UCAS forms sent - just the waiting game now !

[snowyowl70]

My super organised DD1 has had email today to say her forms/reference have been received and should be at her chosen Unis in the next 48 hrs !!!!! So the waiting begins - to those seasoned parents who have done this before can you remember how long they had to wait for their first responses ? At least 2 out of her 5 may call her for interview (MFL) so am guessing these might be fairly on the ball ?

We haven't had that letter from Exeter, DD has a 3A offer.

A couple of friends who were 3A candidates didn't get any offers under the old UCCA system, they got rejected by Bristol as first choice, for some reason Bristol in those days rejected a lot from our Northern Direct Grant Grammar whilst Durham tended to accept a lot, so school advised not to put it down, and then all the other popular unis rejected them as well, since they refused to put down Hull and Lancaster which our school always advised as insurance They both ended up at Oxford, it was the days you sat the entrance exam in the seventh term. It wasn't uncommon for candidates to have that experience in the seventies at least (I am very old ) I did feel the new system had removed a layer of worry.

For us the choice of unis was more complicated because my DD and her old school were a victim of the 2012 English/English Lit GCSE debacle, same board as Wycombe who went public on it (and St. Paul's Girls' made them all resit!) so in Year 12 we just assumed that it had cost her any chance of studying English at a good uni but then her UMS at AS couldn't have been better and she was predicted A AA and (different) school were advising she could apply for English anywhere. She is dyslexic and dyspraxic as well so I would actually like her to take a gap year to grow up a bit and focus on improving her organisational skills, I fear we will have to go and tunnel through piles of paper to retrieve her from her room after the first term so was happy to advise her to go for it and then take a gap year if it didn't work out. Add to that the complication of applying for a joint honours combination that is not offered at many unis and having to consider two seperate departments and her "quirky" interests we are still going around in circles. However clearly the English departments that are rated in the top five have ignored that English GCSE result and having a blip at GCSE or AS is no longer as big an issue as it would have been in DD1s competitive year.

Littleham your DD2 has been singled out by her school as clearly having considerable potential. The current DS went light on work (to say the least :)) at AS and emerged (after dire January modules) with AABB, which in the context was nothing short of a miracle. He's sitting on an Oxford offer and a lovely year abroad UCL offer and a Bristol offer and a York offer. Still waiting without much expectation for Durham. But in short, don't worry too much about Bs!

Thanks - that's so reassuring.

Yes, the letter is very specific they have to go up to A (from the 3As) to go down a grade in the non-specified subject. It seemed sensible to me as presumably getting A in the subject(s) you want to study is more significant than slipping a grade in the one you don't.

Shooting, I feel your pain at the going round in circles with obscure JH combinations. I am not going to tell my younger ds they exist - if he finds out about them on his own, I will leave the country!

dd also still waiting for Durham - I don't think she will consider it seriously if they do offer - it is hard to keep an open mind for this long when everyone is talking about accommodation and forming and stuff!

Every sixth former in dd1's large school has heard back from all five choices apart from two or three students. Guess where they applied?

Durham has won the prize for last university to reply. She has been advised by her school to e mail in case her application didn't get through.

Obviously worry about Bs if she's thinking of Cambridge, because they don't have Oxford's additional tests.

Good point ventura. I might even get her to ring up the admission departments in September if she slips to a B at AS, as it is better to know beforehand.

We did that with Durham for eldest daughter and they said she would definitely be considered (didn't realise it would be for so long though!)

Littleham Certainly one of DDs friends was told by one Cambridge College that though they really wanted to offer her a place for English they could not because she had a B in Theatre Studies at AS and it was their policy to not offer to anyone with Bs at AS. However they asked her to apply again the following year. She went on to get 4A*s, took a gap year and they accepted her the following year. However she was from a private school and that was in more competitive times. So it would be wise to ask the question.

Another question (sorry to besiege you with so many)....

We were told that if you meet your offer (in terms of grades) then your FIRM choice is contractually obliged to take you. Is this the case for an INSURANCE choice as well?

The insurance is contractually bound if you don't get your grades for your firm but you do get your grades for your insurance.

Interestingly Shooting, while applications for Oxford reached a record high for entry in 2011 (up by 1.2%), Cambridge applications were down (by 3.6%). So arguably it was a dead easy year to apply to Cambridge, not more difficult.

