Thread 18 - Corona Cohort Enrolling to Year 13 2021, Invasive Infections & Uni Uncertainty

[Orangecinnamon21]

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Ds just text me from work. He was meant to collect his business studies exam results from school this morn. He never remembers anything. They don't do A level, it's an A level equivalent. So the written exam is earlier. Then coursework is completed in year 13 the written exam is 50% of the final grade. I guess he will just have to wait until he goes back. Unless the school post it.

When choosing a back up uni, how much lower should you go for regarding grade requirements? If your first choice wants AAA, is BBB low enough or should you look for one wanting BBC?

@BlueMarigold it depends on the child! If they don't mind the uncertainty of Clearing, you can go for a high insurance choice, but if they want a really secure backstop, then you need to go for the grades they would get on a bad day. It is also worth looking at discoveruni to see how flexible they are on grades, lots of courses routinely accept dropped grades.

But don't forget that the best course may not be the one with the highest grade requirements. Who knows what will happen with unconditional offers for 2022?!

I didn’t think they did unconditional offers anymore or are they coming back?

@BlueMarigold It’s really hard to say at the moment. In the past it was fairly safe to have an insurance not too far below the firm requirements as you could always pick something up in clearing if your results were too low for both firm & insurance. Plus it was fairly common to be accepted even if you dropped a grade or two.

However so many unis this year had no places at all in clearing. It’s hard to predict what it will be like next year.

For context, my middle child had an offer for his firm of A* AA but was accepted with AAB two years ago and there were places in clearing at other very good unis that would also have accepted those grades. I doubt he would be so lucky this year.

Can’t believe this time next year it’ll be us picking up results and panicking over clearing. Although DD wants to apply this year but defer her place and take a year out with a defined end date of the following September to take up a uni place.

Roll on year 13!

Just got the 18th birthday to deal with in just over 3 weeks then the hard work can really begin.

@BlueMarigold

When choosing a back up uni, how much lower should you go for regarding grade requirements? If your first choice wants AAA, is BBB low enough or should you look for one wanting BBC?

For the course DD wants to do, everywhere seems to have similar grades.

I can't get my head around that NCT.

Say you want to do (tries to think of subject that no dc is thinking of) .... Latin. At Oxford. Supposedly/pretending the top course in the country. How can (thinks of place none of us live) Herts or Plymouth ( I grew up near and nightclubbed there) ask for the same. 3 x A*. No thanks Cambridge I'm off to Anglia.....

I'm finding the same. It's hardly an insurance then is it?

@GrealishHairband when ds1 applied he was offered lower grades if he chose that university as firm choice. So for example Essex university offered BBC if they were firm choice. But if insurance choice it was ABC. UEA offered ABB if they were firm choice, which he chose, I think the grades needed to be higher if he put them as insurance. So some universities seem to give lower offers if they are firm. Though we didn't apply to the top or RG universities as Ds1 was never going to be a 3 A* student, so maybe the same doesn't apply to them as they probably all was A's.

We are in the process of making a list of 5 unis to apply for. The top ones wants AAA. The one she likes as her insurance want BBB. The rest are AAB, AAB and ABB. There are other unis we haven’t looked at yet but some of them go down to BBC and even CCD. There are plenty of choices but I don’t know whether her bar is set too high or too low or maybe it’s about right and I am overthinking it. I just don’t want her to have to go through clearing as it looks too stressful. The other thing is we don’t know her UCAS predictions yet. Probably AAA or AAB. If they predicted her AAB then I guess she could go down to a BBC on a bad day?

For Occupational Therapy, the entry grades are BBB almost everywhere. There are one or two places which offer BBC I think. But entry is also by interview so Dd needs to have 5 decent options in case she fluffs some of the interviews. I can’t really see her getting lower than BBC, but of course you never know.

DS's are virtually all the same. If we take out Cambridge (A*AA) then the others are all ABB/AAB.

If we go lower (eg to BBB) the rank in league tables and type of uni does massively alter and the course he wants to do doesn't really exist. However, York does have an alternative social sciences type degree on BBB so that might work as back up.

Feeling a bit brighter today as had a better sleep. DS's awful cough is eventually dwindling.

Good to know things are better today @Piggywaspushed

Oblomov there's only a limited number of places that offer the course she wants and they all want three As

@icanbewhatiwant I thought the ucas form meant you didn't put them in a ranking order? How would they know if it was a firm choice?

@NCTDN Once they receive their offers from the 5 they have applied to (obviously may not get an offer from all) they then have to decide to choose one as firm and one as insurance.

Ah I see. Then the universities know if they are favourite or not?

Yes once they reach the acceptance stage.

I can't believe they are heading into year 13!

Does anyone know how unconditional offers work?

Yes...exactly that. Offers will be made and they decide which to pick. So you'll have a firm (or first) choice. Then an insurance (or second choice)

@NCTDN Ds1 was offered an unconditional place at Harper Adams. So if he accepted their offer and put them as firm choice then he would have a place whatever his A level results were. But Ds didn't accept their offer.

@icanbewhatiwant that’s interesting. I really hope they make unconditional offers to take some of the pressure off. I had it in my head that unconditional offers were made if someone either already had their results or had met the conditions already by getting UCAS points through AS levels or BTECS.

We've established this morning that a combination of AS results and other qualifications means that DD already had enough ucas points for the course at a couple of places. These are not on her radar but it's good to know.

@BlueMarigold I don't know what the criteria usually are for unconditional offers. Ds1's friend had 3 unconditional offers, he got A* in all 4 GCSEs and same in his 4 AS levels. He didn't accept them though as he accepted and went to Cambridge. Another of his friends got an unconditional to study film at Norwich arts university, which he did go on to do.

I think ds1 only got an unconditional because it was a new biology degree course that Harper Adams hadn't done before (they usually have agricultural and animal based degrees)

I thought maybe they were only offered to the best students. But I might be wrong. Ds's friend who had all the unconditional offers said to Ds "I didn't think you were the type of person to get an unconditional"