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?

While I've got real sympathy for those young people with perfect grades who don't get offers at their chosen uni, I do have to say I always enjoy the underdogs I've seen at school whose peers say no chance and then go on to get not only offers but Oxbridge firsts. It often seems to be the noisier/ sportier boys who don't fit the stereotype - one recently not only got an offer to everyone's surprise but also went on to get the top first in his year at Oxford. Fabulous :)

oneteen as far as grammars go - and I'm not going to leap on every grammar school comment to say the same thing repeatedly - is that they may appear to be bastions of middle class privilege esp to outsiders but they have to operate with woefully little money per pupil relative to independents (like all state schools) and their demographic for the most part is, actually, and increasingly, nothing like the same. As far as uni admissions go they're bracketed with independents though, in terms of bagging a place, even though the statistics often add them into the state school figures. Admissions tutors are looking at under performing schools, postcodes and higher ed take up, not merely state/ independent. It's much more finely tuned than that.

DD1's just come back from an offer holder day at Durham.
She did text me on the train saying there were lots of others going, but she seemed to be the only one without parents, but actually once in the college that didn't matter. Most did seem to go with parents, certainly from this distance! I don't know whether you'd be less likely to go with parents if you're close-for us it would have meant a second train fare and then an overnight hotel-looking at minimum another £100.

She's now on a lot of group chats from people she met there. She says it's nice to be on them, but certainly doesn't think it will make that much difference. Some on the chats won't be firming Durham, some are not even sure they'll insure it even. And then some will not get the grades. I don't think they'll really bond until they know they're going and will drop out as they make decisions etc. She certainly doesn't think it'll make much difference when/if they go.

Dd went on the coach for an overnight offer holder visit Tues/Wed. She went with a friend from another school luckily as we are in East London and it would have been costly to stay over. She loved the visit (Josephine Butler) and the accommodation so if she doesn't get the grades she will be devastated. I sort of hoped she would love it less than she does but it will make her work I guess.

Coleoptera - I would echo about not worrying about the chats - my DD didn't go to offer holders and isn't on a chat. Her friend went and all the people she met had Oxbridge offers and were from London and weren't planning to go to Durham!
I was state educated, went to Durham and honestly have no idea if my friends were state or private - it's about who you make friends with in college and on your course - I am sure your son will soon hook up with some like-minded historians, and if he wants to row, well he just needs to get on that ergo and join the rowing club - he'll love it!

They have a form for letting you hanging there until the very last minute while they make their minds on whether they could still get late applications from better candidates.

UCAS forces universities to make offers by the end of March to those who applied by 15 January, otherwise their applications would be rejected by default. So if the application was submitted before the deadline I would say that unless you get an offer by Tuesday morning at the latest, the application has been unsuccessful.

@goodbyestranger. My post was purely relating to being able to distinguish between state and private school children (in terms of lifestyle/disposable income) nothing to do with funding. One of my friends taught at a top 10 Independent school and could have schooled both her girls at highly subsidized fees at that school but both of her girls attended top super selective grammar schools - why pay fees if you don't have too.

I am not sure about demographics- maybe Kent is an exception but I know of a few grammar schools like South Wilts where a lot of the DC's who attend are from affluent families because the school is academically far better than the VERY expensive private school in the same area. Indeed the school that my nieces attended was in an area that may be considered very poor demographic but the DC that attended the school traveled in from far and wide wealthy rural villages.

There were other comments about grammars earlier on the thread oneteen and people wishing their DC had attended state grammar rather than independent, on the grounds that they believed that might make a difference to admissions. Then your comment seemed to re-inforce the perception that there's no difference in the types of DC attending those two types of school, which is a misconception when you look at the grammar population as a whole - though the work to widen the intake is still very much in progress.

South Wilts has a comprehensive intake in its sixth form as far as I know.

I had made a comment about that goodbyestranger earlier in the thread.

Can someone clarify, how are grammar schools viewed by university admissions - do they come under state or independent because it's not clear?

NotsurethisiswhatIwant I think universities actually have until May to respond and make offers

An interesting fact:
In Scotland, as far as I know, they are no state grammar schools or sixth forms. All the state schools are non-selective and 11-18. There are no university admissions specialists, just general school pastoral support staff who help with references and uni admissions.

Scabetty dd1 was the same college and was up on Tuesday/Wednesday too.

hellsbells99, yes, universities must respond to on-time applicants by May 2nd.