I think what we see now in terms of looser grades is less to do with competition and much more to do with universities attempting to get their A* policy right, with a big push on persuading offerees to firm rather than merely insure.

Ventura it was the year before the pre fees hike year and the point was that some colleges had that policy then at least, so wise to ask.

That is what is driving the relaxation of grades and prompting universities like Birmingham etc. to try new strategies. There is real anxiety in a lot of RG and equivalent universities that cuts are going to become necessary if they fail to attract good students in sufficient numbers. www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9530377/Students-who-fall-short-on-A-levels-win-places-at-top-universities.html

It's fine to ask I agree but the tendency will always be to encourage and also to be very guarded about particular policies, so a degree of caution is wise. This was feedback I assume, so a little different. What a bonkers policy too....

I was picking up your point about competitiveness in the cycle that you're talking about, which was 2011. It's interesting that the applications to Cambridge actually went down in that pre fees hike year by a significant margin whereas Oxford's were at a record high.

I think it's also interesting for applicants that there are on the whole many more applications per place at Oxford, so that may be something worth bearing in mind for an applicant with a decent AS profile. That and the virtually guaranteed interview at Cambridge, if you think interviewing will be a strength. The Oxford pre-tests might be a deterrent too, for some.

The figures are quite striking: in the 2012 cycle for example:

Cambridge: History 591 apps for 199 places = success rate 33.7%
Oxford: History 1,012 apps for 227 places = success rate of 22.4%

Cambridge: Medicine 1,639 apps for 280 places = success rate of 17.1%
Oxford: Medicine 1,511 apps for 155 places = success rate of 10.3%.

Very roughly, Oxford has 2,000 more applicants each year than Cambridge for slightly fewer available places.

This is a different point from your point about ebbs and flows of competitiveness, but might be quite interesting for someone a little hesitant about their application and with no particular preference either way.

This is fascinating. You guys should write an 'alternative guide' for applying to university. Perhaps there is one already?

Out of interest, what are the interviews like? What strengths would you need to do well?

As the OP I can't believe how long this thread has become and how it has twisted and turned along the way. Hopefully we are all a bit further through the maze of the UCAS system ! Anyone else off to Bath on Weds for the Modern Languages offer day ?

Ventura not that it is important but as I say "the year before the pre fees hike year" so applying in 2009 for 2010 entry, the 2011 entry was the one before the hike, 2010 entry was the first year that Cambridge announced they would include the new A* in the required grades, which you would expect to have an effect on applications.

snowy enjoy Bath

We are going to Bath on Wednesday for Modern Languages! See you there.

Thank you very much for starting this thread. It has been very helpful.

And littleham!

I had quite a few hours to kill whilst my DD was in the sessions at Bath, parents weren't included and there was nothing laid on for them as there was at the other uni we visited recently. I had a lovely time exploring though.

Oh, the year before the year before the £9000 fees were introduced. That's quite niche :)

I was really responding to the comments you've made a few times now that the process was more competitive a few years ago than it is now. I assumed you were referring to the year before the fee hike when there were more applications than before but not at Cambridge where it was a relatively easy year to get in, on numbers alone.

I don't get much of a sense that competition has eased off actually. I think the universities have had a lot of different things to absorb in the past few years, but not that a lower quality of applicant is making his/ her way into top universities where they wouldn't have managed before.

ventura I do not know whether the change in the competitive landscape has in any way affected the candidates applying to Oxbridge. That process tends to run by rules of it's own. I am sure the standard of those applying is every bit as high. I just wanted to caveat that one experience.

