Exeter offers : incompetent or arrogant?

[TalkinPeace]

DD submitted her form last October
Exeter have still not had the courtesy to send an offer (the other four Unis all have)
when phoned they said

• no offers have been issued (bollocks as DDs friends have theirs)
• offers will be made by end of December (bollocks as its now late march)
• offers will be made right after the UCAS cut off date (bollocks as it was in January)
• offers will be made by the end of March ........

Exeter are arrogant liars
the word needs to go round

AAA offers being received for Nat Sci at Exeter on TSR*

Well they can ask but it doesn't mean they get...

Just had a quick look at the unistats ucas tariffs (and I know they are historical, include allsorts, and some Natural Science pathways will be easier to get on than others etc. )

But percentage under 400 UCAS points

Cambridge (not surprisingly) 0%
UCL 0%
Durham 4%
York 11%
Nottingham 15%
Birmingham (though a Liberal Arts and Sciences degree) 20%
Exeter 35%

Percentage over 480

Cambridge 98%
Durham 86%
UCL 75%
York 51%
Nottingham 45%
Birmingham 40%
Exeter 35%

So you ask too much, don't get the students and then start offering it around cheap.........

Sorry my quote got mangled! But my point is that they are almost certainly taking more students with less than A*AA than competing courses

So you ask too much, don't get the students and then start offering it around cheap.........

Are you saying "arrogant and incompetent" but couched in less inflammatory terms?

Well I wouldn't want to be that inflammatory but I do wonder if even Tesco could give them some lessons on marketing..........

In the interests of balance if you look at the percentage in the very highest tariff band for unistats Exeter don't do that badly

Over 600 points

Cambridge 71%
Durham 39% (not surprisingly since you have to be super superior to even Cambridge graduates to get on the Chemistry streams)
UCL 20%
Exeter 15%
Birmingham 10%
Nottingham 10%
York 9%

The established course that have been going more than 5 years are by the way out of those Cambridge, Durham, UCL, Birmingham and Bath which I forgot to include but have 30% under 400, 27% over 480 and 7% over 600.

market analysis used to be part of my day job

Tariff points are very misleading though: it's not an accident that universities which take lots of private school/selective school students have more students entering with high tariffs. At my DC's private school I worked out that a typical student has 100 or so UCAS points to add onto their AS/A2 points from music, drama, DoE etc.

A much fairer and more interesting comparison is best 3 A2 grades.

An even fairer comparison is best 3 A2 grades weighted by contextual data.

When one makes such comparisons there is surprisingly little difference between the top 20 or so universities.

I agree however that it's clear that Exeter aren't enforcing A*AA (even to students from good sixth form colleges like OP's DD, let alone to contextual students), but they are far from alone in listing higher grades than they are actually taking.

Isn't the system is wrong? Less confident teens who dont understand what is going on won't apply to high tariff universities even though they might have been accepted.

Argh phone put in the extra word.

Yes, Littleham, this is a big issue in increasing diversity and there are discussions of how to change the system. But to some extent this was an inevitable consequence of the changes since 2012: with fixed fees and no number caps, universities have to optimise their student recruitment just to pay the bills. Marketing, perception and spin have become increasingly important.

BTW the very top courses are misleading in the other direction: a Cambridge offer for STEM may well be based on 3 A2s with "only" one or two A stars, but the majority of successful applicants have more.

quit I did flag up the inadequacies of the tariffs as a measure and also it is true that A*AA is now the currency in terms of offers for Nat Sci at the top universities . Six years ago Bath was making offers for AAA and Birmingham AAB and that was in a much less crowded marketplace in terms of the Nat Sci courses and places available, and consequently a more difficult environment for even the AAA students applying. However I think the key point is that in comparison with most of the established courses and some of the newer ones it appears, unless there is a particularly spectacular contextual offer strategy compared to the others (and really? Exeter in comparison to UCL? Birmingham?) they are not attracting the best students.

