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

I'm worried that this thread will deter students from applying to Exeter.

DS is at the end of his first year and is very happy.
He was state educated, as are many of his contemporaries and laughs when other people describe it as 'Rah'.
It's a great city, seems very safe and although he and his mates seem to drink more than I'd like he tells me that there are very few drugs about. The student population seem a very happy bunch.

There really is a strong drinking culture. I don't know if it's the same everywhere - I hope not - but the students I know there (I'm in an orchestra with a couple and my goddaughter is also there - different subjects different friendship groups and they barely know each other) have all remarked on it. And they all drink far more than they did when they arrived. This may be true of all universities f course but I know it's giving my non drinking DD (not going there) pause for thought.

Ds barely drinks (is in his first year at Exeter) and neither do his close friends - they still go out clubbing but just don't get plastered ... He realised early on that drinking heavily didn't agree with him and he likes the fact that his money goes further

IME as an External Examiner at Exeter, my colleagues there were exceptionally caring - at the cost sometimes of their own health and time - there's an extremely good support system there.

Some undergraduates all over the country drink too much. They're away from home, they're susceptible, they're trying things out - it happens. Young people do it wherever and whenever. It's not an Exeter thing. It's not even just a university student thing. They usually grow out of it.

It's very unreasonable to demonise Exeter, although the OP does.

Sunshower
Where have I "demonised" Exeter ?

If they had given my DD a sane offer she would be 50:50 going there - and would very likely have a fantastic time (despite being 100% state school)

My problem is, and has always been, that I felt they have behaved unprofessionally in a highly competitive market.
I have made some efforts to make her exact identity less than clear - but if the admissions team have an even half arsed database system they will be able to verify my posts.

Hopefully they might learn
and if they do not, other parents might be able to snigger at my stress and sit back while their DCs wait for responses.

If they had given my DD a sane offer

You seem unwilling to accept that they didn't want her as much as you wanted them to want her. And in the process, you've pretty much slandered an excellent institution.

Sunshower
She applied for a bio course.
She was offered one that is 40% physics, 40% computing, 10% maths, 10% bio

the Tesco substitution comments up thread by others are the pertinent ones.

Exeter assumed that she was more interested in Exeter than the course (as of course Oxbridge get away with day in day out)
however my DD is rather obsessed with the details of the course so the NatSci offer was sad/funny in equal measure.
It took her less than 10 minutes to reject it (I found out afterwards)

Please do not quote slander at me : I had enough of that carp on the old QE thread.

40% computing doesn't sound very Natural Science-y!

as of course Oxbridge get away with day in day out

I am generally sympathetic to your daughter's plight in this thread, but you do say some weird things!

atia
What are the employment prospects from this degree ?
www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/index.htm
that might pay off the £60k debt?

Exeter and Durham and St Andrews play the same card with a weaker suit.

My DD is subject oriented, not location

my thread was because monthly emails are cheaper than dealing with the aftermath of threads.

I know people who did ASNC who are earning hefty wedges. Very hefty. Far more than people I know with accounting or business degrees. In fact one of the ASNC people I know is the boss of several people I know with accounting or business degrees. Do YOU know anyone who read ASNC?

Nope,
and luckily I know nobody daft enough to have done an accountancy degree either - as they are for muppets.

Out of interest, are the "ASNC" people working in that field?

One is directly, one is tangentially, the others aren't at all. Although they have a wealth of transferable skills which come in handy, as with most decent degrees. You don't really do a degree like that to get work in a museum or similar. You do it cos it's what thrills you.

Unless you are completely isolated from the profession you will know/encounter people with accountancy degrees. Although they may not shout that from the rooftops.

ASNC is a great degree and if I had my time again I'd certainly consider it. Primarily for the two fingers to Nicky Morgan potential it offers. But for other reasons too.

Re ASNC

1. Not sure how you're going to acquire £60K debt in three years.

1. They take twenty students a year. I assume you're trying to imply that loads of people are so desperate to go to Cambridge that they'll do any old course, but even with a 3:1 application: offer ratio, only twenty places doesn't offer much opportunity for these chancers.

1. I'm pretty sure it would be excruciating to do three years of ASNC without being interested in it.

1. Where did the earning potential tangent appear from?

Honestly, you cast so many aspertions in so many directions, I lose track of who's being insulted and how Never mind, I'm entertained by it all, even if I don't understand it!

(Er, aspersions!)

I've been following this thread and had no trouble keeping track of Op's posts.

