Do universities like people that have done the silver DofE award?

Hi, im currently in year 10 and have completed my silver DofE practice expedition, however, i hated it. I have really bad back pain, and the weight of the bag didnt help, i also, very smartly, injured my ankle on the 17k. I also found the experience bad as i had to share a tent with people im not really friends with (none of my close friends are doing DofE). I really hated the experience and honestly dont want to do it again, for the practice expedition i hired kit, my bag and sleeping bag, however my parents want to buy this equipment for the actual expedition. I dont know whether i should do it or not, my teacher leading the expedition even spoke to me privately asking if i still wanted to do it because she knew i had a bad experience. I really dont want the rest of my group to suffer because of me, so is it better for me not to do it? I can tell my parents i dont want to quite easily but im just wondering if its worth me doing it. Will universities care if i have the award?

Hi, im currently in year 10 and have completed my silver DofE practice expedition, however, i hated it. I have really bad back pain, and the weight of the bag didnt help, i also, very smartly, injured my ankle on the 17k. I also found the experience bad as i had to share a tent with people im not really friends with (none of my close friends are doing DofE). I really hated the experience and honestly dont want to do it again, for the practice expedition i hired kit, my bag and sleeping bag, however my parents want to buy this equipment for the actual expedition. I dont know whether i should do it or not, my teacher leading the expedition even spoke to me privately asking if i still wanted to do it because she knew i had a bad experience. I really dont want the rest of my group to suffer because of me, so is it better for me not to do it? I can tell my parents i dont want to quite easily but im just wondering if its worth me doing it. Will universities care if i have the award?

Hi, im currently in year 10 and have completed my silver DofE practice expedition, however, i hated it. I have really bad back pain, and the weight of the bag didnt help, i also, very smartly, injured my ankle on the 17k. I also found the experience bad as i had to share a tent with people im not really friends with (none of my close friends are doing DofE). I really hated the experience and honestly dont want to do it again, for the practice expedition i hired kit, my bag and sleeping bag, however my parents want to buy this equipment for the actual expedition. I dont know whether i should do it or not, my teacher leading the expedition even spoke to me privately asking if i still wanted to do it because she knew i had a bad experience. I really dont want the rest of my group to suffer because of me, so is it better for me not to do it? I can tell my parents i dont want to quite easily but im just wondering if its worth me doing it. Will universities care if i have the award?

honestly not worth it and for practically 0 reward. too prioritise your physical and mental health instead. obviously unis like you to have some extracurriculars but that can be literally anything else apart from silver dofe like genuinely it will not disadvantage you or be a missed opportunity.
if you’re in year 10 you might want to do NCS instead which is a much nicer and more fun experience and something you can defo put in personal statement. also prioritise work experience. you can also do volunteering or things at school like mentoring, being a prefect, joining a club. you can even do lamda public speaking or acting levels and since you’re already in year 10 you can skip quite a few levels depending on ability and even be doing bronze level for example.
anyways i hope everything works out 🫶

ok thank u, ive already done my lamda bronze public speaking and reading for performance and im currently working towards my silver public speaking

brilliant !! i acc did silver w D a while back so if you need any help or advice pls lmk really well done for having already done bronze!

well done!!! any advice would be great, i got distinctions in my bronze awards but im struggling with the silver impromptu

honestly not worth it and for practically 0 reward. too prioritise your physical and mental health instead. obviously unis like you to have some extracurriculars but that can be literally anything else apart from silver dofe like genuinely it will not disadvantage you or be a missed opportunity.
if you’re in year 10 you might want to do NCS instead which is a much nicer and more fun experience and something you can defo put in personal statement. also prioritise work experience. you can also do volunteering or things at school like mentoring, being a prefect, joining a club. you can even do lamda public speaking or acting levels and since you’re already in year 10 you can skip quite a few levels depending on ability and even be doing bronze level for example.
anyways i hope everything works out 🫶

They don't really care about NCS, work experience, being a prefect, joining a club (unless directly relevant)< or LAMDA tbh. Best thing would be to read and explore your subject

...but im just wondering if its worth me doing it. Will universities care if i have the award?

