Which Uni?????

I went to York and lots of my friends were historians and really enjoyed their courses. The collegiate system at York is different (assuming it hasn't changed) in that you just get assigned a college rather than choosing one. I think you may have a little influence in that you can choose what standard of room you want in halls. But each college has a good mix of students and a college identity develops very quickly once you're there.

Moatside is better than it was though! My old room doesn't exist :( as with the bigger kitchens it got knocked together with the old dark room. Mind you I last saw the inside of Moatside as the paint form the refurb was drying so it probably is rank again by now!

Posh rooms, ensuits and double beds and stuff deprive students of important life lessons such as how to smuggle a boyfriend in and how to shag sleep comfortably with said bf in a slightly smaller than standard single bed.

Londonmother I work at Lancaster Uni and did a history degree back in the day (93-6) so I'm glad you mentioned us. Lots to offer as you say and... 2.5hrs to Euston, 1 hr to Manchester and 40mins to Windermere :-)

I have it on good authority that History offer would be A*AA.

And that Moatside is indeed rank.

I graduated in '08 and it was very much full of Oxbridge rejects.

I was at Durham in the early nineties. Most of the students I knew there had applied to Oxbridge. The interviews at Durham were timed so that they would not clash with the Oxbridge ones, so I'd be very surprised if Durham were now discriminating against Oxbridge applicants.

i went to Durham over 20 years ago and it was full of Oxbridge rejects ,I married one !In fact I was distinctly unusual in not having applied to Oxbridge.Judging by ds's contemporaries this year the same is true now,definitely a popular second choice to Oxbridge as is Bristol .Two of his close friends who put it second have offers ,the only thing is their offer is often as high if not higher than Oxbridge so no use as an insurance

DD1 is hopefully off to Liverpool in the Autumn to study Ancient History. She looked at Leicester as well for the same course. Both made her offers of ABB, although the History course wanted AAB IIRC.

Back in my day (many years ago), if you applied to Oxford or Cambridge and Durham, you would not get an offer from Durham (or at least I dont know anyone who did) - I think Durham did not like to be thought of as the place for "Oxbridge rejects". Bristol was similar, although less extreme. May have changed now, but worth checking if Durham is genuinely her first choice.

Yes!

Ah, so when cream tea talks of recruited she means students who took up their place, rather than offered
So the actual grades achieved were higher than needed for the offer that was made, yes?

2013 entry will have no limits on the number Of ABB places so this is likely to be the offer if that's what they say it is.

Cream tea is talking about the grades the students came with being Aab against the offer of abb. so they mostly did better than their offer.

Sorry to hijack

Creamteas - your post has confused me!
If the standard offer was ABB, but you make 80% of your offers AAB, then surely your standard offer was AAB, ie, thats what most of your offers were?

I need to try & understand this, as my DS wil be applying in the Autumn, and I would like to believe that if a Uni "advertises" ABB as their standard offer for a course, then most students getting an offer, would get an ABB offer.

Help!

The reason lots of offers have jumped this year is because of the core/margin policy introduced by Government.

Each uni had a quota of places (and fines for over recruitment). In 2012/13 students with AAB or above are outside of the quota. But to ensure that the overall numbers didn't increase much, these places were deducted from the quota.

So for example, assuming your standard offer was ABB for 100 places. Previously you recruited 80 @ AAB and 20 at ABB.

This means in 2012/13 you can only recruit 20 students at less than AAB so your standard offer needs to rise to account for this.

The grade boundary is changing again next year, so expect required entry grades to change again. My uni pushed most courses up above AAB this year as we lost most of our quota, but are already discussing bringing some back down to ABB in line with next years split.

I was a collingwood student. Ensure for final year. Great bar, great sport focus and quite a mix of people as large. If you're going for a hill college collingwood is generally considered the top one.

This is a very useful thread on The Student Room showing the standard offers for History (V100 is the UCAS code) this year.

I think there was a big jump in the standard offer this year at a lot of places. My son's insurance choice is Lancaster because it was the only AAB offer he got (everything else was AAA - thanks be he doesn't have an A* offer, it is making this year that little bit less stressful). We visited on a UCAS day and liked it a lot. Lancaster has a great deal going for it - it's highly rated for teaching and research across all subjects, it has a version of the collegiate system, Lancaster is a lovely town to escape to from the campus and there's fabulous countryside all around. It is a long way from the south, though.

You need to line up all the places you like and consider what their offers will be. You need one at least with a lot offer than the others - don't go for all A and A. Give yourself an option not to have an A just in case.

Sorry to blunt to people working at Kent, but if your DD is Cam and Durham standard, why would you be considering a non RG uni? ( and remember their RAE score is for a much smaller dept than the others)

And when my DCs have been deciding on where to apply, they've considered distance, campus and non campus, course content (by far the most important factor for them)? And then they threw all of that out of the window and went with the important feel factor!

Birmingham offers Ancient History, or Ancient and Medieval neither of which involve Modern! Even the plain History degree doesn't seem to force you to do lots of modern History.

I know, all the upmarket stuff is confusing, Dh was Chads, I was Castle, between us we had a couple of the scuzziest rooms in the uni (Number 1 and Moatside). Students are getting way too posh!

Chads with Ensuite and double beds ,surely not.They had horrible stained enamel baths in my day,I remember vividly washing glasses in one at Candlemass when I worked on the liqueur coffee bar

I applied to Castle and got in . Colleges on the hill often have better rooms and are not quite so full of pashminas but the Bailey colleges are being revamped. The castle is all ensuite now and Chads is being redone to be ensuite and have double beds .

It is also worth remembering with Durham that the college system is not like Oxford. At Durham, your academic application is to a department. If the department accepts you, you will get into a college. It may not be your first choice of college, but you will be given a place somewhere.

So which college you choose doesn't make any difference to your chances of getting a place at the university. The college you choose does make a big difference to which college you end up at. If you apply to University college, you are unlikely to get a place there and will probably end up at a hill college. If you apply to a college on the Bailey other than University college, you are much more likely to end up living in a college on the Bailey. The Bailey is the old, central part of Durham around the Cathedral.

boomting, can you tell that my DC are not yet at university age :o
And yes, fellow Wombats fan but the name also seemed fitting as I'm pg with DC3 and DC1 was born in 1996!