How our rankings work

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1. Repairs and maintenance — how quickly things actually get fixed, including damp, mould and heating.
2. Cleanliness — kitchens, bathrooms and communal areas as they really are in term time.
3. Safety and security — entry systems, lighting, how safe students feel coming home late.
4. Value for money — the rent against what you actually get.
5. WiFi and connectivity — whether it holds up for a deadline or a seminar.

Social life is optional and never affects a hall's overall score, because an empty answer would unfairly penalise quieter buildings.

• Each category score is the plain mean of every published review's 1–5 rating for that category. No weighting, no curve.
• A hall's overall score is the mean of its five category averages, so no single category can dominate.
• The recommend rate is the share of reviewers who said they'd recommend the hall to a friend.
• Rankings list halls by overall score. Where scores tie, the hall with more reviews ranks higher, because its score is more reliable.
• A hall with no published reviews is shown as "No reviews yet" — never as a low score, and never estimated.
• Reported issues (damp, heating, WiFi, slow maintenance, noise) are counted separately as tags and shown alongside the score rather than folded into it.

• Every review requires a working email. We send a one-click link, and the review only publishes once that link is clicked — so every score comes from a confirmed inbox.
• A review sent from a recognised UK university address (KCL, UCL, Imperial, LSE) also carries the ✓ Verified student badge.
• A ✓ Moderated badge means a human checked the review for abuse or personal details. We keep the student's own tone, humour and wording — we never rewrite reviews to sound corporate.
• Reviews are anonymous in public. Emails are stored for verification only and are never displayed, sold or shared with a landlord or university.
• One review per student per building. Duplicate or abusive submissions are held back or removed.

• Scores, review counts and recommend rates: published student reviews on The Common, queried live — the numbers on the site are the numbers in the database.
• Hall names, universities, boroughs and postcodes: public university accommodation listings, checked by hand.
• Walking times to campus: measured walking routes between the building and the main campus, rounded to the nearest minute.
• Photos: only student-submitted images that a moderator has approved. Where there is no approved photo, we show "No student photo yet" rather than a stock image.

• Accept payment from a landlord, provider or university to raise a score or hide a review.
• Invent, estimate or AI-generate ratings, reviews, counts or photos.
• Show a reviewer's identity, email or room number to anyone.
• Let a provider delete criticism. They can reply on the record instead.

Spotted something that looks wrong? Report it on the hall page and a moderator will look at it.