Anyone still waiting to hear from Durham?

[PortusCale]

Just wondered if anyone else is waiting to hear from Durham for an offer for 2019 entry?

See that offer holder day bookings are now open and I understand college allocation has begun.

DS still waiting here, DS application went through in November.....does this mean a rejection will likely be on its way?

Cbear99, I'm so sorry to hear that news. It seems so unfair.

Dd didn't get past the interview stage at Oxford. She was gutted naturally. Folk on here were very kind. I'm going to say similar to Needmoresleep, it takes a bit of time but Dd is over it now, none the worse for it and with experience now of disappointment to draw on. In hindsight, I'm glad the rejection came post interview, rather than not making the grades - so much longer to have that hope and plan the future. I too am not sure what the criteria would be, especially without an interview, for acceptance or rejection. I'm assuming a number of factors.

It seems to me that there will be a huge number of exceptional students at a variety of excellent institutions, which is to the loss of Durham etc.

The process seems odd this year. Really odd. Going school by school?

We've cross posted!

Going school by school might be a rational way of assessing applicants because school does give additional context, above and beyond the information included on a UCAS form. Some university departments will be well acquainted with particular schools because they recruit students from them every year. Public exam results only say so much - some schools add academic value to students in ways that are not captured by highly formulaic public examinations.

coleoptera. There's plenty of quiet, less socially confident girls out there too, promise. Maybe your DT's particular environment in school isn't quite a true reflection of the norm?

Justanothermile that description certainly fits my DD. She'll be avoiding the party halls like the plague and looking for somewhere quieter.

It seems to me that many of the quieter, more studious and serious minded students are ill served by the culture at some universities of seemingly endless party style socializing.

Maria there's the obvious point that the target market for unis is not necessarily those to whom value has already been added but those who haven't had that advantage yet. If an independent school has had every single pupil rejected incl their highest achievers it doesn't smack of a uni seeking the profile of applicant you describe. If the tutors really are now excluded from the selection process, then that seems to me to be a mistake - or at least a shame - but I can understand the pressure, with 28k applications.

Cbear99, it's working for DS. He and his flat mates stay in and grab a pizza etc, rather than go clubbing and it suits them. He's hardly had a drink since Christmas, but isn't what I would call tee total.

Also Maria - cross post - plenty of students are serious and studious as well as party animals. It is possible to combine the two. Work hard, play hard etc. To be recommended I'd have thought.

Unfortunately some courses are really oversubscribed and all the candidates are good. Also universities are under a lot of pressure to widen participation so if you are applying from independent school even with perfect GCSEs and predicted a you can find yourself rejected because they need to take at least a certain percentage from different backgrounds. The good news is history isn't oversubscribed in general across the country - engineering can be hard to get a place even at middle ranking universities. As for vets and medics, straight a* mean nothing

“Adding academic value in ways not captured by highly formulaic public exams” might include schools with few resources where teachers have encouraged a high degree of independent learning in their student body.

I was talking to a friend who works in the first year of HE quite recently. She spoke quite casually about some well known schools that, despite very good public examination results, regularly fail to equip their students with the study skills and deep groundwork necessary for the course she teaches on.

There is nothing wrong with the “work hard, play hard” segment. But the “work hard, quiet conversation socializing” segment can feel a bit marginalized and I think that isn’t quite right.

I suspect what we're seeing at Durham and also probably at Bristol where top candidates are still 'on hold', is fall-out from the Cambridge admissions debacle this year - all three of our 'pooled but not fished' applicants will be firming their Durham offers, where "normally" Durham would have been their insurance. Hence the rejection of perfect DD's like yours CBear - so sorry. The universities are under such govt pressure to widen access (would be useful to know % requirements for different school types and ratio to no. applicants from school type) that they are now compelled to admit candidates with much lower attainment. I am concerned about the potential impact this will have on the courses - my DD's friend said the first year course in her subject at Durham was now a repeat of A Level and sounded boring. This is sadly inevitable if candidates with low levels of attainment are admitted. What are the high flyers supposed to do while the others catch up? Play hockey?!! Particularly if they've neen forced to take a year out and finally get in desperate to learn, grow intellectually and study? Surely that should be what university is for, not just partying? xx

DS has offers from Durham, Exeter and Warwick, as well as St Andrew's and Lancaster. We've been to 4 of the 5 offer holder days, with St Andrew's next week. It's going to be a difficult decision, and he's very lucky to have 6 offers, but DS was very impressed with Exeter. I suspect it might be the one he firms, even though it might not be the most prestigious in league table terms.

That should have read 5 offers...

Many university courses now recruit from a wide variety of schools with hugely different high school courses and leaving diplomas. First year for most students is almost inevitably going to include stuff already covered as well as catch up materials.

