Is there any point in applying to an AAA uni with an A*AB prediction?

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Having just recovered from the personal statement ordeal of last week, I'm now floundering in my attempts to pin ds down to 5 choices. Not helped by the fact that he keeps completely changing his mind as to where he would and wouldn't like to go. Exeter and Southampton remain firm favourites, but now he has dropped Royal Holloway and UCL into the mix.

I'm worried because I always thought one aspirational choice was enough (ie Exeter) but UCL has the same typical offer - AAA-AAB. I assume as a grammar school boy, they would expect AAA from ds.

DS is predicted A* (Eng Lit) and A (Geography). However, his Biology teacher still hasn't given him a predicted grade. He got B for his AS so am assuming the prediction will also be a B (although DS thinks it could be an A)

SO, if he is predicted A*AB, would it be silly to put 2 choices down where they're likely to be looking for AAA?

And what his insurance will be, goodness only knows!

A lot of our students do pull up a grade on their AS grade.

LemonSole. Do you think it more tricky to bring your grades up now that the January modules have been done away with? For example, don't students have to be more selective with whether they choose to take resits now?

So, DS has been given UCAS predictions of AAA. And school report predictions of ABB. I still don't get why there should be any difference between the two. Surely there's no point in applying to places and getting offers with inflated predictions.

Anyway, I now don't know if he's made the right five choices which at the moment, together with typical offers are:

Exeter - AAA
Southampton - AAB
Sussex - AAB
Royal Holloway - ABB
Loughborough - ABB

I know there's not much between his UCAS predictions and report predictions (Bs are both High Bs) but I'm now wondering if he needs to include somewhere with a typical offer lower than ABB - although so far he hasn't found anywhere he likes the look of. Any thoughts anyone?!

They look sensible to me. What were his AS results?

I work at an Russell Group uni and last year we accepted AABs. Admissions is becoming increasingly competitive with universities fighting for students. My uni and some others ended up offering good candidates unconditionals just to secure them. This year looks to be similar.

As well as looking at UCAS and University sites that say what their expected grades are, look at Unistats which says how many ucas tariff points last year's students actually had (then you'll see if they typically accept lower points than they officially state).

That's reassuring.

At AS he got a very high A for English (hence the A* prediction for UCAS and on report); a low-middle A for geography (and is predicted A for UCAS and BH on report); a low-middle B for Biology (and is predicted A for UCAS and a BH on report).

And also (whispers) a D for AS maths.

He wants to do Geography - not Eng Lit!