Parents of Durham freshers 2025

[MillicentFaucet]

We've chatted on a different threads over the past few months so do any anxious/excited/slightly overwhelmed parents want to congregate here for Durham chat?
My DS will be starting an MEng next month and has been allocated to Cuths 🐯(but no confirmation of what type of accommodation he has yet).
He's slowly working his way through registration etc and fretting about the important things like what to wear for matriculation <sigh>
How's everyone else getting on?

DC fine about going back. Me, not so much😭.

My DD is very pleased to be back, @MillicentFaucet- she has been missing her “Grey gang” over Christmas, which is a welcome change from Freshers when she was feeling lonely and left out! She’s already had a new paper assigned for this week so is straight back on the grind, but doesn’t seem terribly phased.

Aw that's really great to hear, DS was also eager to meet up with his new friends (even though he seems to have killed a houseplant that one of them trusted him with over the holiday)

Dd literally just graduated (last Friday,) with a 1st MA English. Her college was Hatfield. Best of luck to all. She loved Durham and will miss it as will we from are Even Song regular visits (chorister). Lovely small town. I recommend The Indigo if you need a hotel. Great breakfasts 😊

Congrats to your DD freaky!

@MillicentFaucet - thanks to you and others for keeping this thread going. It’s lovely to see everyone’s news and their DCs getting back into the swing of things.

DD (who had prioritised Bailey and catered and was allocated Hill and self-catering) continues to love John Snow and was keen to get back and see her friends. She did a 1-week cookery course during the hols so it will be interesting to see how much of that she uses 😀.

Wishing everyone’s DCs luck for upcoming exams etc.

Yes, thank you for keeping the thread going, @MillicentFaucet !

We dropped dd off last weekend (it was bitterly cold, wasn't it?!) and she has settled back in.

@Dery , my dd is also v glad to be in SC because of the flexibility that it affords her, she also very much appreciated coming home and not having to think about cooking and laundry for a bit!

Congratulations to your dd, @freakyfriday23 . What are her plans for the future?

Hi @BigHeroSix - yes, DD has absolutely loved the flexibility of SC. It’s worked out well for her. We also dropped back last Saturday- easy 5 hour-drive up to Durham. I was making good time on the return journey on Sunday and was just under 2 hours from home when - with hundreds, perhaps thousands of others - i got stuck behind a lorry fire which closed the M1 and sat there for nearly 3 hours. Fortunately i had my Kindle with me and sat and read! Like many other drivers, i was very grateful for the next services when we were able to resume our journey…

And yes, congrats to @freakyfriday23’s DD. That’s brilliant!

She's moved to Bristol living with her partner whose doing a chemistry PhD. She works in a pub 😄 she's happy and can pay her bills. She wants to work in journalism music related ultimately so not going to be easy. Tbh she's enjoying her freedom and in no hurry atm.

Hope the cookery course went well for her. Once she’s confident in the basics she’ll probably enjoy experimenting more.
DD, who was at Snow last year learned basics from her dad before going to uni and she said were very helpful. Discovered when she was home for Xmas that she gets tips from social media eg adding peanut butter to her spicy soup noodles to get a creamy version.

She was sad to leave the pampering of home but seems she’s settled back at uni

@freakyfriday23 ?
Did your Dd do music? Curious about the music journalism.

Yes. She was a music scholar at her previous school (piano and violin) and a chorister, when at Hatfield she was in their Chapel choir.

@Dery <waves from misty Durham> It's great to hear your DD is loving her college, I remember the angst at allocation time.
I bet her new cooking skills will be popular with her flat mates 😁
I had a bit of a wobble last week when I cleared out DS's room ready for redecoration, taking his giant Lego sets to pieces & boxing them up felt like a big 'end of an era' moment. It took a lot longer than it should have (gulp)

Interesting that.
DD chose English instead of conservatoire and now she’s finished has been considering music journo but knows it’s a tough gig to get into.
Mine was as Bristol and loved it there.
Good luck to your Dd!

Wow that's interesting. My dd loves Bristol. Sad really as dd has barely touched the piano or violin since she left school. As a scholar there was so much pressure to perform/practice so she loves not having to now. I used to love hearing the violin. She's yet to join a choir. Best of luck to your dd in her quest in finding a good position in music journalism

I’ve been lurking on here as DD has been offered a place at Durham and he has been researching colleges. She’s keen to self cater and John Snow appears to be top of her list at the moment! Good to know your DD is enjoying it @Dery . We’re planning to visit at the offer holder day in March.

I missed hearing those 2
instruments too when Dd was at uni where she kept up her playing in orchestras but I hear them now she’s back.
She’s visiting friends back in Bristol
this week, loves the social scene there.
Best wishes to your Dd too, hope they’ll find what they’re looking for!

Dd is also at John Snow and considering being a Frep next year. She was made to feel so welcome when we dropped her off, I was so relieved.

She has a lovely, big, modern room, which she said she missed when she got home (it's bigger than her room at home!). There isn't a lot conveniently close regarding groceries, but she and her flatmates walk to the nearest Lidl and then Uber back with their shopping.

I can also recommend this place, if you need somewhere to stay overnight and don't mind being a bit further out of the city. We stayed here the evening before open day and the rooms are nice and spacious (decor a bit loud in ours but not a problem!), with good en-suite facilities and a very nice pub just across the car park (with a 20% discount on food for residents). I think we parked at Howlands Park and Ride on the day.

Durham City Cottages self-catering accommodation in stylish cottage-style rooms near Durham city

Thanks @BigHeroSix that’s helpful, although I’ve already booked the Premier Inn for the OHD (but might well come in handy if she actually ends up going!)

We stayed at the Radisson for OHD and I made the mistake of not getting breakfast before that long walk up the hill to John Snow! It was a bit warm as well. It'll be really busy and that walk is quite long, so make sure you feed yourselves first!

@Suffolker

As @MillicentFaucet mentioned, we had quite a lot of angst when DD first got her college allocation because it was the opposite of what she wanted in all particulars... Fortunately, MN posters who had already trodden this path had shared that (i) many students do not get their first choice college (though many also do and I was vicariously pleased for @MillicentFaucet's DS who got his!); and (ii) students generally love the college they end up in even if it was way down their list of preferred colleges. That has absolutely been DD's experience.

MN also tipped me off to another thing: provisional allocation of a college is not the same thing as allocation of accommodation at that college. After provisional allocation of colleges (from memory, last year this came out in late May/early June), the college in question will send an accommodation questionnaire which needs to be completed separately (from memory, last year this was circulated in June, during A levels exams, with a deadline of early July). Your YP will need to keep an eye out for that and make sure they complete it otherwise it may impact their access to accommodation at their college. You probably already know about this but I wanted to mention it in case not.

Thanks very much for the heads up@Dery I hadn’t realised there was a second stage in the college application process (and I don’t think DD has picked that up either). I had at least discovered that the provisional allocation was very much not a done deal though. So much to keep track of, it’s all quite exhausting!

Good morning. Another here whose child has an offer and will be going up (about 6hours drive for us) for the OHD in March. Although we are going for 3 days rather than 1 - I’ve booked a city centre hotel.

DS has had the request for college options from the university. Is he okay to wait until after OHD before sending this back or is it first come first served do you know? We don’t know the area (he swapped Durham for Bristol after hating Bristol at the open day, so we didn’t get to the Durham open day in the summer). Thanks 😊

DS has an offer for history. I should have said that! I’ve been looking at the city map but it doesn’t really show where the humanities faculty buildings are. I assume DS will want to put the colleges closer to the humanities faculty buildings at the start of his preferred college list, or doesn’t it work like this?