Cbear99 - is your daughter at an academically selective school? I only ask because a friend's son was rejected by Durham on Wednesday as were a large number of other boys at his school many of whom had a very similar academic profile to your daughter. The school is a very selective academic independent school.

This would totally put me off Durham I'm afraid. Who needs that sort of knock-back this late in the run up to A levels. Your daughter needs to realise that Durham is the loser here, not her.

I've just asked DS about this, as he is home for Easter. He's studying Maths for reference and they study 10 topics over the course of the year. At the start of each topic, there's some revisiting for the A level course content, to cement knowledge and to cover students such as international ones etc. I'd had always assumed that would be the case being honest. He's found it useful, before they move onto the harder content during the topic.

I guess it's hard for those students lucky enough to have had a rigorous and full secondary education, but I'm guessing it's also not the fault of those students who've had contextual offers, for whom any gaps in their knowledge may be outside of their control.

MariaNovella I can assure you that the reason DDs school does so well is that from GCSE onwards they are actively encouraged to be self driven, self motivated individual thinkers who have a natural curiosity, are incredibly well organised, well read and determined to achieve highly. They have never been 'spoon fed' and the school is nowhere near as selective as the nearest grammars (not in our catchment unfortunately).
So I would be very surprised if they struggled at university.

A second silver lining was that it happened when DS was at home, so relatively easy to him support as a family. So much easier than if the first big disappointment happens away from home. Coping with failure is an important life skill as suggested here:

www.princeton.edu/~joha/Johannes_Haushofer_CV_of_Failures.pdf

Maria I think you are right about some schools being known. Several of DCs friends were on 4A* offers, some wih STEP as well, so they still had a few months of uncertainty. The school actively encouraged pupils to prioritise course over institution and not to get too focused on specific Universities. They also firmly discouraged any thoughts of "unfairness", presumably because it is a bit rich to claim disadvantage when you have been so advantaged.

From observation we noted a few patterns:

• Oxbridge interviewed, and seemed to go for the more assured. Perhaps it was because interviewees need to be able to make a quick impression, or perhaps simply that they were expecting public school confidence so did not know what to make of the shy nerdy types. (I had a bit of a proud mother moment at DS' graduation when his tutor told me that she had only recently seen his file and was surprised to learn that he was "one of those", meaning public school boy. Perhaps the public school stereotype comes from a smallish number who fit that stereotype.)
• International students had a different pattern of acceptance. I assume there are informal quotas/targets.
• The detail of University scoring would seem to make a difference. Some courses would be really difficult for a few years (and friends would hear that other similar schools were facing the same problems) then suddenly become accessible again. One course at one University was so notorious that students were discouraged from applying. Though again that course seems to have shifted its criteria in the last couple of years.

In the end it does not seem to matter. DC's friends are largely thriving where ever they went, indeed DD has a theory that those that avoided Oxbridge and its sheltered environment: social, housing as well as academic, have had more personal development. One thing to remember is that London law and banking recruiters are often parents. If their children, or their children's friends are considering Exeter and Warwick, they will too, as they know that these Universities are recruiting some very capable students. (Trying to edit that, before I am jumped on, to be crystal clear that I am not suggesting that they recruit their children's friends, but that the Universities on city recruiters radar, especially those who were not educated in the UK themselves, are often those which are accepting bright students like Cbear99s.)

And one for the SJW's on this board:

unherd.com/2019/03/too-posh-to-fail/

"The universities are under such govt pressure to widen access (would be useful to know % requirements for different school types and ratio to no. applicants from school type)"

afaik there are no formal govt requirements at all, are there? But I agree universities will be wanting to widen participation.

Commiserations to those who have just had rejections or are still waiting to hear. Have any schools contacted Durham to ask why the delay, I wonder? I suppose they might be wary of being thought of as trying to influence the process. Is it definitely a longer delay than usual - I know Durham has been one of the later ones in the past?

My DH has been waiting 29 years to hear back from Durham, for History. They just never responded. So he would say it's not a new thing!

Goldenruby. Thank you that made me laugh!
Reading some of the other posts I'm not sure how I feel about my DD possibly having to pay £9250 to spend a year repeating stuff essentially to allow other students to catch up...
The more I hear and research the more I hope she decides on Exeter.

I might be wrong but isn't that the point of foundation years in degree courses ?

CBear99 - no, Foundation Years are a different beast. And, tbh, if you are one of the students who feels that First Year is insufficiently challenging because you covered that ground at school, you also risk being one of the students whose general education is a bit narrower. If, for example, you do four humanities A-levels before doing an English degree, you might be very well prepared for First Year. But what if your knowledge of science, maths, economics?