I think it varies a lot by course and popularity. My DS knows someone at his school who applied for anthropology I think who applied late for his school (Nov) and had a Durham offer within 3 days, with pred grades of a mix of As and Bs. Not contextual,as far as we know. Meanwhile lots of others with all Astar predictions who applied in Sept/Oct (including those who had Oxbridge interviews and some who had offers) haven’t heard anything for their popular English/History type courses.
I think that often we don’t know who might have contextual flags or mitigating circumstances. UCAS has a real push on references flagging this stuff now and whilst we think we know all about the other kids we know, there can sometimes be stuff we don’t know about.
Last year, it did feel like they were working down some kind of ranking system. Those who had the early offers (some before the equal consideration deadline) were those with all A star predictions and all 9s at GCSE. Who knows about their PS, but you’d assume they were good as some were also Oxbridge applicants. Others did later get offers - probably in March - who had maybe 1 or 2 AStar predictions and the odd 8 in their GCSEs. But on other websites there were threads of people who had grades in hand that were all A stars and 9s at GCSE being rejected in April, so you just don’t know what’s going on. Are they ranking the applications and working through like that or are they randomly picking out, regardless of when they applied or what their grades are or what those if the others are and deciding if they are good applicants and making an offer? This last method means stellar applicants drawn out later might find the places have all gone and weaker candidates who were looked at earlier got the offer. But then, is the case that they want to fill the course with people with the very highest grades, or are they actually looking for a mix and to take some who meet the standard offer and no more, especially if they allow them to meet certain diversity measures - maybe not just contextual criteria, but perhaps to boost their standing on other metrics which might be used? It’s not transparent and maybe the goals themselves change through the application cycle as they get more if a feel for the number if applicants and strength if them and also start to see a picture emerge of how many that year are firming or returning them down.
Regardless, it’s bloody annoying if you applied in Oct, were a top notch applicant and have to wait a further 2 or 3 months after all your other offers (or rejections) have come in and Durham’s your top choice. You probably forgive them if you finally get an offer, but if you don’t, it’s incredibly annoying, especially if you’ve missed best accommodation at some of the other places. That said, Nottingham and York are in the wrong to do first-come, first-served accommodation. That isn’t Durham’s fault.
I do hope that they have enough staff so that now the equal consideration deadline is upon us, they can rattle through them. Hopefully they’ve provisionally done a lot and are just waiting to confirm the final applicant picture before wheeling out what they have provisionally done. But maybe they are sat on piles of applications and have 4 people working through them slowly. Who knows really.