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Higher education

Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

Original poster

University Applications ........

142 replies

mummyofteens · 22/10/2010 12:23

Can someone please explain to me how university place offers are already been given to some young people when the closing date for applications is not until the middle of January. Most of my son's friends haven't even submitted their application yet :/

OP posts:
grumpyoldbookworm · 23/10/2010 17:41

My DS has one offer and one interview already - about 3/4 of his year's applications are in now and over half of them have offers. As 2011 is the last year of 'uncapped' tuition fees I think demand will be high so I wouldn't wait for January. That's his (state) school's advice anyway.

Original poster
mummyofteens · 23/10/2010 17:54

My DS has sent his application but his school has not given out any advice about getting applications in early :/

On a slightly different subject, does it seem that more universities are interviewing than ever before. A friend has told me that she will be interviewed for a place at Sheffield Hallam for Primary Education degree. I thought it was only oxbridge/medicine that interviewed but I must be wrong :/

OP posts:
grumpyoldbookworm · 23/10/2010 19:25

I meant this year tuition fees are capped, not uncapped. Oops. Has been a long week! DS has just had acknowledgement from another uni to say that their reply will take a while as they are anticipating over 1500 applications for 99 places!

BoffinMum · 23/10/2010 20:12

Well if it's vocational leading to QTS or involving a lot of placements, that would probably be why they are interviewing. Otherwise it's very expensive. To interview someone properly means about £40+ of staff time.

frakkinstein · 23/10/2010 21:37

Also interviews for courses leading to QTS often involve literacy and numeracy tests (no point taking someone on and training them if they wouldn't pass the QTS tests!)....

Interviews are used by most courses to differentiate between the middling candidates as opposed to the obvious yeses and the he'll nos who will get straight offers or rejections.

LondonMother · 25/10/2010 17:33

I was amazed to learn that you can get onto a degree course in medicine with no interview nowadays. I know to get an offer you have to have 20 A* A levels, a Nobel Peace Prize and a personal reference from Barack Obama, but speaking as a patient I'd find it quite reassuring to know that my future GP/surgeon had been given the onceover by a couple of practising medics before the UK taxpayer invests tens of thousands in their medical training.

BoffinMum · 25/10/2010 17:52

We have about six people apply for every place (admittedly not all will be first choice applications). That's £12,000 in staff costs to interview them all, plus admin time to arrange the interviews, and to write to them afterwards with the outcome. We just can't afford it. Nor would it make much difference who we choose, I imagine.

BoffinMum · 25/10/2010 17:53

But as I said, vocational courses do interview whereas other ones often don't.

webwiz · 25/10/2010 20:41

LondonMother when I applied for Medicine 25 years ago I got all my offers without interview.

littleducks · 25/10/2010 20:48

I would definately recommend applying early, if you dont get offers at all (unlikely if you have chosen well but possible) then you can use ucas 'extra' for a second chance

Competition is fierce, lots of worries about funding etc.

thekidsmom · 25/10/2010 21:19

We in the midst of this process, again.

My DD submitted her application on 1st October and had acknowledgements from 3 in the first 10 days, a request for a piece of work to review from 1 just last week but no contact from the 5th as yet - so the timings vary.

(It is just 5 unis by the way, not 6 as has been mentioned - or 4 for medicine or vets)

All of the girls in her school had sent their applications in by Oct 5th (school deadline), whether applying for Oxbridge or not, and there has been a steady stream of offers since about the 10th of October.

As much as anything I'd recommend applying early to cut down the family stress level of waiting for news!!!

RustyBear · 25/10/2010 22:06

Thekidsmom - it was me who mentioned 6 because that's how many DS was able to apply for (he started in 2006) It changed to 5 either the next year or the one after that, because DD, who is 2 years younger could only apply for 5.

thekidsmom · 26/10/2010 10:40

I know you're right RustyBear - these things seem to change often. My eldest also applied for 5 two years ago so the change is pretty recent......

Just one offer from anywhere would be great right now!

witcheseve · 26/10/2010 11:08

Dreading the stress of all this next year.

Can someone tell me how it works. Say they need AAA just to apply for a course, and they arn't sitting the final A2 exams for 9 months do just make offers on predicted grades/personal statements. What would happen if actual results were AAB or worse?

muddleduck · 26/10/2010 11:16

So in the 'old days' we would decide in September what would requirements were and then process each application as it arrived to see if it met these requirements. No advantage for early/late applications.

In the current climate (where everything is much more uncertain) we look at each application as it arrives and (i) make offers to the clearly outstanding applications and (ii) reject any 'weaker' applications (that don't meet our basic requirements). Then in January we process a large pile of all the applications that are neither 'outstanding' or 'weaker'. So still no advantage for early/late applications. This strategy is known as the 'gathered field' approach and is becoming more common as there is more uncertaintly and change each each year.

muddleduck · 26/10/2010 11:18

witcheseve

in the current climate, if a student applies for a AAA course and is made an AAA offer then they will most likely not be accepted if they get AAB or worse.

This is why it is very very important to choose an insurance offer that is lower than their first choice and that is well within their ability.

webwiz · 26/10/2010 11:18

Places are offered on predictions/personal statement/GCSE results but if the actual results are worse than the offer then the university doesn't have to give you a place.

Normally students keep two offers - one for example of AAA and a second reserve one that is hopefully lower such as AAB so if the student gets AAB they would take up the place at the reserve university. If they got lower than both their offers they would have no place so would have to go into clearing or reapply the next year. Sometimes universities do give places to students who just miss their offers but its so competitive that I wouldn't bank on it.

muddleduck · 26/10/2010 11:19

thekidsmom

unfortunately there is likely to be more waiting this year than in the past, even for the very early applications. (see my earlier post)

witcheseve · 26/10/2010 11:25

One uni we looked at were very strict on GCSE results. They needed to have 15 points from 9. Informed us that applications with 18 points were looked at first, then 17, and so on. DD has 16. Wonder if she stands a chance? Other unis are not so hot on points.

Ponders · 26/10/2010 11:27

muddleduck & BoffinMum, I heard that York will screen out any applicant with less than a B in the subject dropped after AS - can you tell me if this is true, please?

DS got a D in the dropped subject, but very good As in the 3 he's continuing with - 100% in 3 of the modules - is it likely that the D might stop any university considering him?

(He has had one offer, but has only applied to 4 at this point & I'm still fretting that he won't get any more Blush)

Ponders · 26/10/2010 11:28

(His GCSEs were 5 A* & 4 A, if that makes any difference)

muddleduck · 26/10/2010 11:31

Ponders
These sorts of rules are completely course specific, but as the number of applicants increases IME courses admissions staff are looking for more rules of this sort that allow quick processing of forms. FWIW we don't have a general rule like this, but this would be a big problem if the dropped subject was relevant to the course.

witcheseve · 26/10/2010 11:33

DD needs to get a B in her AS subject she is dropping, however, she wants to do medicine so we are only looking at the most competative course requirements. Not sure about other courses.

Hope these uni mumsnetters don't mind us picking their brains.

Ponders · 26/10/2010 12:03

thanks, muddleduck Smile

He's applying for Politics & Philosophy; the dropped AS was French, continuing subjects are Politics, History & Economics. The offer he's had is AAB from Sheffield.

(Can't comment on his personal statement, but his predicted grades are A*, A & A/B & he has very enthusiastic reports from his teachers. But if he did get screened out at the start none of that would be looked at, would it?)

frakkinstein · 26/10/2010 12:17

Is he retaking?

When I applied our AS grades weren't part of the offer and weren't declared on the UCAS form. I think the school liked to pretend they didn't exist!