Extracurricular on UCAS - don't include everything?

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Careers advisor has told DD to take some of her extracurricular activities off her UCAS form. These are not in her personal statement, they are entered separately. She has qualifications in three areas that are eligible for UCAS points. Careers advisor says this detracts from her application as they distract from her academic grades. She is applying to universities who look at grades rather than points. Is this wise advice? Hoping an admission tutor will be able to comment.

I 00% agree with Bertrand. Universities want to have open and fair admissions policies. If they gave weight to unrelated EC then they would be unfairly favorouring children who come from supportive backgrounds. I imagine most DC with stellar EC have helpful parents who pay for, transport and support their DCs ECs
It not always the case but I bet it is a lot of the time.

I suspect sports scholarships & some unconditional offers come about as the sports departments are going to know who plays for England U19 and academic departments are going to be impressed by students winning maths or essay competitions.

DaMoves Bristol wrote to my DS saying explicitly that the PS was a big Thing. And that his PS had secured him a nice early offer. Advice has to differ according to uni. Also, in terms of another highly rated uni much favoured by MN DC, I've seen applicants with higher grades but less good PSs rejected over lower grades and a much more striking PS. I wouldn't underrate the PS either. Obviously a stellar PS won't cut the mustard for an interviewing uni if the applicant doesn't match up in person.

By which I mean I wouldn't overrate its importance but I wouldn't be too casual about it either.

Interesting molio was it a particularly competitive course your DS was going for?

But I agree that the PS should be something you give your best shot but not something that should keep you up at night.

Good lord- I've never heard of a university doing that before- actually writing to say what a brilliant PS someone had done! But Molio's children's academic progression is endlessly fascinating!

Some universities ( and I'm not saying Bristol, who I don't think are guilty) send flattering correspondence to applicants they want to firm them when they probably know they're not one of the front runners.

Ditto sending out financial incentives and UC offers.

I think Bettybotter the careers adviser is right.

For top university just entering, say, instrument + grade will suffice. Who cares about your prowess on the oboe if you're studying Physics, unless, of course, you have dismantled the oboe and designed a new reed which is more breath-dynamic (??? what am I going on about?).

Some candidates going for some institutions will be needing to fill the ps with achievements and for a vocational course they could be relevant. Music Technology or Drama, eg, it would be entirely appropriate to mention music/drama exams.

Bristol does make some "return of post" offers to applicants with noises of encouragement. I've seen various things. DSS2 got emails from current students in the course he'd applied to offering a phone call.

DD2 had offer letters saying that she was a high quality applicant and that her PS was excellent blah blah blah - we didn't think for a moment that similar letters weren't sent to all those offered places.

It was history DaMoves.

Don't worry Bertie, the e-mail from Bristol was in the context of a question about something else, it wasn't a spontaneous e-mail of awe .

Form letter i expect, Bertrand We used to do them as standard after interviews. PR really.

Not really MultiShirker since it wasn't standard form. I think I'm probably the first to take compliments in standard form letters with a bucket of salt. I'm rarely impressed by PR. It was a comment in a response from the department to a query about holding the offer as insurance. My point is that the e-mail made it clear that a good deal of weight was genuinely attached to his PS (which was good, admittedly :)), so not to be too flip and regard them as universally trivial.

This was what was in one of my DCs personalised acceptance offers (I've altered it slightly so no chance of outing ) The letter mentioned something specific in her PS ... (clever marketing I think)

Based on your personal statement, reference and achievements to date, we consider you to be an exceptionally strong candidate

They also had a lovely enthusiastic first year student phone up and chat with her. BTW DC4 is indeed a good student but I think calling her an 'exceptionally strong candidate' is a bit OTT
This type of proactive 'recruiting'of students seems to be increasing even at higher tariff universities. I don't think it's bad thing.

You want your DC to be happy and excited about their uni choices and this type of personalised (or seemingly personalised ) communication helps. It's a huge deal to DC that they are going to Uni and it's good if they feel that they are being treated like an individual even if it's just part of the Unis marketing strategy.

I agree with the general consensus that you shouldn't worry overly about PS's unless you are studying medicine or doing highly competitive degrees but that you shouldn't discount them either. There is another benefit that's not been mentioned from writing a decent PS and that is that it's good for the DC themselves to have to really think about why they are applying for their particular course.

It's probably not relevant to all DC but it's been useful for at least two of mine. It just gets them to stop and think about what they are doing.

(Sorry for typos and poor English )

I've no issue with such letters Tooty they come as par for the course with offers and I have to say that some unis are far more consumer friendly than others. Of course it's nice that students are encouraged to feel warm and fuzzy about each of the unis they might accept. York and Bristol seem especially good at this out of the unis mine have applied to. However, this wasn't one of those communications, it was a one to one e-mail and was interesting in what it said about the personal statement and by implication the importance placed on it for an early (or presumably any) offer.

Agree about the increasing tendency to 'recruit' at the higher tariff unis, but that's simply a reflection of the market. Durham's strategy is interesting from that point of view.

Where are you putting extracurricular if not in ps? Ds can't see a category specifically for it.

There isn't a specific category. ECs which have gained the applicant tariffable qualifications get put in the qualifications section - eg Grade 7 Speech and Drama, LAMDA, or Grade 8 Music Theory, ABRSM.

If they're relevant to the application, then they should go in the PS, otherwise just a very short paragraph at the end of the PS is all that is needed, perhaps using that paragraph to highlight the applicant's exemplary organisational skills.

There are drop down boxes for qualifications that get points. For some degrees some of them will be either part of the requirement or at least very relevant. For activities that don't get points - you can include them in the OS but it's a fine balancing act. DD1 didn't have space for hardly any of hers - and they are almost all directly relevant to her chosen courses (had she had stuff that wasn't directly relevant she might have made more effort to crowbar them in, to show she isn't a one trick pony) - at the end of the day, you only have so many characters, they get used up very quickly (DS will have the opposite problem when his time comes though...).

I had a worrying moment yesterday talking to someone I know whose DC is also applying this year - they turned round and asked how DD1 was going to handle having no ECs except music related ones 'when they won't count'. Fortunately or unfortunately, since her applications have already been submitted, there's nothing that can be done now so I'm not going to let it bother me.

Uhtred ignore. She's done it exactly right. You'll always find some meanie trying to unsettle you - just rise above it.

Molio In fact this person isn't as all-knowing as they think, because DD1 does have some pretty damn impressive non music EC things and one at least did get mentioned (both in her PS and her school reference) so I just smiled nodded and moved on. It would be a big ask to present DD1 as being as 'well rounded' as some DCs are. Her life revolves around things that it would be unwise to mention (politics and, broadly, geek stuff) and things that are directly and indirectly related to what she wants to study (there is some crossover between the geek interests and that and she has therefore made passing mention). But I don't actually think that will be an issue - and if it is well, it's done. Even if her applications weren't already in, she isn't going to suddenly discover a lifetime interest in abseiling and make some noteworthy achievements in it at this late stage and joining in the yomping across dartmoor (which was what this person was really talking about) just for a few words on her PS would have been ludicrous...