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physics @ durham!

jus wondering if anybody knew how competitive it is for places on this course? in terms of applicants per place/offers per place? any help wud b greatly appreciated! im hopin to apply for 2007! :tsr2:

Reply 1

Nutter

14

Surely you can check the admissions statistics for the preceding years on the website? I'm sure they have some sort of indication there. I don't imagine this would be too competitive anyway, but I'm afraid I cannot pin it down to a set of minimum grades required off-hand.

Reply 2

Itchynscratchy

10

physics is a relatively under-subscribed course nationwide. Having said that though, i think the typical offer has gone up this year to AAA.

I am a 2nd year physics type person so if you have any specific questions then feel free to ask :smile:

Reply 3

veni, vidi, vici

OP

11

hi, thanks for the post, il rep u tommorow (when i can again)..could i ask what your academic profile was? that way i mite be able to decide whether or not i stand a chance? thanks!

Reply 4

Itchynscratchy

10

atz

hi, thanks for the post, il rep u tommorow (when i can again)..could i ask what your academic profile was? that way i mite be able to decide whether or not i stand a chance? thanks!

Sure, I got 4A*, 1A, 4B at GCSE A*'s in Maths Physics Chemistry and History

B in AS Biology

AAA in Maths, Physics, and Chemistry. I was predicted AAA and got an offer of AAB, although like i said the typical offer was AAB at the time and has since risen to AAA.

EDIT: Also to give you a feel for the chance of getting places. I got 5 offers out of 6 with that (and the other was oxford), many people with AAA who apply for other courses (such as Law for example) tend only to get 2 or 3 simply because it is way more competitive.

Reply 5

Mattmoy_2000

9

I applied for physics at Durham, Bristol, St.Andrews, Loughboro, Nottingham and Bath with;
4A*, 4A, 4B at GCSE (B's in Englishx2, Statistics and Latin)
A Phys, A chem, B maths, D (resat to B, but after application) Biology. Oh, and B in GS, but that doesn't count. at AS
I got an offer of AAB from Durham, and ABB from all the others except bath and loughboro which offered ABC (C in chem) and BBC (any order) respectively. (having said that, Notts offered me BBB for BSc and St.A offered me something lower if I started at Scottish level 1 (English/Advanced Highers students usually start at L2)

Reply 6

RobbieC

15

I do Natural Sciences, but do the arguably most difficult Physics module... Well, it is all the nitty gritty core things, which are HARD...
Got 6A*, 4A and a B for GCSE I think...
A levels in: Maths/Chemistry/Physics/English Lit/History/General Studies(LMAO) - got As for them... and I did a Further Maths AS and got an A.

And I find Physics here... VERY challenging... So make of that what you will..

Any specific questions, Ill try and help you out, since my knowledge of Foundations I is more up to date than these cougers :p:

Reply 7

Piggsil

16

RobbieC

I do Natural Sciences, but do the arguably most difficult Physics module... Well, it is all the nitty gritty core things, which are HARD...
Got 6A*, 4A and a B for GCSE I think...
A levels in: Maths/Chemistry/Physics/English Lit/History/General Studies(LMAO) - got As for them... and I did a Further Maths AS and got an A.

And I find Physics here... VERY challenging... So make of that what you will..

Any specific questions, Ill try and help you out, since my knowledge of Foundations I is more up to date than these cougers :p:

Yeah, but you never go to lectures!

Reply 8

RobbieC

15

DO TOO!!! Not that I actually believe any I went to helped.

Don't even remember anything from Physics lectures and I went to about 40.

It's AWFUL, seriously. I just remember one guy drawing one picture, and the rest of my memory is wiped aside from that. It just is not there... So those 40 hours, to my mind, were wasted.

And before anyone says it, I made notes in EVER lecture. Wish Id made them from the textbook instead.

Reply 9

Talya

16

I've got an offer for Phys and Astro 2006, see below for offer details and subjects.

For GCSE I got 5A*, 4A, 1B, 1C :smile:

Got 5 out of 6 offers (rejected from Cam)

Reply 10

Derek_The_Hamster

3

Eeee, back in my day the offer was ABC...

Reply 11

ryan750

2

physics was rather competitive this year - 969 applicants for physics courses. I found out by asking at admissions because i was an obsessive about my application. Unfortunately it didn't end pretty in my case as i made an ultimatum in order to get answers and then withdrew my application :smile:

Gosh it looks awfully different round these parts these days - haven't frequented them for donkeys. just check out my post count - last time i was here was like march or something and i was near a thousand then and im still not there (omg im there with this post!!) . Oh the memories :cool:

Reply 12

RobbieC

15

How has the place changed... We still offer high quality products, and at competetive prices.

It's like in some ways we never left.

Reply 13

Itchynscratchy

10

to be honest 969 applicants is only 3-3.5:1 which isn't all that competitive, relatively speaking. Although admittedly more so than i would have thought

Reply 14

durhamdosser

4

Itchynscratchy

to be honest 969 applicants is only 3-3.5:1 which isn't all that competitive, relatively speaking. Although admittedly more so than i would have thought

Apparently it's 20:1 for English...

Reply 15

RobbieC

15

And I think the Physics ratio will be higher, due to the need to let NatScis and MathsPhysics people in.

Reply 16

Derek_The_Hamster

3

Indeed, physics is the most popular option in Natural Sciences most years - my year was about 140 people, but the physics natscis swelled first year lectures to around 200.

Itchynscratchy

to be honest 969 applicants is only 3-3.5:1 which isn't all that competitive, relatively speaking. Although admittedly more so than i would have thought

No, it's definitely higher than that, HEFCE contracted numbers for physics are somwhere around 160-170 as I recall, which would make the ratio around 6 to 1 - your figures would give an entering year of physics of around 280, which wouldn't fit into any lecture theatre in the university (not even ER203).

The offer ratio needed to fill places (i.e. accounting for those who decide not to take their place or accept other offers), though, is about 4.2 to 1, so your chances of getting an offer are considerably higher than a ratio of 6 applications to one place would appear: they need to make around 4 offers for every place to expect to fill the year (this may have fallen slightly with the increasing popularity of the course, but I'd doubt it'd be much lower than around 3:1 as those who apply to Durham physics will often apply to Oxbridge, Imperial and other good universities.)