Understanding a university offer

[mrsrhodgilbert]

My daughter did her A levels this year but didn't feel ready for university so is taking a year out and is applying for 2013 entry and doing a couple of resits.She has had one offer already and today a second offer which has confused us slightly. It is for her safe place choice, in terms of being close to home and lower grades. In fact she already has enough points from this summer to meet their requirements as they accept AS levels too. She has over 300 points now before resist. The offer today asks for 260 points as a conditional offer. I was expecting this offer, if they wanted her, to come as unconditional on the grounds that she already exceeds the requirements. We feel we need to understand what is happening and wonder how to proceed. Can anyone here shed any light on the thinking behind this offer perhaps or is it acceptable to request clarification from admissions? I don't want to put my foot in it.

The conditions might be to produce her certificates with her current results if she hasn't submitted them yet, then it will change to unconditional.

What grades has she actually got? She can't count the AS if she has an A2 in that subject, so if she has 40 point from a C at AS in art and 80 points for a C in art at A2 she has 80 points not 120.

She has a B at AS for history which she didn't do for A2, no double counting. That plus her A2grades give her over the required points already. Didn't notice anything about presenting her certificates, in fact she doesn't have them yet.

If she is doing resits, then officially she doesn't have her results yet.

DS had an offer which was put as 'conditional' and they just wanted the paperwork. Do get her to call admissions just to get them to confirm that though - they are very used to people calling to check these sorts of things, it's one of the things they are there for and they'll be very happy to put her mind at ease. It's best if she makes the call herself, as sometimes they will only deal with the student directly.

Thank you for answering cream tea, I hadn't considered that. But if she doesn't improve these are her results and they are above the requirements. We actually spoke to a tutor at an open day recently and she recognised that dd had enough points already. Still a bit confused.

Ahhh so she hasn't 'cashed in' the AS yet? So IF she cashed in she would have 300 points. As cream teas suggests she will cash in this summer once she's done the resits which means she doesn't have the points yet, and could potentially do worse. Not sure whether a worse result at resit can be disregarded for an earlier better result?

ds1's certificates came through last Friday for his A2's in the summer so your dd's school may be about to post them. You could ask if they have them and then ring admissions as AMumInScotland suggests

I applied to university in the summer and was given a conditional offer from one of my choices even though I wasn't waiting for results. As PP have said the condition was producing the paperwork - even though that was a requirement everywhere else. Barking.

Foxtrot, where / how did you find out that the condition was producing the paperwork? Dd understands that the best results will stand. We are feeling our way a bit here as we didn't get involved in the process when dd was in yr 13. School will help if we ask but I know there's a wealth of info on here. Twitchy, do you think this offer will become unconditional in summer when results are finalised? Thank you for continued advice.

I telephoned the admissions office of the university who had made the offer, where I was told that it was completely normal for an offer to be called conditional on producing the paperwork though all my other offers were unconditional and generally spoke to me like I was a bit of a 'nana.

I'd assume that if she has the points then even though it's a conditional offer she has met the conditions and should proceed as if that's what she's got. Congratulations to your DD to getting her safety place

Thank you for that. We'll make further enquiries tomorrow, will start with school I think. I thought this part would be straight forward!

Yes it will turn unconditional in the summer. UCAS get results direct from the exam boards and on track you should see the offer turn from conditional to unconditional

If it stays as her first choice that is - she might reject it!

Sorry titchy not twitchy! She might reject it, I rather hope she will as its very close to home and I think she might be feeling braver by next September. But for now it's helping her to come to terms with the idea of living away from home. It's a small uni in a lovely, familiar city and she could get home easily and quickly if she wanted to. Up until this evening I expected a simple unconditional offer to come through assuming her ps was ok.

It might be a condition other than grades. I got a 'conditional' offer for an MPhil, the condition was a reference.

When she clicks on the course code on UCAS Track, what does it say the conditions are?

As others have said, it might just be to give them the paperwork, but the only way to know for sure is to check Track.

Thanks boomting we will check that again although she says she has done and it revealed no more information. I spoke to the ucas coordinator at school yesterday and she was puzzled too and would have expected an unconditional offer. She suggested it just looked like their standard offer but did say some universities revisit their offers to amend them in the coming months. She even wondered if they had read he rapplication properly but I wouldn't dare suggest that.
However, grateful as I am for all your kind answers there does not seem to be a consensus so tomorrow we are going to construct a carefully worded email from dds account and send it to admissions asking for clarification. She now has 4 offers, still awaiting news from the 5th and sent her application in less than 2 weeks ago so i'm presuming the bulk of the applications have been considered now. I will report back if anyone's interested. It may help someone else one day.

An update but not an answer. Dd emailed the admissions dept and has received a strange email back. It acknowledges her points so far, no quibble there, but says they note she has predicted grades in her application and ask if she is still planning to do the resits. It also asks for her certificates. The end of the email refers us to the admissions section of their website. We have read this and it offers no further info, merely establishes that she more than meets minimum requirements and that resits are not an issue for them.

I have spoken again to a very experienced 6th form tutor and university advisor at school and he is baffled. Cannot understand why they are asking about her intention to do resits, she has enough points for this institution and course and in theory even if she does worse they should take her highest results. She will have to respond and say she is intending to resit because that is the truth but she is genuinely interested in this place even though she could do better. In fact she has received an unconditional offer from somewhere wanting higher grades which she is not nearly so keen on.

Can anyone shed any more light on what the issue might be and in the meantime we will probably have to call them, but we're concerned not to appear pushy/thick/desperate etc. If it was just us being confused I would suspect we were just being a bit dim here but for 2 tutors at school to be confused too I think there's more to it.

Is it because they want to see cashed in certificate? Presumably if she resits then she hasn't cashed in. Sorry that's all I can think it will be something to do with paperwork.

We had to ring the uni on results day as they hadn't changed DD's offer to unconditional and it was because she had missed sending in a GCSE cert in English when she sent all her certs in. In fact, it nearly gave us a heart attack as she checked track first and we had to go into school thinking she had missed her offer, which she hadn't, thank goodness.

I'm a bit vague on this cashed in 'thing'. The tutor this morning said she had cashed in her grades from the summer and she is going to collect her A level certificates from school tomorrow, which we can easily take to the university in person next week if admissions is open.

The email was very vague and didn't answer our question of what the conditions are, if not the points she already has. They just asked if she was still planning to resit. Thats what everyone is struggling to understand. Why do they want to know that? She has acheived everything they have asked for.

Finally an answer. We called admissions this morning and it turns out that asking whether she was still planning to resit was totally irrelevant. She will have an unconditional offer when she produces her certificates, so all that worry about nothing. If only they had made that clear initially but thank you to everyone who has offered advice. Just for info, it was dh who called as dd is working today and we wanted to get it cleared up before the weekend/holidays and they were very happy to talk to him.