This was Durham's reply, they couldn't give me a more personal response since they're receiving a lot of emails and the team is understaffed right now...
I am contacting you regarding your enquiry about emails you received from Durham University. There was some confusion around the content of these messages, and as we're receiving an unprecedented number of enquiries at the moment, I thought you'd get a quicker response if I tried to deal with all of the confusion in one go. Huge apologies if this doesn't cover the content of your enquiry, please understand that my team of 5 is currently trying to respond to over 8000 enquiries a*month, so finding the most efficient means of responding is key to us staying on top of the volume.
Link to the Offer Acceptance Form
We have changed the form we use this year, and as such have a new webpage for it. The old webpage has a forward applied to it, so the old links should re-direct to the new page. Sadly this forward breaks regularly, meaning people get a 401 error code. You can access the Offer Acceptance Form*here.
Completing the Offer Acceptance Form
We do ask all offer holders to complete this form. It's our own process, separate to UCAS, so even though you've accepted with UCAS, we still ask you to complete this. While you may be very excited about coming to university, particularly in Durham, we do get many pupils who hold offers, accept them with UCAS, but never turn up. We've found this Offer Acceptance Form reduces the numbers of these. If you've deferred, as it's a new cycle, we'd ask you to do it again, just so we know nothing has changed over the last year.
Once you have sent us your documents (or UCAS have if they get them), then we'll confirm your offer and you'll be notified of this through UCAS Track. You don't need to fill in the Offer Acceptance Form until then; don't worry if you already have, it's fine. You'd only need to fill it in again if you were changing your decision.
Password Test Email
We're very sorry if you received this in error. There's a line of text on all unconditional offers about language requirements. Unfortunately the campaign that was sent out picked up on this, so sent the Password email to everyone with an unconditional offer. If you don't think you need to provide*English language evidence, you probably don't. You can check the University Guidelines*here*and the*required levels of English language proficiency*here, if you really want to be sure.
Sending Us Documents
We do need your documents to be uploaded*here*by 31st July to evidence any qualifications you already have that meet your offer conditions. If you receive the qualifications this summer, get them to us as quickly as you can.*It's only for the subjects that are on your offer though. We don't need GCSE certificates unless they relate to the conditions on your offer, for example, a Business offer holder may*have a condition of*Grade 7 in Maths GCSE. In these instances, it would be named on the offer.
If you aren't able to meet the deadline for document submission (31st July), don't worry, we understand that getting hold of them at the minute may be difficult, we'll be as flexible as we can be to help. Please*upload them as soon as you can though. The only instance where this could be more difficult is if you require a CAS, in which case we'll need them early enough to arrange a CAS for you, so that you can get your VISA. If your documents aren't uploaded by 31st August, our offer will normally be for deferred entry, but we will accommodate you if possible, but our courses are normally filled by this point.
I hope that the confusion from the previous email(s) is cleared up in the text above. If you need additional information, you can request it using our*Ask Us Form, please understand it will take longer than normal to reply at the moment, as we are receiving such a high volume of enquiries.
Best wishes
Ross
Ross Guy
Enquiries Manager