Birmingham drops unconditional offers - Times today

[ErrolTheDragon]

Good. I thought it might interest a few people.
I'll put sharetoken link in next post

[ErrolTheDragon]

Unconditional offers ditched by university in ‘bribes’ row

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/birmingham-university-stops-making-controversial-conditional-unconditional-offers-t83vt79ns?shareToken=58f9bc695ac99ef3ec5fc0e939753508

[janinlondon]

But they will still make unconditional offers. Bit of a half hearted effort there Birmingham.

[boys3]

errol the article seemed to indicate it was the "conditional unconditionals" that Birmingham have said they will stop, as opposed to all conditionals.

Presumably as the demographic dip eases and gets replaced by a bulge in numbers we'll see something similar with a reduced number of conditionals as it will be slightly less of a buyer's market?

[SoonerthanIthought]

It would be interesting to know if there's any evidence that candidates with unconditionals at Birmingham then 'underperformed'' at A level - I had read somewhere that they didn't (unlike some other places, although query cause and effect relationship), but i can't remember where!
In which case making unconditionals unconditional seems a reasonable approach - it doesn't hassle the student into making it the firm, which was the other objection to uifs.

[latedecember1963]

My son had an unconditional offer for Birmingham 2 years ago for a course that usually asked for AAA.
He accepted it but was determined to still do well in his A Levels as he didn't want to be in a situation where anyone could say he didn't deserve to be there.
He got AAA&B.

[SoonerthanIthought]

So interesting Hugo that Nottingham and Birmingham had such different experiences (if they did - I am only vaguely remembering something I read about Birmingham uc holders performing well at a level!). I'd assumed Nott were only offering ucs to high predictees as well - but maybe not.

I for one (and I realise I may well be the only one!) won't see it as necessarily positive if Birmingham drop ucs altogether - I think for some dstudents who are really finding the stress difficult they have a role to play in the rich tapestry of university admissions! And I've mentioned on another thread they also avoid the accommodation difficulties that can arise for insurance/clearing students.

[GreatBigNoise]

It would be interesting to know if there's any evidence that candidates with unconditionals at Birmingham then 'underperformed'' at A level

It also be interesting to know if they underpreformed on their degree.

I think all unconditionals that are based on predicted grades should be scrapped. Unconditional offers are based on predicted grades and predicted grades are more often wrong than right. It’s ridiculous. Why should students with artificially high predicted grades get unconditional offers ahead of students that don’t even though their achieved grades might be identical. How can anyone argue that it’s fair.

[Boyskeepswinging]

I've said this before but it's worth repeating. Essentially there are two kinds of unconditional offers: bums on seats and merit. The first is to ensure that courses are full. This may be down to the demographic downturn, a subject or uni not being popular etc. These are a relatively recent phenomenon, basically since the demographic downturn coincided with the deregulation of student places, hence the mad scramble for bums on seats.

Merit based unconditionals have been around since time immemorial. Whilst predicted A level grades will be considered, it's the applicant's track record that is important. So excellent GCSE results, AS (if taken), extra curriculars like the science olympiads, playing music or sport at national level etc depending on the discipline. Some uni's interview and/or test and unconditional offers are made to those who perform exceptionally well. This is because if you're a superstar you have the pick of the uni's and obvs they want to entice the superstars to come to them. Hence unconditional offers, often accompanied by generous scholarships as an incentive. This one is less contentious for me as it rewards kids with a great track record and exceptional performance at interview/whatever. Not just the Head of Sixth Form blithely stating that Sam will definitely get 3 A*s and the uni blindly thinking "Great" despite getting 4s in their GCSEs.

[KeyboardplayerXXX]

My DD had an UC from Birmingham from a course that requires AAB - English Lit - and she got AAB! I like to think her UC offer was merit based and in her case it didn't make a blind bit of difference to her work ethic.

[doistayordoigo]

My DS also had an unconditional from Birmingham which he accepted, and is about to go back for his second year. The course offer was AAB and he got AAAD taking 4 A Levels, so I also would like to think his offer was merit based. As he has ASD the certainty of knowing he was going to a university he really loved and having his accommodation sorted early probably allowed him to relax and concentrate on his exams, rather than him taking his foot off he gas.