution to college life’. Whilst I am not debating the appropriateness of this criterion, it is unquestionably ambiguous, particularly considering applicants gamble €15 in the hope that whoever assesses their application will deem their ‘contribution to college life’ of sufficient value.
Rooms are allocated, according to the website, firstly to scholars and then to the various societies and sports clubs who have entitlements to a room. Also, Students’ Union sabbatical officers are appropriately awarded campus accommodation for their tenure. Or at least they are supposed to be. One of last years sabbatical officers who, I am assured, is not the first, had their application rejected by the registrar of chambers. The individual in question, having pleaded their case, was eventually given a room. There are a relatively small number of individuals entitled to on-campus accommodation, but it seems even they cannot be assured that Trinity accommodation will grant them a bed.
Even the rejections could be begrudgingly accepted if some sort of explanation was provided to disappointed applicants. Is it too much to ask for that, having put time and effort into an application and, significantly, paid €15 just to be considered, your rejection came with some sort of qualification? Surely, in the interests of fairness, or even courtesy, college should give some indication of why an application was unsuccessful, if only so that others can gain some insight into what the criteria for allocation actually are.
Maybe I am just bitter. Perhaps I still can’t forgive Trinity accommodation for that first rejection. It is entirely possible that I am searching for the negatives and ignoring the positives. As a student scorned, it is my prerogative to have grumbling preconceptions. But the more I talked to people before writing this article, the more I realised that I was in no way in the minority. Even those who had never had anything to do with the accommodation office knew of someone close who had been inconvenienced by it. I appreciate that Trinity accommodation must work within a budget. I can understand that the application process must generate administrative nightmares. But as students, it is our right to demand explanations for college policies; it is our right to insist on improvements. Why doesn’t Trinity provide enough accommodation, particularly to first year students? Why is the calendar not designed appropriately to include the exam period? Why are college rents so extortionate? Why are applicants charged €15 just to apply? Where does this money go? And, finally, why isn’t the entire system, especially with regards to criteria for acceptance and explanations for rejections, unambiguous, transparent and responsive? If the incoming Students’ Union officers are looking for an issue to tackle, a problem at the heart of college life, affecting a large proportion of the student body, then this is it.
