Any experience/views on applying for 2 similar courses at the same university?

[EBee57]

DD is interested in a course that is not available at all universities so is thinking about applying for the same course with different year abroad options (language is not an issue).

So she is effectively applying for the same course twice - is this a daft idea or does it, as she hopes, show her strong interest in the course at that particular university? (Which is genuinely the case.)

Any views/experience welcome. Thanks

It is probably worth contacting the department to ask how easy it is to transfer between the two programmes. If it is only the year abroad that is different it may be very easy to change between the two, in which case applying to both is likely to be a waste of a choice and applying for both could even look as though she hasn't researched the options well. Of course this may not be true of these particular programmes so it is best to find out.

One of my DC did this. I would second contacting the university. There were 3 versions of a similar course, with very different entry requirement grades. The university advised that they viewed 2 applications as a sign the student was keen and it gave them a positive impression. So he applied for the top and bottom course. He was given a similar offer for both! But when he firmed the top offer they said if he missed it but met the normal entry requirement for the lower one then he would be offered that. That gave him a second insurance which felt great.

But as the previous poster suggests, it was possible for some change between the courses during his time there. This was dependent on grades while there and places available.

He would probably not have applied to 2 courses at one place if the course was available at the same level at 5 universities; it wasn't.

Thank you chemenger and nemno, that's really helpful.