Anyone waiting to book a Durham open day?

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I think Durham is DD’s favoured location for uni. The uni says the open day will be 13/14 June but they haven’t opened bookings yet so I haven’t booked a train or anything and now it’s getting quite close to the date.

My brother lives quite close so we can stay the night with them but otherwise I would want to book a hotel etc as we live quite far away.

Has anyone else just booked travel/accommodation even though bookings aren’t open? (Or are there even any Durham staff who might say what is going on, I tried their chatbot but it was hopeless!)

I’d book it - all of their information states 13th/14th June so they’re unlikely to change it now. Perhaps book cancellable accommodation, if you don’t want to stay with relatives?

Thanks, yeah, I should just do it. It’s no problem re accommodation but annoying re train, don’t know what time to arrive etc. plus I worry it will suddenly be booked out on the open day when they do open bookings but I’m checking pretty frequentky and have signed up for notifications wtc etc

We are waiting for this too and it's really shit.

Durham are very poor at organisation and admin. It's the same with offers - they don't seem to issue them till March or April, when all the other universities (including Oxbridge) manage to get off their arses months earlier than that.

It's completely unnecessary and really adds to the stress of uni applications, which isn't great for the kids.

DD wants to go to an open day there, but I'm hoping she won't want to apply. The university just comes across as disorganised and arrogant in the way it treats applicants.

OK, bookings are open (finally!)

Aww, ta all. Now it’s open we have actually decided to skip it.

We couldn’t get there in time for it starting on the Sat as I have an event on the Fri night. We wanted to stay over on the Sat but the trains are v expensive on the Sunday back (as we are booking so late) and are all screwed up cos of engineering works!

Can’t say I am v impressed. Will try for the autumn one if DD still keen,

I have a DS graduating this year. I've got to say the teaching, academic support and college system have been great. He's had a good experience and from hearing about his friends' experiences at other universities that is not a universal experience.
Some things may be faculty specific. DS received his offer in the January and my goddaughter received hers (also not an early applicant and Covid intake) in the December.

Be careful what you wish for ;)

I'm sure it can be lovely once you're in, but the admissions system is so unnecessarily crap that it puts me off!

I'm glad DS decided to go elsewhere and I must admit I hope DD does as well. (It's also a bloody long way away from us!)

Durham IS bad at application /admission/ accommodation admin .You see the frustration year after year. Mine got an early offer ( November) but after that it was admin confusion and errors galore.

I can confirm that once actually THERE though, the support and college welfare system and the whole experience has been fantastic .

Dc will graduate this year

Yes, I'm sure Durham really is very good in many ways, and has a lot to offer.

The thing is, there are other very good universities out there as well, and they have much better organisation and admin for applicants. So it just makes more sense for me to encourage DD to go for the universities that aren't going to mess her around. I don't want her going through the same frustrating process that DS went through; there's just no need.

@AlphabettiTouretti Oxbridge deadline is mid October so 3 whole months before the equal consideration January deadline. Plus they have their own deadline in January for offers.

Sometimes it is sixth forms that delay the UCAS application process for the students, Oxbridge is prioritised and it can mean that anyone else who is ready cannot have their application submitted. Ds2 was not Oxbridge but we pushed for his application to go early October to look like an Oxbridge candidate. The process is unfair to applicants who have shit sixth form admissions people.

I believe universities start sorting applications as they arrive but only deal with the vast majority after the January deadline. UCAS allows 5 choices but in all honesty most students know which uni is their top pick so the others are the just in case I don't get an offer from my top choice. The deadline is 14th May for offers from unis and a student has until 4th June. The biggest push to get locked in is when certain universities open their accommodation application months earlier. No uni is thinking we can dick about with applications.

Some unis will no doubt edge their bets with some applications waiting to see if the application is withdrawn before they need to offer. I have been through this twice, Ds1 got his first choice uni offer in the October, Ds2 got his in the May.

To anyone looking at this for Durham, try to go and visit during term time, October half term or February half term when there are students around otherwise it can feel a bit dead. Offer holder days are good for subject talks etc but to get a feel for a place visit at any point but campus unis or Durham will feel dead if there aren't thousands of students attending lectures.

Durham are far from unique at still making offers in March/April/May - Bristol, Exeter, LSE, UCL, Warwick, St. Andrews and Edinburgh are all still actively offering/rejecting through these months - there's probably more also.

Edinburgh are particularly renowned for being very late or not even responding by the UCAS mid May cutoff, at which point it's a default rejection.

The whole process requires an awful lot of patience