ofc they would care about work experience in the relevant field, this is the case for like most degrees & unis. not sure how you could say they don’t haha.
the NCS thing is good for interviews as well if they ask about working in a team or overcoming adversity or whatever. and it was just an example anyhow.
i said lamda as an example too because it’s an easy extracurricular to get into and you can start at a high level instead of music for example where you’d have to start at a low grade due to having no prior knowledge, and it takes years to get to higher grades. i speak from experience. also it turns out op already does lamda haha. public speaking is a great skill to have regardless, again helps for interviews, and it’s not a fairly common hobby that every student is doing.
i’m not too sure what degree exactly op wants to do, but for healthcare like med/dent, absolutely you have to have extracurricular to show you are well rounded. even if they don’t inherently sound linked to the degree, you need to find a way to link it. eg relating public speaking to having good communication skills with patients. also extracurriculars are important for oxbridge.
reading is brilliant for sure! but extracurriculars are also good. not that op should get too bogged down with them though, of course academics come first.
thanks for advice though.

They don't really care about work experience because it's about who you know, not what, and it's an academic degree you are taking up. Sure - it's good for things like choosing a career and potentially on a grad CV, but it has very little relevance for a uni application
Why would NCS be any different from DOFE, they don't care about either. Sure, Lamda may give you a small bonus for interviews, but what actually helps is doing interview prep and actually knowing your subject. It's not a test of public speaking - but your ability to demonstrate passion for your subject.
No, unfortunately you are completely wrong. Here are Cambridge's exact words:
"We do not recommend that you include lots of information about extra-curricular activities. This means any non-academic activities that are not related to your chosen course.
Participating in these activities will not increase your chances of receiving a Cambridge offer. So, your personal statement should primarily be about your academic interests."
So, it's completely irrelevant - obviously still good if you enjoy it but for Cambridge it literally does not matter at all.

again we don’t know what degree op wants to do. for example, for med/dent you pretty much have to do work experience. even if it’s online. it’s important to do work experience for other degrees too though. even if somehow unis don’t care (????), it’ll at least help op know if they realistically like the degree they’re choosing
op said they hated the practice dofe and didn’t want to do it. i never said NCS is miles different from dofe, i was just giving an alternative example of something they could do if they didn’t wanna do dofe that’s a bit similar in terms of the skills like team building, but that imo is better and more fun. other people suggested it too.
i was just giving some examples of things. i never said op has to do these specific things. no one is saying that. so it’s silly to pick apart each examples i gave. please kindly stop.
i also agreed with you that reading around the subject is very important to show interest. defo. my school kept mentioning it to us many times as well! not sure why you have such a problem with the advice i’m giving when it is similar to everyone else’s and op replied to me and didn’t seem to have any issue haha.
i also said academics comes first and i don’t think extracurriculars are the be all or end all. this post was asking about dofe in the context of doing extracurriculars, which is why i was suggesting some.
again, thx for your advice i’m sure it’ll also be helpful to op. bye

Yes, you need work experience for med because it's a stressful job, and universities don't want someone to go through 6 years of medical school only to realise they don't like it. That's specific to med and dent.
Look, the issue is is that your advice is just not helpful for someone applying to uni, and if anything is harmful. That's why I said you were wrong, because claiming for medicine you 'absolutely need an extracurricular to show you are well rounded' is actually bad advice, it causes unecessary stress and is just plain misinformation.
You didn't say academics come first, or that extracurriculars aren't the be all and end all, and I wasn't picking apart your examples, it was literally all of the examples you chose which were wrong. Also, I know you didn't say 'op had to do these specific examples,' but what you did say is that extracurriculars are important, which is completely wrong. Thus, your argument in that 'I didn't say op had to do these exact things' is not really relevant, because you were suggesting they do extracurriculars for a uni application, and that 'they need it for med,' which is completely false.
Also, you conveniently ignored my quote from Cambridge's website - which directly contradicts your point earlier. It's just not helpful for anyone if you spread misinformation - don't take it personal, its for ops benefit.
Also, you said it's important to have these activities for a personal statement. That is again harmful advice, especially for someone who wants to go to Oxbridge, who explictly say to not include any extracurriculars. So you'd be harming their application by telling them to include it - hence why I replied.