College Ranking?

So basically, I desperately need to rank the colleges (the deadline is tomorrow i am incredibly indecisive). But I was originally going to go with the self catered as my top four, however although I think id prefer the idea of self catered i don't think i'm massively bothered about it, as catered seems to be quite sociable and you'd cook for yourself in 2nd and 3rd year anyway. I also really enjoy acting (specifically more Shakespeare and classical stuff, and not musical theatre) so then i saw the castle theatre company which looks AMAZING and they do Shakespeare each summer and go on tour, and I quite liked it anyway so I don't know whether its worth putting that at the top of my list, mainly just because of the society? Or maybe if anyone knows if it would still be possible to join it even if I'm not at that college. It does have a very different vibe from Jon Snow and the other self catered colleges, as far as i can tell. So any advice/thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Reply 1

Vetmum13

8

Original post by Random11_206

So basically, I desperately need to rank the colleges (the deadline is tomorrow i am incredibly indecisive). But I was originally going to go with the self catered as my top four, however although I think id prefer the idea of self catered i don't think i'm massively bothered about it, as catered seems to be quite sociable and you'd cook for yourself in 2nd and 3rd year anyway. I also really enjoy acting (specifically more Shakespeare and classical stuff, and not musical theatre) so then i saw the castle theatre company which looks AMAZING and they do Shakespeare each summer and go on tour, and I quite liked it anyway so I don't know whether its worth putting that at the top of my list, mainly just because of the society? Or maybe if anyone knows if it would still be possible to join it even if I'm not at that college. It does have a very different vibe from Jon Snow and the other self catered colleges, as far as i can tell. So any advice/thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

You can do Castle summer tour whether you are in Castle or not.
Castle is one of the more over subscribed one so less likely to get it.
Also don’t overthink the choices- my daughter got her last choice which was Stevo and absolutely loved it

Reply 2

Random11_206

OP

13

Original post by Vetmum13

You can do Castle summer tour whether you are in Castle or not.
Castle is one of the more over subscribed one so less likely to get it.
Also don’t overthink the choices- my daughter got her last choice which was Stevo and absolutely loved it

Oh okay thank you so much! Yeah I definitely have a tendency to overthink these things so that’s really reassuring thank you :smile:

Reply 3

Vetmum13

8

Original post by Random11_206

Oh okay thank you so much! Yeah I definitely have a tendency to overthink these things so that’s really reassuring thank you :smile:

I’m trying to remember how many in tour were Castle students and think it was only 2 of them last year. You can get involved in any college theatre productions without being in that college. Honestly whichever college you end up in you end up loving, No wrong choices.

Reply 4

Carrotsroom

13

You definitely won't miss out on the social stuff just because you're self-catered. I'm at John Snow and my flatmates and I usually cook at the same time. We also do have (paid) formal dinners and (free) college buffets throughout each term so you get the best of both worlds really.
Castle is definitely very oversubscribed, so even if you rank it first you probably wont get placed there.

Reply 5

Anonymous #1

My reading of the allocation process is that your best and possibly only chance of getting one of the very popular and/or small Bailey colleges is if they are top of your list and then it is down to where you fall in the random allocation. You have nothing to lose if yoy put Castle down first, but where people are likely to be dissapointed is when they place all the most oversubscribed colleges at the top of their rankings which seems somewhat unrealistic as they try and match everybody’s first preference before they start moving down the list. In your situation I would give it a punt. I’m doing similar by placing a different Bailey college first, but my other top ranks are all a lot less popular ones that I won’t be too disappointed to be allocated to.

Original post by Random11_206

So basically, I desperately need to rank the colleges (the deadline is tomorrow i am incredibly indecisive). But I was originally going to go with the self catered as my top four, however although I think id prefer the idea of self catered i don't think i'm massively bothered about it, as catered seems to be quite sociable and you'd cook for yourself in 2nd and 3rd year anyway. I also really enjoy acting (specifically more Shakespeare and classical stuff, and not musical theatre) so then i saw the castle theatre company which looks AMAZING and they do Shakespeare each summer and go on tour, and I quite liked it anyway so I don't know whether its worth putting that at the top of my list, mainly just because of the society? Or maybe if anyone knows if it would still be possible to join it even if I'm not at that college. It does have a very different vibe from Jon Snow and the other self catered colleges, as far as i can tell. So any advice/thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Hi there

Everyone above has given great ideas that have hopefully put you at ease about your choices. If you're interested in theatre, Collingwood might be worth looking into as well as it's home to a state of the art Mark Hillery Arts Centre where several student productions are organised and you can partake in. I believe they have something called Woodplayers Troupe which also participates in Edinburgh Fringe (Additionally, Durham Student Theatre (DST) is open to all Durham students irrespective of college so even if John Snow doesn't have a society, you can always join DST.

You can check out some theatre-related content on @thedurhamstudent Tiktok channel. I've linked some for you here:
Queer Cabaret 2024
Collingwood Edinburgh Fringe Festival
DST Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Castle Shakespeare tour

Hope this helps :smile:

-Himieka

(edited 11 months ago)

College Ranking?

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