Durham taking their time

I sent my application off about 10 weeks ago, and still haven’t heard back from Durham, who said they aim to reply within 6-8 weeks. I appreciate they are very busy and probably closed for Christmas now, but I was wondering if this is the same with anyone else? I applied for history by the way

Reply 1

Anonymous #2

Original post by Anonymous #1

I sent my application off about 10 weeks ago, and still haven’t heard back from Durham, who said they aim to reply within 6-8 weeks. I appreciate they are very busy and probably closed for Christmas now, but I was wondering if this is the same with anyone else? I applied for history by the way

I’m waiting for Durham History too, but only for 3 weeks so far. I know so many people in the last 2/3 years who didn’t hear either way from Durham until March/April/May, having applied Oct/Nov. I also have heard that History and English are often some of the latest subjects.
From what I can work out I think at the moment they are mainly responding to international and contextual applicants, so if you’re one of those you may hear sooner. I have seen some home non-contextual people being offered, I guess they are the stand out ones. But everyone I know is still waiting. I don’t think I’ve heard of any rejections yet, presuming there must have been some already though?
I really want an offer from them, but am trying to switch off and think I’m not hearing for ages yet. Good luck!

Reply 2

martin7

20

Original post by Anonymous #1

I sent my application off about 10 weeks ago, and still haven’t heard back from Durham, who said they aim to reply within 6-8 weeks. I appreciate they are very busy and probably closed for Christmas now, but I was wondering if this is the same with anyone else? I applied for history by the way

You're making the assumption that university employees have the same working schedule as student term times. "Term-time only" staff will be a small proportion of any university's employees.

It's very likely that Durham's admissions staff will be at work most of next week, and be back after Christmas around the 3rd January -- but I can't see their closure dates anywhere obvious on their website.

Bear in mind that applications submitted through Ucas by 6pm on 31st January have to be given equal consideration; so there are probably a lot of applications that they're not yet in a position to make decisions on.

Reply 3

Anonymous #3

Original post by Anonymous #1

I sent my application off about 10 weeks ago, and still haven’t heard back from Durham, who said they aim to reply within 6-8 weeks. I appreciate they are very busy and probably closed for Christmas now, but I was wondering if this is the same with anyone else? I applied for history by the way

I applied on the 27th of September and I'm still waiting on my decision for Computer Science. It's my last decision. I thought that it would be Imperial that takes the longest but it's not.

Manchester I got within a week of applying

Edinburgh I got a couple of weeks after applying.

Cambridge, I got rejected pre-interview due to fumbling my admissions test (I made a stupid admin mistake related to timing otherwise I'm sure that I would have at least secured an interview because the test was really easy and one of my friends who didn't make any stupid admin mistakes only beat me narrowly and got an interview. Essentially, the end timings for the test was presented in a tabular format and I ended up looking at the wrong end timing. As I was going through the paper, I was constantly looking at the time, saw that I had ages left so began to pace myself. I thought that there were an extra 15 minutes more than the actual end time, which was the end time for one of 6 other admissions tests that was taking place in the same room at the same time. After taking a 5 minute break, when I saw that I had about 17 minutes left (two minutes before the actual end time), I thought that I should start to fill my answers in, which I began to do slowly. Two minutes later, I got told to put my pencil down and for the first paper, I only managed to shade in 9 out of 20 lozenges on my answer sheet, which was really annoying because I knew that I had aced the paper because I had full workings out to all of the questions and my answers matched the options on the multiple choice questions). I got the rejection email on 24/11 (5 days before my Imperial interview, which crushed me).

Imperial - admissions test on 12/10, interview on 29/11, offer on 18/12.

Durham - still waiting

Reply 4

Anonymous #4

Original post by Anonymous #1

I sent my application off about 10 weeks ago, and still haven’t heard back from Durham, who said they aim to reply within 6-8 weeks. I appreciate they are very busy and probably closed for Christmas now, but I was wondering if this is the same with anyone else? I applied for history by the way

I sent my UCAS application for computer science in mid-December and got an offer 3 or 4 days after applying. Durham was the first to reply for me so I'm sorry to hear they haven't given you an update. How is it now though?

Reply 5

Anonymous #3

Original post by Anonymous #4

I sent my UCAS application for computer science in mid-December and got an offer 3 or 4 days after applying. Durham was the first to reply for me so I'm sorry to hear they haven't given you an update. How is it now though?

I've been waiting for 16 weeks now and still no news. I applied on September 27th. Most of the Durham offers last year at my school came in around April (and everyone got in). The weird thing is that it's my last decision. I thought it would be Imperial that would take their time because very few people got offers last year in December and the bulk of them came out in late Feb/March, but I got my offer in December and so did loads of other people for CS and other departments.

Reply 6

Anonymous #4

Original post by Anonymous #3

I've been waiting for 16 weeks now and still no news. I applied on September 27th. Most of the Durham offers last year at my school came in around April (and everyone got in). The weird thing is that it's my last decision. I thought it would be Imperial that would take their time because very few people got offers last year in December and the bulk of them came out in late Feb/March, but I got my offer in December and so did loads of other people for CS and other departments.