The relevance of March 31st is that applicants who have received all rheir responses by that date must make their decision through Track by the first deadline, May 1st.

The waters have been muddied a little, I think, by some universities telling applicants that their internal deadline for responding to applicants is March 31st.

State includes grammar : public.tableau.com/views/UniversityofOxford-AdmissionsStatistics-SchoolType/SchoolType?:embed=y&:display_count=yes&:showTabs=y&:showVizHome=no

Can someone clarify, how are grammar schools viewed by university admissions - do they come under state or independent because it's not clear?

I don't think it's a simple as state/independent. Dd1's been at state (comprehensive) all the way up and she says the schools results are too high to get contextual offers.
They're good but not outstanding results for a general comp.

However some places use postcode rather than school (I think it depends on the uni which they use, but I may be wrong), and some of her friends have got contextual offers because of being in a poor area despite being at all the same schools as her.
One friend has a contextual offer despite being at private all the way up until 6th form because she comes from a poor area by postcode.

I agree with contextual offers.
I'm just not sure that you can be fair to all whatever you do.
Dd1 did 16 GCSEs and got good results, but not all A/As. Teaching has been mixed and she had some classes of 30+ where the teacher was teaching (GCSEs) all levels from E through to A. How can you compare that to a child who did 9 GCSEs at private school, getting A* in them all with classes of 15-20 all of whom were aiming for B or above?
Is it fair to say that the private school applicant is marked down? You can't say that if they'd been to the same school they wouldn't have got 16 A*. On the other hand they might not have. You simply can't tell.

With just going on results and PS then how do you be fair and distinguish between the child who would have got 16 A* at the comprehensive and the child who lost confidence early on and the teacher didn't have time to help because they were dealing with more pressing issues in the class and got a bunch of Cs and below?

How can you actually make it a level playing field? I don't know. Any way of doing it will be unfair to someone.
I applaud Durham for trying in some ways, but it does look like (from here) they may have gone too far and actively avoided taking private school pupils. I don't think that's fair either.

Can someone clarify, how are grammar schools viewed by university admissions - do they come under state or independent because it's not clear?

Each individual university is free to apply whatever segmentation criteria it wishes to the applications pile in order to manage the process.

Witchend - why did your DD do sixteen GCSEs?

I’m not sure that’s a good use of resources either at an individual or a macro level.

That's the thing isn't it, identifying those students that would have had the potential to excel in a different environment, without the benefit of even having interviewed them.

To be fair, DS did 13 GCSE's almost by default - one of his option choices counted as two GCSE's, he did FM (not strictly a GCSE), and RE, which was compulsory if in top set at English (I still have no clue why...). That's in addition to the usual bunch. And he certainly wasn't committed to his studies....

DN, ironically at Durham, did 5 A Levels, but does have HFA. Which isn't meant as some for of negative comment, he was pretty focussed on studying, that's all.

oneteen I did say in my post that in terms of published statistics grammars are incl with the overall state numbers but I think you miss the obvious point that that is a completely separate issue from how they're viewed by admissions tutors.

MariaNovella thank you for your post about each individual university being free to apply whatever segmentation criteria it wishes to applications. Is this information available to view or is it private to each university?

We're conflating two things here Portus. Grammars in the maintained sector are state schools. There's no discussion about that, it's a fact. The issue in regards to how that plays into the giving of offers is how far they're grouped in terms of advantage with independents, to which the answer is that they're coupled together with no regard to the facts around funding or demographics, which I think is broadly fair, given the education they nevertheless manage to provide. The fact that they count as state - obviously - for the statistics is not a factor. Admissions tutors dig further than that.

PortusCale - it used to be a closely guarded secret but tbh the culture of FOI and scrutiny of the fairness of admissions processes (by among others The Sutton Trust) has made such information more easily obtainable after the event. However, universities can change their admissions orocesses from one year to the next without needing to inform anyone.

The Student Room is often a pretty good source of data when it comes to hypothesising as to how some university departments/courses are segmenting their applications pile in any particular year - applicants with eg similar geographic or diploma profiles all hear back at once...

Thanks for clarifying that goodbyestranger - so grammars in the maintained sector are state but am I correct in thinking that entrants are selected by the 11 plus exam?

Witchend raises a valuable comment in that how do you make it a fair playing field? To be honest, I don't think it can be that with so many variants.