Maybe they ought to be thinking of a more effective strategy than continuing to apparently give out A*AA offers to students who want to do the course and when that doesn't fill up the course, cheap offers to try and entice in students who don't. I don't think it is happening quite as much for Science courses but this is at a time when other universities are using all sorts of innovative strategies to compete for the best students, including the very basic one of communicating with them and treating them with respect, not fobbing them off when they ring to ask what is going on when it has got to February and they haven't heard from them.

Of course they may have tried lower offers to the best candidates etc. and unless they really are incredibly arrogant and incompetent presumably any candidates getting offers now are from the borderline pile and they want to make sure they are of the right standard. It is an issue on Nat Sci courses that some of the generalists do struggle when it comes to studying additional modules to their main specialism at degree level, particularly in the conceptually difficult subjects like Maths and Pure Chemistry.

Actually six years ago all except Cambridge were making AAA offers.

Maybe they ought to be thinking of a more effective strategy than continuing to apparently give out AAA offers to students who want to do the course and when that doesn't fill up the course, cheap offers to try and entice in students who don't.*

But, again, they are not alone: a large number of "top" universities are doing this right across STEM subjects (many of which are usually not over-subscribed and moreover some departments are trying to expand massively, knocking others out of the market). I think it is unfair to single out Exeter as if they are acting particularly differently.

It is a big issue across many RG STEM courses that entrants' grades have a double peak distribution, one peak centred around the published grades for the course and one peak centred around what they took in Clearing. Many of the students in the latter group struggle, particularly with maths and theory content. It is astonishing in particular to realise how low the level of maths is for some chem/bio students at RG universities.

But, again, they are not alone: a large number of "top" universities are doing this right across STEM Well in marketing terms the fact that all your competitors are making a hash of marketing themselves is your opportunity. When you do the rounds it is very evident that some universities have got their act together. There has to be something more to effective marketing than spin, and when we went round on open days it was evident that some universities like Birmingham had really thought it through. It wasn't just fluffys and friendly emails, or even an early unconditional offer, they had clearly identified student needs and decided how they were going to meet them and then communicated that very clearly. I went to all the universities with a healthy cynicism but came away from Birmingham feeling to my slight surprise that it was somewhere I felt confidant would be a good choice. They claim that their strategy has substantially increased the percentage of students who firm them (though of course we can't know how that has worked in quality terms).

Too much maketing spin without substance comes over as desperate, too little focus on the students' needs comes over, as is clearly manifested by OP, as arrogance.

Being Oxbridge you can afford to be arrogant but if Exeter is serious about it's ambitions to attract good scientists then, given it's current position in relation to it's competitors, it can't afford that perception to be out there.

By the way I agree that the ability levels of those being recruited on to some of these STEM courses is an issue. It isn't just that the effect on the scientific community, it is also the stress that it puts those students under. If you are having high failure rates in certain modules it is young people's life prospects that are being affected.

This is a really interesting thread. I have had four DC leave for Uni over the past 6 years and it was frustrating that the goal posts kept being moved.

Examples includes;
Huge changes in Student loans,
Introductionof A* 's,

Increased importance of A*'s
Grade inflation
The end of January modules,
AAB student cap,
ABB student cap,
NO student gap,
The rise of unconditional offers made to applicants with no achieved results,
The ridiculous rise in inaccurate predicted grades.......

( I'm so thankful my kids have missed the removal of AS exams. )

It's all too flipping confusing and it's totally unfair for kids who lack support and are not totally on the ball i.e. Most teens

Anyway, I've said it before but I think the only way to make it fairer is to move towards a system where students apply AFTER they have their results. It would take the guesswork out of the application process. It would also surely reduce the costs for students and universities. If students applied with achieved races then no one would have to suffer the stress and uncertaintanty of clearing (64 thousand students had to go through clearing last year )

Rant over

Sorry I meant to type A*s Hope you can work out what I meant

JokesLOL I've had six DC leave for uni in the past seven years and one who is in the first year group to be affected by the abolition of AS and I'd hate it if students could only apply with achieved results.

