University of Bath, Durham, Exeter

[Mommypa]

Anyone received any offers from these Universities for 2025? Heard some applicants are receiving already

Received an offer for Economics from Durham yesterday.

Well done to your DC @Toffeesgirl. Do you think they will firm Durham or holding out for any other offers? Would you mind sharing their GCSE profile and predicted grades? DD is very keen for economics at Durham for 2026.

Thank you. She's decided she doesn't want to go there and isn't even going to attend the offer holder day.

I've posted a full explanation in the Year 13 2024/2025 thread (to save me re-typing!) but basically she was totally underwhelmed at the open day and felt they didn't bother to sell themselves, just relying on the Durham name.

She's predicted 3 A*s and got all 8s and 9s at gcse - including 9s in Maths and Economics.

@Toffeesgirl Congrats! May I ask, was that contextual or non-contextual for Economics & Finance at Bristol?

Only asking as looking at options going forward for DC. I thought Bristol was rated more highly than Exeter but for Econ & Finance, entry grades for Exeter are actually higher (A*AA/AAA) and the UCAS historical seems to indicate the successful applicants had a higher average (A-levels) too.

Why is that?

@soupsetpleasehelp , I don't know but my ds has the AAA offer from Bristol
and the Astar AA offer from Exeter and his predicted grades are Astar Astar A. He is going to choose between the 2 and probably have Newcastle as insurance of AAB. I think overall Bristol is a more desirable uni. Exeter tends to have lots of places in clearing and will accept dropped grades. Bristol has very little in clearing most years.

@soupsetpleasehelp to clarify this is for economics and finance.

DD didn't apply to Bristol and has only applied for straight Economics.

My son has an offer from Exeter and Durham (and Southampton). A rejection yesterday from Bath. He is predicted 3 x A star. Applied for Computer science with Mathematics. GCSEs were one 6 and one 9 and the rest 7 or 8 with a fail in French. He’s not really an all rounder, but very good at maths and CS.

Waiting on Bristol. Non contextual.

Well done on the offers. It sounds pretty usual that even the 3 A star predictions (even if they have perfect GCSEs too) don’t get the full sweep of 5 offers for Computer Science. Econ is similar. He’s got good options. Would he prefer Bristol to one of the other 2?

@WombatChocolate yes, I agree, though he is a bit bummed. I think in theory he might prefer Bristol, but he hasn’t been to either Bristol or Durham. Unfortunately we had to pull the plug on a visit to Durham next week. I suspect he has the feeling that Bristol / Bath are ‘better’. Anyway, we’ll see. He did get a ‘you’re on hold’ from Bristol a couple of weeks ago and of course he’s drawing all kinds of conclusions from that. But I guess that just means thanks we have your application, we’ll get to it!

I think really, wherever our kids end up, it will become ‘their’ university, they will meet their people, they will make their life, they will have a great time. Of course this isn’t true for everyone. But he is firm that CS and Maths is what he wants to do. University is where he wants to be. So it will work out.

Thanks that's helpful.
Interesting to hear about the clearing. Not sure whether that applies to Econ & Finance too? I did note on UCAS that the grade profile of those who accepted offers were slightly higher at Exeter than Bristol but maybe that is because of more contextual offers at Bristol/

In 2024, Exeter did not accept any dropped grades for Econ. Based on friends’ children who were not accepted due to missing one grade - so fine margin. Econ places at Exeter in clearing only available to internationals (as they pay more) and with much lower grades then home students, which is very sad for bright uk students. Not sure about clearing on other courses. Econ is one of the very popular courses currently so required grades at the better universities have gone up. Pure econ places at Durham for example mostly went to triple or double A star holders even though their standard offer is meant to be A*AA. With is the supply and demand - the reality is pure Econ entry grades are high.

Sorry replied to the wrong person! What is DD going to go for do you think?
Still waiting for Durham here but also underwhelmed from the subject talk (not Economics) so even if offered, DC won't go for it. DC did like the place and colleges though.