How opportunistic is Durham University?

I'm choosing my university for entry 2024, and I have recently received an offer from Durham. I'm seriously considering attending, but one of the only reasons is the fact that it is a lot more prestigious than my other options (Southampton, Birmingham & Newcastle), so I was just wondering, in terms of world connections, employability and reputation, is it worth going to Durham (my only issues are I am not a big fan of the tory culture there haha an how expensive the cost of living is)?

I'm choosing my university for entry 2024, and I have recently received an offer from Durham. I'm seriously considering attending, but one of the only reasons is the fact that it is a lot more prestigious than my other options (Southampton, Birmingham & Newcastle), so I was just wondering, in terms of world connections, employability and reputation, is it worth going to Durham (my only issues are I am not a big fan of the tory culture there haha an how expensive the cost of living is)?

Durham a lot more prestigious than Birmingham, Southampton and Newcastle? Durham isn't even a prestigious university! Prestigious = Oxbridge, LSE, Imperial, UCL. Quite prestigious = Edinburgh, Manchester, Bristol.

How is durham not a prestigious university??

OP posted this 5 months ago - and never replied to anyone asking for more details.
So I doubt they will read or care about comments about Durham's "prestige" now

I felt compelled to reply to the OTP because it reeks of lack of authenticity, as though the OTP knows they want to choose Durham anyway but they want to take a cheap shot at the other RG universities to help make them feel better about themself.
If you want to know, Durham actually struggled for any prestige for much of its history, due to its location. It was Oxbridge and London that enjoyed all the prestige, as well as the ancient universities in Scotland.

So you felt 'compelled' did you? Why have you got some sort of problem or something...?? lol Here we have a classic case of a jealous and bitter attack at Durham and can only assume it's been brought on by academic 'insecurity' ie I'm guessing you are more than likely another Durham statistic - a reject who didn't make the grade.
Saying that Durham struggled for ANY prestige for much of its history is an obvious nonsense and one typically not backed up by any pertinent facts whatsoever. Therefore, it is obviously YOU who are wanting to take a cheap shot yourself! You're argument (if you could optimistically call it that?);is entirely flawed, as is usual for this kind of totally ignorant polemic, as once again the old 'QS rankings chestnut' is cranked out again redundantly. QS is based on such things as Research output, number of citations quoted and budgetary schemes. Not to mention the new, no doubt trendy, but highly dubious metric of Sustainability!!??? (what has that got to do with academics??) To imply therefore that an institution is more prestigious than another based on size

...to say that output or size equates to prestige etc would therefore imply that Tesco's is more prestigious than Waitrose because Tesco's is a bigger firm, when in reality we know that Waitrose or John Lewis etc are not collosal giants but are considered more prestigious.
The only important metrics worth considering are of course on the other hand , ones such as entry standards or more obviously Teaching Standards!! We are after all talking about something called a 'University' where traditionally the emphasis was on teaching students in high quality, higher education, not some esoteric think tank that is working in a capacity entirely detached from education. And in this regard you have singularly failed in your spurious assertion in that you failed to give a full and fair rounded view.
(That being said, ordinarily Durham has fared better than the others in the QS, ranked at 78 only last year, a point you clearly failed to point out - largely due to a shift in trend to favour more Pacific region universities)
So let's have a look at the main rankings that you can't bear to confront: the national UK rankings. In this you will see Durham is positioned a solid 7 in all three major rankings., whilst Southampton, Birmingham and Newcastle trail significantly: Southampton 20 in the 2024 Guardian, Birmingham 37 and Newcastle 67!
Another much more reliable and relevant metric would again be the academic weighting of the faculty themselves, ie members of British academy, Royal societies of Arts and Science etc and again Durham beats the opposition hands down.

So you felt 'compelled' did you? Why have you got some sort of problem or something...?? lol Here we have a classic case of a jealous and bitter attack at Durham and can only assume it's been brought on by academic 'insecurity' ie I'm guessing you are more than likely another Durham statistic - a reject who didn't make the grade.
Saying that Durham struggled for ANY prestige for much of its history is an obvious nonsense and one typically not backed up by any pertinent facts whatsoever. Therefore, it is obviously YOU who are wanting to take a cheap shot yourself! You're argument (if you could optimistically call it that?);is entirely flawed, as is usual for this kind of totally ignorant polemic, as once again the old 'QS rankings chestnut' is cranked out again redundantly. QS is based on such things as Research output, number of citations quoted and budgetary schemes. Not to mention the new, no doubt trendy, but highly dubious metric of Sustainability!!??? (what has that got to do with academics??) To imply therefore that an institution is more prestigious than another based on size

Durham a lot more prestigious than Birmingham, Southampton and Newcastle? Durham isn't even a prestigious university! Prestigious = Oxbridge, LSE, Imperial, UCL. Quite prestigious = Edinburgh, Manchester, Bristol.

Take it from someone older, that has been through plenty of interviews and knows many people in 'the City' etc, Durham is prestigious and the graduate prospects are excellent. It is Oxbridge's weaker younger sibling, but that applies to many of the others you mentioned. Manchester, whilst a good uni (and an amazing city) is not prestigious and isn't anywhere near as selective as those others. Certainly a strong contender for drunkest students within the Russell Group, though.

Durham is highly selective because it is collegiate, and it's hands are tied for significant expansion given that there is only room for two more colleges to be built, and even then the student population won't be much larger. They refuse to teach occupational courses like Nursing and Landscape Surveying, and so the civic universities like Manchester have to provide these lower entry tariff courses to satisfy the needs of the UK economy.
I am experienced in higher education and in industry, and l know that a lot of people confuse high entry tariffs and selective courses with the prestige of the university. Durham as a whole, taking into account all the pillars that make up a university, including undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral and postdoctoral studies, as well as global reputation, annual income, endowment etc., all these lead to a conclusion that Durham is strong in undergraduate provision, but is lacking in many other areas. Manchester could swallow Durham whole twice over given the massive disparity in annual income and research power. When the heavyweights of the US such as Stanford or Chicago do research, they look to the likes of UCL and Manchester for collaboration. Durham doesn't even get a look in.
I do want to stress that Durham is indeed very highly regarded by employers for their undergraduate degrees. But if you are hoping to work in academia via higher degrees (MRes/PhD), you won't find the breadth or depth of options available to you for a lot of their subjects. In my particular case none of the academics l engaged with from Durham were able to offer a Bioinformatics PhD project (self-funded) just a few years back, mainly because they didn't have the expertise in that subject to supervise it properly. All the civic universities, like Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Leicester etc. responded quickly, and were keen to offer a project subject, to an informal interview.

That's a lot of words to say you studied at Manchester and are defending it because of that. I maintain that Durham is prestigious and Manchester is not. Total budgets, breadth of courses and number of students are irrelevant. Of course Manchester's budget (alongside perhaps the majority of North American universities) dwarves that of Durham. It's also far larger than LSE and St Andrews, but we know which are relatively prestigious. I appreciate that all the prestige talk is toxic and, by definition, snobby but the concept is real.

Can we stop with the willy waving please.
Your worth is not determined by your choice of university.