Durham - deeply disappointed child - any admissions insight

[albertandlilylight]

First choice university by a mile and really really wants to go there and college system would suit very well. 43 (IB) in predicted grades, am told by school very good school reference and personal statement. However, got an offer for a course did not apply for and for which has no interest. Don't understand at all. Worked so hard all the way through school, told hard work rewards and then this. Anyone got any insight to how Durham are offering and is there anything that can be done from here?

https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/16/almost-all-uks-top-firms-have-at-least-one-ethnic-minority-board-member

The problem continues through to Board level with insufficient diversity although some firms are at least acknowledging their shortcomings.

Another good point @Piggywaspushed

The reason why the most underachieving demographic group in the UK is white working class boys it is because there are, simply, a much higher number of white working class boys than BAME.

It is nothing to do with numbers - and I actually specified it even more: white working class boys from seaside towns. As a group these are the most underachieving demographic in the UK. A boy in this group less like to achieve in school, obtain employment and succeed in employment than even the worse performing constituent parts of BAME (who are not an homogenous group). Yes it may be to do with failures of successive governments but it doesn’t stop them being the worst performing demographic in the U.K. However, what their sex and skin colour might do is hide that fact.

I have taught many, many, many working class, white boys for 28 years. The reasons for their struggles are complex.

I'm from a working-class background. My own brothers have done well in life, but neither attended university. I was the first in my family to attend university. Both these situations were the direct result of a positive home environment. Sadly, many of my pupils don't have this in any shape or form.

Have white working class boys from seaside towns dropped below Gypsy / Roma / Travellers as the lowest performing group in schools?

Or is the picture further complicated by the fact that GRT children are - for cultural reasons - increasingly absent from the school population at older exam-taking ages?

No, they haven't...

Thanks. I would gave been surprised if they gad, but the confident statement “white working class boys from seaside towns. As a group these are the most underachieving demographic in the UK. “
made me wonder whether either:
— GRT children had improved significantly

or— The data was skewed by measuring ‘performance of those from that demographic in schools’ rather than ‘performance of those from that demographic in total’.

I’m aware this is an old thread, but coming back to the OP’s disappointment, and what will no-doubt happen to others again this year, I feel I might have some kind of possible explanation. It was mentioned on another thread and when I saw the explanation of one reason why those with the highest academic profiles and excellent PS still get rejected whilst other lower achieving (and not contextual offer) students do get offers.

Firstly, I really don’t agree that the OP’s DD wasn’t what Durham were looking for or that she was judged less strong an applicant than others. There are simply too many very strong applicants and to a degree, who gets an offer is luck. No-one wants to say that at any Uni and applicants and their families don’t want to hear it, but it’s not entirely based on ranking and meritocracy amongst non-contextual applicants.

Offers have to be made strategically. Very popular universities need to balance offering to the very strongest applicants against being sure to fill their places but not over-fill. Given candidates apply to 5 choices, many who are offered won’t accept Durham, or indeed other top courses either. In fact, those really top applicants with all 9s, all A* at A Level and excellent PS might well be the ones who don’t firm their offer. Instead they might firm Oxbridge or one if the London unis or other equivalent highly sought after places. So Durham don’t want to give all of their offers to this perhaps risky group. They also have lots of applicants from those predicted 2 A stars or 1 A star. - people who meet the standard offer or slightly over, but not much. Those candidates might not have applied to Oxbridge and might not have applied to so many or any if the other very popular places, so are actually more likely to firm their Durham offer. They might or might not get their grades in the end, but that’s the case with all applicants.

So, some of the offers have to go to slightly weaker applicants, because they give better statistics for firming and certainty about numbers. This is why some of the very top people don’t get offers whilst some of the weaker applicants do. It understandably confuses and flummoxes applicants and their parents and universities can’t really explain or state it. Some try to be transparent. Exeter speaks if a ranking system where tier one with 3 x A star are offered to first and they work down. They can do this because they will face larger numbers who say no, a smaller proportion of applicants with all A Star grades and know they will fill some places from people who achieve below their offer level anyway.

Durham cover themselves a bit by saying the PS is really important. I’m sure it does play a role, but it’s also a conveniently non-measurable, so no-one outside can rank different PS against each other and when Durham gives the reason for a late rejection as ‘weaker PS than other applicants’ there is no way of quantifying this. Other applicants who have received offers will be out there with both lower grades and weaker PS. They aren’t claiming they rank candidates and take them in order.

In my thinking, they probably have some kind of quotas for each course for the very top students and then a number of places they want to give to those who are very good but not the top, but more likely to firm and turn up. They start looking at applications and for the very popular courses give some offers to the very top students and some to the not quite so good ones and then have lots of all types still to be processed. There probably is a lament of luck in the order you are looked at. As the process moves on, students start to firm, insure and reject. At that point, they have more info about what the cite is looking like and how many firms and rejections they have in the top of top applicants and how many in the very strong but not quite top applicants. And then, in this dynamic market, they can decide which groups can have more offers and how many. At some point the places they can give,nor time deadline puts an end to it all. That’s why there are lots of last minute rejections. It isn’t that those candidates weren’t as of as those who got offers or their PS were worse than everyone else who did get an offer….there simply weren’t enough spaces and for hat ever reason, their application wasn’t one if the early ones to be assessed and an offer given.

People want a transparent and fair system and certainly for non-contextual candidates hope for some kind of meritocracy or ranking. This makes sense to people. Those rejected can understand their rejection if everyone who got an offer was stronger than them. But this isn’t the case. A complex system of data handling and processing of likely responses to offers (firm, insure, reject) as well as likelihoods if achieving offers etc has to be at play to get the numbers right.

This is why other universities should consider interviews like Oxbridge or extensive further testing. With grade inflation over the last decade there is certain deflation in grade 'currency' that universities find hard to process when faced with many excellent applicants. I wonder if Durham is one of those universities that effectively is Oxbridge overspill so you child would have faced competition for people narrowly missing out on Oxbridge offers with similar grade profiles? Given the huge allocation rate to Oxbridge and the risk of not getting a place I suspect as a country we look to set up alternative elite universities and/or courses and it looks like your child chose one.

I suspect Durham is under as much pressure to widen participation as Oxbridge given the proportion of privately schooled applicants and it would be interesting to know if your child was privately educated.

I think it would be fair if Durham however made the ing new nature of competition clear as Oxbridge do to warn applicants there are no guaranteed places no matter what the grade.

Can I also ask if your child did consider Oxbridge given a grade profile that would have put him with the top 0.5% in the country (if in the UK)?

I can really see how it is depressing not getting an offer given your sons grades and there really must be a feeling of "what more could I have done'.....

@mids2019 Durham used to follow the same approach as Oxbridge: candidates applied for a subject and a college, and, if you met some prerequisites, you were interviewed by both the college and the department.

You also used to spend the night before your interviews at the college, which was a great way to really experience college life (and ensure you had a hangover for your interviews).

I'm not sure when this changed, but I'm assuming there was some correlation with an increase in international applicants.

I don't think you can do this - the History Dept would have to accept the student and they have not - this year - could always withdraw and try again. However, at Durham it is possible to take two modules a year in another Department so you could do an Archaeology degree and do two modules offered in the History Department.

I am interested as to why you think Archaeology is more specific than History. Archaeology is a lot broader than History across both time and the skills students obtain. It ranges from deep prehistory through to quite recent times and students can specialise in a period of history they are interested in. Essentially, it is the study of everything people left behind - not just texts.

Much more interesting to my mind but then I am an archaeologist! And the Archaeology Dept at Durham is one of the top ten in the world.

Oops just realised it's an old thread from last year!