Still waiting to hear from Durham

[ryansbeat]

Would anyone like to join me in the wait to hear from Durham....feeling so stressed on DDs behalf as she is convinced that she won't get an offer (having been rejected by Oxford). I think that if she doesn't get an offer there she's going to take a year out and reapply....she says she'll be more upset to get rejected by Durham than Oxford. Just wish they would make a decision either way so she can plan ahead. Anyone else waiting to hear....why do they take so long?

I went to Durham back in the late 90s. They were definitely the last of the universities I applied to to make the offer. I think it was in March.

I dont know what the system is for UCAS forms now but back when I applied we had to list in alphabetical order so the university had no idea if they were your first or last choice.

Hi everyone
Durham was the only open day I sat in on so maybe why the stats are so fresh in my mind. The English professor giving the applicants presentation said that last year slightly over 1,200 applicants applied for 120 English places. Even oxford this year was 4.6 to 1 for English so imagine how hard that must be. Each applicant will have v high qualifications and they promise that each will be reviewed by two people. Given that in most cases they say they don't start looking until after all applications are in, I'm surprised they get through them all by April frankly!
They must bank on being so popular that students will drop everything if an offer comes through, but it does layer on the stress - there must be another way...!!

Is it not the case that now you don't list universities by order of any preference and that you can say put in an application for one/two places then later submit the remaining places - before the UCAS deadline? I'm not sure of all the rules.

If Durham isn't lying that it selects on academic merit then it's bound to need to fill it's departments with a high proportion of those who applied to Oxford and Cambridge. It's common knowledge that a huge number of those applying to Durham have also applied to Oxford and Cambridge and to be honest it would not serve Durham well if it attempted to fill its departments with those who simply want to go to Durham above Oxford and Cambridge - they'd be short of numbers of applicants of the sort of quality the university aspires to. When I went to Durham the university was positively heaving with Oxbridge rejects and most people got over the fact of rejection within a week, if they hadn't done so already - this was the '80's and I certainly didn't detect that it did college or academic life any harm . All of my previous four DC who applied did so well before the early deadline and got offers (replies came in November, Jan, Feb and March). It's also striking that at school over the past six or so years Durham has been making offers in the humanities overwhelmingly to those who subsequently get Oxford offers, but rejecting those who apply late. That said, I think there have been lots of policy shifts at the university even during those six years, let alone from the '00's.

Rojogato are you suggesting that inferring in some way on your ps that your relatives attended Durham will positively influence your application? I'm sorry but I don't believe any student should be encouraged to think that putting something like that on their ps would help their chances.This isn't the United States yet thank goodness.

The English professor giving the applicants presentation said that last year slightly over 1,200 applicants applied for 120 English places.

But this is a very misleading statistic as Durham won't be the top choice for all of those 1200 applicants. Oxford might look less over-subscribed, with a ratio of around 5:1, but most applicants would put Oxford as their first choice.

And if Durham wants to reject everyone who even applied to maths or physics at Oxbridge good luck to them - their candidate pool would be very weak as a result and they wouldn't be getting the best students they could, so I struggle to believe they are doing this.

RojaGato I'm afraid your information is at the very least out of date and is incorrect. Durham is still heaving with Oxbridge 'rejects' just as it was in my day so the university must be doing phenomenally badly at weeding out Oxbridge applicants - it will have to up its game hugely if it wants to succeed . What you describe sounds very Aryan, not to say unrealistic. Durham now even has a special facility for Oxbridge hopefuls to submit an additional statement telling Durham why they want to go to Durham and what they can contribute to college life.

I really don't know what you mean when you say to us 'If you don't want to listen to [my advice] because you want a perfect world for your DCs then that is fine and your choice to make' . My DC are very, very, very far from alone in applying to Oxford/ Cambridge and getting Durham offers, so how would you explain all those offers? The DC with the early November offer was also the earliest to apply, in September, so the law dept. didn't need the brains of an archbishop to work out that Durham wasn't her first choice: a very early application and a very academic personal statement, clearly aimed at Oxford. And even though all her aunts and both her parents went to Durham she failed to deploy that trump card, so she didn't even have the advantage of nepotism:) I'm afraid what you say doesn't stack up and is probably quite concerning for those now waiting for Durham, not having got an offer from Oxford or Cambridge. They really shouldn't worry, not on the grounds of irrational prejudice at least.

Exactly uilen - the candidate pool would be very weak across every single department. Durham can't afford to weed out Oxbridge applicants - it needs them, as it has done for decades, to survive.

I'm married to an Oxbridge reject Chadsman . Good luck to your dd ryansbeat. Durham is a lovely place to be but your uni experience is what you make of it wherever you end up.

Uilen when I mentioned the 120/1200 statistic it wasn't so much about odd of applying - I was thinking more of the sheer number of applications. If your application is really going to be looked at by two professional staff and there are around 1,200 applications to read and consider, then even if they give just ten minutes to each that must take a long time, especially if they are teaching etc at the same time. No wonder it takes so long.

I guess they must have some sort of rudimentary filter to cut the numbers down in some way before they look at them closely.

