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Different offers for the same course

Hi.

I've applied (and been accepted on conditional offer) to do a course at Durham University this year, with a conditional offer of three A levels at A grade (AAA). A friend of mine has applied to do the exact same course, and currently attends the exact same sixth form, comes from a similar socioeconomic background as I do and performs at a similar level as me at sixth form, however received an offer of AAB. I thought this could perhaps be that the differences between our A level choices is that I have English Language where she has Biology.

Have any of you heard of this type of thing happening (and particularly on terms where two different candidates who are in reality very similar)? Is it likely to be due to her choice of Biology, perceived as harder than English Language?

I wouldn't usually complain about something like this, however since AAA is a high target to make, this has bugged me somewhat.
What's the course? If it's an arts based course, they could well lower the requirements for someone doing sciences as it's not essential.

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Original post by decem
Hi.

I've applied (and been accepted on conditional offer) to do a course at Durham University this year, with a conditional offer of three A levels at A grade (AAA). A friend of mine has applied to do the exact same course, and currently attends the exact same sixth form, comes from a similar socioeconomic background as I do and performs at a similar level as me at sixth form, however received an offer of AAB. I thought this could perhaps be that the differences between our A level choices is that I have English Language where she has Biology.

Have any of you heard of this type of thing happening (and particularly on terms where two different candidates who are in reality very similar)? Is it likely to be due to her choice of Biology, perceived as harder than English Language?

I wouldn't usually complain about something like this, however since AAA is a high target to make, this has bugged me somewhat.


You say a similar socio-economic background but universities do not measure the size of the parental wallet.

Obviously you attend the same school. Did any of your parents go to university? Did you friend's? In your parent's generation only about 10% of people went to university. There may be a contextual flag if they didn't. They will also look at parental occupation but for those in business that can often be a crude measure of socio-economic status. Finally they will look at residence using very sophisticated postcode databases. My house and the houses in the next street are identical. My street does not satisfy the University of Manchester's deprived area test. The next street does. You could not tell from looking at the houses, but I suspect my street has a higher proportion of people educated beyond 16.

You must remember that Princess Beatrice would have had a contextual flag for being dyslexic; a contextual flag for being the first in her family to go to university (none of her parents or grandparents did, her sister was younger and her uncles wouldn't count) and her residential neighbourhood wasn't any great shakes either

http://www.postcodearea.co.uk/postaltowns/london/sw1a1aa/demographics/
(edited 9 years ago)

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