However I can assure you that when it comes to other top universities, out side of the most competitive courses, it is most definitely a less competitive landscape, as that Telegraph article I linked to highlighted. Not only are there fewer applicants but top universities have taken the opportunity presented by the relaxation on the quotas for students with AAB and then ABB and above, so there are more place at universities especially ones like UCL and Bristol who have really exploited the opportunity to recruit more students. In addition achieved grades have deflated so that more students are not getting their achieved grades but thankfully universities are more willing to relax their requirements and/ or to put places into clearing. You would never have seen places for History at universities like Leeds in clearing prior to the changes. It has definitely been a gentler process for DD2 and her peers and all these strategies to woo students show that the nature of the market has changed. In the years leading up to the fees hike, the year before had a surge in the number of applicants, but it was a general trend, as I know many others who have posted on here who went through the experience can testify, it had become so competitive that universities like UCL in order to distinguish between all the many excellent AAA candidates were demanding strings of As at GCSE and had virtually no leeway to accept students who had not achieved the required grades. Anyone who has had experience of the process at that time will know stories of students who missed required grades by the narrowest margins but universities without the ability to expand the quotas had virtually no leeway, and good courses were rarely seen in Clearing so a gap year was necessary. The reason a lot of schools who were affected by the 2012 GCSE debacle at the A/A/B boundaries made a fuss at the time www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9497631/GCSE-results-university-places-at-risk-from-grades-drop.html was because pre fees hike and grade deflation a pupil would have had no chance of being offered a place for English without A*s in language and literature at GCSE. That manifestly is no longer the case.

I am a little that with the expansion in places at the most selective unis, other unis that have lost out have not responded by lowering their published offers to start with, but the published AAA is far more likely to translate to some lower offer (two unis in my DDs case), some inducement such as making it unconditional or offering a scholarship (also two unis) and a relaxation should they miss the grades, or indeed to the course cropping up in Clearing, than it would have done pre 2011.

Of course we are talking about the experience for students who are predicted / gain ABB or above so of course they are all good candidates. In the scheme of things there are courses like LSE Economics and Law that are so competitive it makes no difference, and there are plenty of courses at RG and equivalent universities that never did require 3As or even Bs. Expanding Science courses is much more difficult as well. However for a student applying for the most popular humanities courses (which have in any case suffered from the emphasis on the value of vocational courses) who is predicted 3As it is definitely a more forgiving and less competitive process.

It will make the coming months a little less worrying for some of us

Yes I see your point in so far as less competitive universities or courses are concerned. I was being a little too narrow. But at the top end I think little has changed and competition is as fierce as it was, regardless of course. This is no doubt in part because students want the best for their considerable outlay in fees, and no doubt too because of the well published difficulty in securing a job at the end of the three or four years even for graduates of top universities. I think it's arguable that those things have increased rather than decreased competition. The shifting of grade requirements and the competition by universities for the best candidates to firm is a slightly different aspect of the whole thing.

I responded as I did because you gave the anecdote about your DD's friend's Cambridge experience juxtaposed to the phrase 'but that was in more competitive times', which (being tediously semantic) I took to mean that you thought getting into Cambridge was easier these days than in 2010 (or as I now know, 2009 ). As far as I can see, all courses at Oxford and Cambridge remain as competitive as ever, if not more so, but I'm happy to be corrected with factual evidence if that impression is wrong.

In part is this not a reflection of another trend, which is towards more technical/vocational/employable subjects.

Observational and small sample, but if you were to analyse A level subject choices in top performing schools over recent years, the ones which not only offer the full range of maths and sciences but also teach them well, I suspect you will see a distinct shift away from arts and towards science.

Put it another way. Bright students who were expected to be offered Oxbridge places for subjects like economics, NatSci and engineering often did not. In contrast equally able students looking to study MFL, classics, geography and other arts subjects seem to have secured their places more comfortably.

Yet another trend might be to see Universities expand "cheaper" subjects, eg non lab subjects, if the demand is there, in the hope that this then subsidises more expensive or lower demand courses.

Not surprising then if the stats are hard to interpret.

In part is this not a reflection of another trend, which is towards more technical/vocational/employable subjects.

Observational and small sample, but if you were to analyse A level subject choices in top performing schools over recent years, the ones which not only offer the full range of maths and sciences but also teach them well, I suspect you will see a distinct shift away from arts and towards science.

Put it another way. Bright students who were expected to be offered Oxbridge places for subjects like economics, NatSci and engineering often did not. In contrast equally able students looking to study MFL, classics, geography and other arts subjects seem to have secured their places more comfortably.

Yet another trend might be to see Universities expand "cheaper" subjects, eg non lab subjects, if the demand is there, in the hope that this then subsidises more expensive or lower demand courses.

Not surprising then if the stats are hard to interpret.

Sorry about the double post. Computer is doing strange things!