Rojogato - I can see how the fact that someone's mum or dad went to Durham and they have used up valuable words in their ps to subtly point this out could make all the difference to counter the "disadvantage" of possibly having applied to Oxbridge - especially when combined with a reference from someone "personally known to the staff", or better still independent contact from the age of 15.

I've no idea what kind of work RojaGato did at Durham, but presumably equal opps training wasn't part of it. Durham couldn't possibly pursue a policy of actively preferring the children of former graduates because this would be very discriminatory against applicants whose families have only recently moved to the UK and/or who didn't go to university themselves.

We had a very late refusal from Durham with DD1 3yrs ago .

Cynically I think they know they are often 2nd choice for Oxbridge applicants, and , if you have an oxbridge offer you'd firm it early in Jan/feb..... so they don't even offer many places till the kids who actuallt want oxbridge have taken themselves off the system my accepting places.

I don't buy Roja's advice either, especially as the Durham stereotype is 'where the Oxbridge rejects go'! DH had Durham as his insurance place (Cambridge as his firm place) for a start.

My school's policy was to have all the UCAS applications done by the medicine/Oxbridge deadline, and not all of us applied to Oxbridge or for medicine. So if Durham inferred that I had also applied to Oxbridge they'd have been very wrong. Your experience in no way matches mine.

There is something to be said for choosing your college carefully if you're applying for a popular course (e.g. if you're going for NatSci think seriously about Bailey colleges, as they're further from the Science Site) but that only gets you so far.

And we digress hugely - the point is that OP and her daughter don't need to worry yet; it's not over until you have the decision letter.

I don't have any personal knowledge of Durham, but from my old job in another university I do know that most universities now are trying to use admin staff and automation as far as possible in admissions work because it's cheaper and quicker than getting academics to do it.

Each degree programme at my university had a standard admissions profile against which each application could be assessed. The school's contextual data is factored into that assessment, of course, so that the applicant who got 10 As and Bs at GCSE is looked at in comparison to the average for their school rather than the national average. For an applicant from somewhere like St Paul's that's not a good set of results but even so you'd need to check the school's reference and the personal statement to see if there were any mitigating circumstances, e.g. bereavement just before the exams. For an applicant from Bash Street High School that might be the best set of results the school has ever had and that would warrant a closer look.

My employer was trying to push for a model where all offers and rejections were made by admissions staff wherever possible, ie no academic involvement at all for all the bog standard applications to programmes like English, Maths and so on. My department refused to move to that model and for all I know there was resistance across the board, but admissions is very time consuming. I'm sure most academics would prefer not to have to spend time on it if they could have confidence that the admin staff and computer system could deliver them just as good a cohort of students as they could have picked themselves. That of course is the 64 million dollar question.

Good luck to all who are still waiting. Three years ago my son was waiting for Warwick for what seemed like years - I think it was April before he finally heard from them. Annoying because you can't nominate your firm and insurance offers until all your applications have been processed. The only way round that is to withdraw your application from the late one, which is no good if that's the one you're really hoping will be the firm or insurance place.

I've read all the comments and I'm definitely going to stay positive....something along the lines of no news is good news. My DD is working really hard to achieve the best that she can and I clearly need to learn from her...when I tentatively spoke to her about Durham yesterday she told me that she didn't want to think about it now as she's got so much work to do...that certainly put things into perspective for met!

I realise that life doesn't always go to plan and it's about picking yourself up and adapting to when things go wrong that is the real test...it's not a perfect world....and after her Oxford disappointment I can see her doing that now.

It's lovely to hear about people's great experiences at Durham and it's only natural for me to wish that my DD gets an offer (I wish I was going!!)...and I will keep wishing and hoping for that until the final decision comes through. And if it's a yes I will be delighted for DD and if it's a no then I will do my very best to help pick her up off her feet.....because she will be disappointed. That to me is what it's about, I'm not trying to create a perfect world for her, I'm just trying to support her along the way a little bit. And I'm 100% certain that all the other mums are doing just the same!

Even though you didn't work in admissions you're prepared to say on a public forum that Durham's admissions practices, at least while you worked there, 'flagrantly' flouted existing equal opps legislation? You may be getting yourself into deep water Roja....

No news is good news ryansbeat. I do hope your DD gets an offer. Durham is fab - I'd love my time over again.

Uilen when I mentioned the 120/1200 statistic it wasn't so much about odd of applying - I was thinking more of the sheer number of applications.

But these aren't huge numbers. In my own subject 2000 applications for 150/200 places is not unusual amongst the top 15 or so universities. Durham does not get particularly more applications than other places although Durham offers are more likely to be accepted than offers from universities further down the league tables. However, in my own subject I wouldn't put Durham particularly high - top 10 but probably not top 5. Imperial and Warwick would rank above Durham but make decisions much faster.

As written above, a lot of decisions are made by administrators anyhow.

I know someone with a humanities Durham offer, got it before xmas

DD is waiting to hear from Durham, so I'd like to join the thread.

She added Durham to her choices early December. She received a request for further information from them last week.