Also, I don't think it's been particularly frustrating that the goalposts have moved - things change, so I don't see why just because things were one way for one sibling it's a particular problem if they're slightly different for another. I haven't found it any kind of a deal. It's the schools who bear the brunt of having to keep up, not the parents.

Molio Your kids aren't exactly typical though are they. They are high achieving, were at a supportive school(s?) and have a supportive parent. Very different from your typical student. Is there any reason why it would have been detrimental to them to have applied with achieved results?

I can see that the 'moving goalposts' would not have been an issue for your children but can't you see that has been for many others, such as the OP. It's also been a problem for the Universities and schools.

My kids are perfectly 'typical' thanks. Their mother isn't quite as suffocatingly intrusive with their education as a typical MN mother seems to be, but in the real world they're very regular indeed. So why should moving goalposts not be an issue for my DC in particular, if it's an issue generally? Just because they've got reasonable grades? The OP claims to be far more up to speed with HE than loads of parents, particularly in the area her DD is applying for and the DD is at a vast and very well known college with buckets of HE experience. The OP has said previously that she's a big name on a decent university campus so if it's a problem for her, surely it would be a problem for me and my DC - but it isn't. Each DC makes an application in their own right and does it within the context of their own cohort. I think people just like to say life that is so difficult and bemoan their fate, but those are the people who make it more difficult than it needs to be. I mean, can you actually nail a reason why any of those things you list caused 'unfairness' to your own kids as each went through the UCAS process?

I did say that it's the schools who bear the brunt of change. I should have said universities too.

Molio, no need to be so snarky. I was obviously only saying your kids were not 'typical' from an academic point of view. I also didn't say that any of the 'moving goalposts' I mentioned disadvantaged my kids. I specifically said it was unfair for kids without support and who were not totally on the ball. If you want an example, how about the fact that some DC might not be aware how useful it is to have as high predicted grades as possible due to the increased number of unconditional offers and the general level of over predicting that is going on.

BTW I hope you were not trying to imply that I am 'suffocatingly intrusive' with my adult DCs education. If you were then that was rude and weird.

No I wasn't implying anything about you because I don't recognize your username so couldn't take a view. But it's a fair comment on some of the parents on here and so as regards them, not odd at all.

In the Scottish system students apply with their achieved grades (Highers taken in S5) - students can then be offered unconditional or conditional places dependent on the grades achieved to date and the predicted S6 Advanced Highers.

Much less stressful all round, students know if they do well in Highers then they are likely to have a choice of unconditional offers, those that don't do so well know they still have a shot if they can do well in Advanced Highers.

The OP claims to be far more up to speed with HE than loads of parents, particularly in the area her DD is applying for and the DD is at a vast and very well known college with buckets of HE experience. The OP has said previously that she's a big name on a decent university campus so if it's a problem for her, surely it would be a problem for me and my DC - but it isn't.

But from her earlier thread the OP clearly had many misconceptions about how Oxbridge works. OP is an accountant, not an academic, and her DP is primarily a teacher. It's clear that OP is not a big name (and indeed doesn't really know very much at all) about her local "decent" university. BTW the label decent seems a little understated for a university which is clearly in the top 3 for engineering and which has many highly respected research groups.

OP is nonetheless probably more knowledgable about the HE system than many parents - which makes this particular thread quite surprising i.e. OP thought that her DD was a dead cert for an offer and that Exeter were just being slow. OP also expected an answer by Mar 31, not realising that Exeter had no obligation to reply until the May deadline.They hadn't read the (readily available) course statistics about offers/entry grades enough to realise that her DD was not a dead cert. I do think their experiences illustrate the general lack of knowledge about HE amongst parents and students.

But I agree that all of this has rather little to do with changes to AS/A2 as cohorts are indeed ranked against each other. OP's DD is being judged primarily on her AS grades and presumably has slightly weaker grades than students who were offered the Exeter course she wanted. As said on many other threads, applying after A2 effectively requires compulsory gap years as universities simply couldn't process the results fast enough.