Durham offer after all offer days

[fUNNYfACE36]

Yep dd with predictions of 4 A stars only hot her offer yesterday and all the offer days have been now.
It feels very arrogant!

We both liked Mary’s a lot - had been told previously it had boarding school vibes which I get but loved the wide open corridors by Jcr and dining hall and super outdoor space.

Oh this is so similar to DD! She's put :
Chads
Castle
Johns (although we didn't get to visit here when we went in Feb)
Mary's
Grey
The rest

Yes we visited a couple of colleges had lunch in town, then to the science site and up 'cardiac hill' to the biosciences building fir a talk and dd did some experiment with flies.Met up with older dd also a student their for some tea.

If we can find the college entry % table I’ll try and share it. A large percentage of kids want the same 4-5 colleges so worth ranking strategically. Last year lots of children provisionally offered colleges were reallocated to one not even in their top 7 with two weeks to go before term started.

My DD is at John Snow and loves it - she’s an excellent cook but she’s off to the Thai in town for dinner tonight as a treat. Don’t rule out all the self catered options.

This one ?

www.palatinate.org.uk/durham-college-popularity-rankings-revealed/

This is an interesting one but not the one with the percentages which is more useful. I will look. My daughter wanted self catered and got first choice.

Everyone wanted Collingwood aka "the hotel on the hill" when I went. I loved Cuths and I had good mates at Grey and loved the vibe there too

I went to Aidan's in the early 90s - definitely the kings of the hill in those days.

Not sure why it languishes at the bottom of the popularity stakes now - have asked in a few forums and haven't been able to get any answers

@Fruitygal is this the one you were thinking of, from 2020? It shows preferences for Chads and Castle have the lowest success rate (as they are so popular).

@GoldenRuby well done for finding - started to look and then Race Across the World came on and I had to watch as fantastic images of Canada

DD has had her offer from Durham, but for a slightly different course. A huge relief!

Well done your DD @EmmaStone is the course still appealing to DD or too different? Can she get to an offer holder to find out more?

That's brilliant @EmmaStone - congratulations . Even though the Offer Holder Days are over now, I've heard the Discover Durham days the university run for Offer Holders can be worth looking into - especially if you don't know Durham

Brilliant news @EmmaStone i hope it’s a course your dd likes.

Thanks All, it's a very similar course, but single rather than joint honours. I actually think it's better suited to her TBH, and she seems happy enough (although also assuming it means she wasn't good enough for the initial course, so beating herself up. I don't think it's necessarily that - I really do think her PS points more directly to the alternative course). She went on an open day, so I'm gently discouraging another visit - it's a very long way from home, plus she'd like to go to Edinburgh if she gets an offer there. I'd rather this close to exams she wasn't missing too much time, but we'll see what dates are proposed and if we can make it work.

That sounds great news @EmmaStone . We went to the Offer Holders day and whilst it was great to look around the colleges and spend time in the department it didn’t really tell us anything different to the open day. There’s loads of room tours on TikTok to see the various accommodation (Mary’s didn’t show rooms on offer holders day anyway).

@EmmaStone if you aren’t planning to go back please tell us the course and we may have children doing the same course. If you have questions. Would Edinburgh or Durham be top choice?

As for colleges be strategic with choices!

Picked our DD up yesterday for Easter - she’s not been home since mid Jan so says it’s nice to be home loves being in a warm spacious house with lots of comfortable sofas over the flat but misses her mini double bed!! 😂😂

Oh it's fairly niche 😂, within the archaeology faculty. I don't have any questions, I'm just delighted she's got the offer she was waiting for, and I'm expecting her to firm it (insurance will be the next hurdle - her other 2 offers are the same grade requirements - AAB, and she's waiting on Edinburgh which should be ABB, but I see they've been sending offers with higher requirements for some courses, so we'll see). Grades shouldn't be a problem...

Her first choice of college would be Chad's, which I think from the table below gives her the least chance of actually getting in 😂. We'll sit down together and work out some strategies. My Mum was at Mary's, does family connection come into decision making? DD will want to be near her faculty which I think is Bailey area (forgive me, I've never been...), but I think those colleges tend to be the most over-subscribed? I need to do more research with her really.

Ah @Fruitygal, lovely to have them home, I remember the joy of home comforts in holidays myself (and my Uni accom was pretty good!).

Thanks @KittyMcKitty, what you say echoes what I've heard elsewhere too, so I think internet research will do the job.

@EmmaStone Great news! One of the lads DS will be sharing a house with next year is studying archaeology. According to DS he's enjoying the course. They both chose SC this year.

Dd’s college ranking is anything but strategic:

Chads
Castle
Marys
Cuths
Johns
Hatfield
Trevs
and then the rest with Collingwood last. She really wants the Bailey (she views Mary’s as Bailey rather then hill) so we will just cross our fingers 🤞🏻Shes decided she will happily share for Chads and Castle.

Where is Archeology based? Dd applied for Sociology which is Old Elvert (although they do also use rooms in T&LC and elsewhere.

Archaeology's based in the Dawson Building in City Campus apparently. Google Maps tells me a 7 min walk from Mary's.

Thanks for the rankings, I suspect DD's will be v similar. Her main criteria for choosing a Uni was that it have beautiful historic buildings, so although I'd be gunning for a modern en suite with double glazing and central heating that works, that seems less important to her 😂.

@EwwSprouts glad to hear your DS' mate is enjoying Archaeology. It sounds super interesting. Who knows if it will lead to an associated career, but I just hope she enjoys her time at Uni - I'm pretty sure she will.

Dd has chosen Durham because, and I quote “it’s like being in Harry Potter” - I guess there are worse reasons for choosing a Uni (and tbf her Dept is fab).

There was all out trauma last year as kids were provisionally allocated Castle, st Marys and Hatfield etc then after results didn’t get a confirmation after 2 weeks they were told they were being reallocated and most ended up in Hild Bede with a week before term start. Check out TSR posts from last August/ September.

DD had wanted self catering as she loves cooking - salmon en croute with homemade pastry was dish of the evening for her last night before we picked her up. She’s found 2 fellow cooks plus a lovely clueless boy when it comes to cooking who they are training 😂😂.

We’re just ignoring that and hoping for the best! Did they have a problem last year as too many people met their offer or was it just Durham being Durham? As dd says someone has to get chads after all!

Overall last year they didn't have a significant bulge as far as I know as it was back to A Level exams after two years of teacher assessed grades. I think it was more of a case of if individual college gets more people who meet their offer than they can fit in they will need to reallocate. DD knows people who were reallocated to HB, Aidans and Stevo. Chad's unfortunately seem to need to do this every year - I think as they have such a high percentage of shared rooms already they can't even squeeze extras in by turning some of the more generous singles into doubles, which I've heard has happened in some other colleges previously. The other thing to be mindful of if it wasn't obvious at the open days is that some of the accommodation for some of the Bailey colleges isn't on the main bit of the Bailey at all. Cuth's self catered site is a bit further away, the other accommodation for Hatfield and Chads is very close to the main site, and Castle it varies as they have a few sites. Nowhere is very far though, and all can access the facilities at the main sites.