I'm international so that might be a factor. Also, you apply way early, maybe they know you're applying for oxford so they're sort of waiting to see whether you're withdrawing from them or not? Well since you got into imperial, if I were you I would assume it's a guranteed offer from them so you can just start planning from now

Reply 7

Anonymous #3

Original post by Anonymous #4

I'm international so that might be a factor. Also, you apply way early, maybe they know you're applying for oxford so they're sort of waiting to see whether you're withdrawing from them or not? Well since you got into imperial, if I were you I would assume it's a guranteed offer from them so you can just start planning from now

I hope so. I really need an insurance choice!

Reply 8

Anonymous #3

Original post by Anonymous #4

I'm international so that might be a factor. Also, you apply way early, maybe they know you're applying for oxford so they're sort of waiting to see whether you're withdrawing from them or not? Well since you got into imperial, if I were you I would assume it's a guranteed offer from them so you can just start planning from now

Yeah I have a friend who is classed as international as well and he's still waiting too so I guess so but he applied on the same day as me (We applied to the same places but he applied to Bath and I applied to Edinburgh).

Even if I did get into Cambridge, I probably would still insure with Durham because my other places have higher requirements and I have to sit the STEP for Imperial which is a huge risk for an insurance choice. I got rejected from Cambridge so it's not like I have a choice. Also, call this controversial but I would probably go for Imperial if I got into Cambridge and Imperial purely because I like the greater focus on practical applications. The Cambridge course is far too theoretical and the workload you have leaves you with no time to gain extra skills to prepare for industry. The languages you learn at university are more or less never used in industry so you gotta pick up other skills along the way. Cambridge is far more interested in producing researchers than getting people into industry. Also, internship opportunities are far greater at Imperial than Cambridge and Oxford (but Oxford is better than Cambridge for internship opportunities and the companies that pick you up for these internships).

Had our school record with Oxford not been as atrocious as it is, I would have applied to Oxford but I went for Cambridge in the end.

Reply 9

Anonymous #4

Original post by Anonymous #3

I hope so. I really need an insurance choice!

you don't want to make the other universities your insurance?

Reply 10

Anonymous #4

Original post by Anonymous #3

Yeah I have a friend who is classed as international as well and he's still waiting too so I guess so but he applied on the same day as me (We applied to the same places but he applied to Bath and I applied to Edinburgh).

Even if I did get into Cambridge, I probably would still insure with Durham because my other places have higher requirements and I have to sit the STEP for Imperial which is a huge risk for an insurance choice. I got rejected from Cambridge so it's not like I have a choice. Also, call this controversial but I would probably go for Imperial if I got into Cambridge and Imperial purely because I like the greater focus on practical applications. The Cambridge course is far too theoretical and the workload you have leaves you with no time to gain extra skills to prepare for industry. The languages you learn at university are more or less never used in industry so you gotta pick up other skills along the way. Cambridge is far more interested in producing researchers than getting people into industry. Also, internship opportunities are far greater at Imperial than Cambridge and Oxford (but Oxford is better than Cambridge for internship opportunities and the companies that pick you up for these internships).

Had our school record with Oxford not been as atrocious as it is, I would have applied to Oxford but I went for Cambridge in the end.

I don't think that's controversial, I think that makes a lot of sense. Well, I don't apply to Oxbridge anyway, I'm planning to do my imperial admission test on Monday. I do think if you're applying for science/engineering, then imperial is better. If you apply for math or humanities, then Oxbridge is better. But if all you care about is international recognition and reputation, then obviously Oxbridge would be better.

Reply 11

Anonymous #3

Original post by Anonymous #4

you don't want to make the other universities your insurance?

Well, my other two are Manchester and Edinburgh both with 3 A* offers. Edinburgh say minimum entry is AAB but I got hit with the top end of their offer requirements.

Reply 12

Anonymous #4

Original post by Anonymous #3

Well, my other two are Manchester and Edinburgh both with 3 A* offers. Edinburgh say minimum entry is AAB but I got hit with the top end of their offer requirements.

3A*??? how and why, that's very wild, yeah I would insure Durham too. Thankfully both my offers aren't as outrageous

Reply 13

Anonymous #3

Original post by Anonymous #4

3A*??? how and why, that's very wild, yeah I would insure Durham too. Thankfully both my offers aren't as outrageous

Their minimum entry requirements for my course are AAB but the offers can be anywhere from minimum entry to 3 A*s. It's just unfortunate that I got this high requirements.

My predicted grades were 5 A*s and I got the offer early (three weeks after applying even though they sent me an email saying they will wait until after the applicant deadline to hand out offers) so I'm guessing they gave me the offer based off my predicted grades and just gave a higher requirement for entry just because of that.

All of Manchester's CS offers are 3 A*s because those are their minimum entry requirements. What's even crazier is that they face double the number of applicants compared to Cambridge for Computer Science even though Cambridge has slightly lower minimum entry requirements which shows:

A) The reputation of Manchester to some extent as a good institution for CS

B) People don't want the hassle of an admissions test and interview at Cambridge.

Durham taking their time

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