And yes, I would dissuade any students I knew from applying to Exeter - unless they simply wanted to be at Exeter and didn't care which course.

Op has been very clear that her DD would have been fine with a timely rejection from Exeter.

Students should be starting to focus on A-level revision, not hanging in suspense while there mates are getting on with organising finance, housing, and generally planning their future, for most the first time they'll live away from home, it's a big step and just beginning to visualise yourself in that situation - these are adolescents, that's how they think and feel.

To waste several months in suspension because a university can't be bothered to turn you down - just keeps you hanging on the off-chance you love them not your subject - yup, that's a black mark in my book.

Interesting to see how it is done in the US. Students kept in limbo there too www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/04/16/top-colleges-put-thousands-of-applicants-in-wait-list-limbo-and-some-wont-admit-any/?postshare=5791460848887447&tid=ss_tw

Ljny
It doesnt work like that.
Ops dd was forever reason a borderline for exeter, they didnt hold onto her just to give her an alternative , there may have been a place if enough applicants with offers rejected them.
As explained above ds had to wait until march / april for 2 unis . One gave him an offer,one rejected him and a 3rd one actual offered him a different course but that was earlier on.

Forgot to say this time 2 years ago theee was a threadful of posters waiting for durham offers and some were offered different courses.
Offers day last year there were a few who didnt make their original offers and offered different courses instead.

Okay Exeter if you are listening and care about how you are viewed by individual borderline applicants (although since you have a surplus of good applicants I suspect admissions is not a priority for usage of resources to sort this out including the accuracy of the info given on your webpage and UCAS).

Here is an apparently simple solution to appease future DD of TP type applicant. Let them know as soon as decision is made hat they have been rejected for the specific course they applied for and ask if they want to be considered for x course(s) instead.

One of my DSs has had an unhealthy interest in ASNC, almost since he was a tot. No idea where the interest sprang from, it's all very strange. However, some people just like stuff which isn't STEM!

I don't think my DC have factored earning potential into their subject choices.

Let them know as soon as decision is made hat they have been rejected for the specific course they applied for and ask if they want to be considered for x course(s) instead

But it may not be possible to give a decision earlier rather than later. That is the point - as made by a number of us on this thread who actually work in universities. I'm a former admissions tutor and we would often do this - if an applicant didn't quite meet our criteria for the course they applied for (usually an oversubscribed course, in demand) but we thought they had potential, we might offer for a cognate course that was less oversubscribed. But that did mean waiting to see if we couldn't squeeze a promising applicant in.

It's standard practice. It's offering an applicant a choice - and a way of trying to keep the bight ones! But they don't have to accept that offer. That's fine. I think in this case, the parent (OP) has had their pride hurt in that her DD wasn't made the offer she thinks should have been made. I remember an hilarious thread by a parent incensed that Edinburgh didn't fall over themselves to take her DD

I really don't get the ire about Exeter - it's a very good university, trying to do its best for the students there - I've seen how they do this from the vantage point of an External Examiner when my role was to call them to account for their teaching practices & standards. From that inside knowledge, in my field, I'd recommend its degrees unreservedly.

Academics aren't so territorial as some of you seem to think - in my field, I can list about a dozen excellent degree courses as well as my own, and the differences between them which might appeal to applicants.

As another poster (also a university professor) says upthread - Exeter isn't the only place to do this, and shouldn't be singled out. It's common practice, and not a bad practice - it's trying to give applicants a second chance.

Following on from my 5 April derail- one of DD's choices, a RG redbrick uni which had said it would take four weeks to add her offer on to UCAS track meaning she couldn't firm/ insure or apply for accommodation actually took only one week in the end.
The same uni, which said it would have all final decisions for this particular course out by the end of the first week of April is still keeping some hanging on including one at DD's school. The Uni then said that final decision letters, rather than e-mails, had been sent but these haven't yet arrived.

The relevant student room thread looks just like this one full of students accusing the Uni of lying and arrogance.

I guess my point is that I doubt Exeter is unique in delaying decisions and I suspect that the people answering the phone may not be the people making the decisions. They probably give information in good faith but have no influence over the timetable of the decision-makers.

A friend's DD is at Exeter and put on a significant amount of weight in her first year due to drink. Her new-found freedom and the upper middle middle class party culture that she found (I accept there must be a majority of other non-rah students though) was a shock to the system after her very naice girls' school. Wasn't it Exeter that had that dodgy student union freshers' party that made the news a couple of years ago? Lovely area though and I'm sure Exeter's problems are no different to most other unis.
The friend's DD is now in her second year and has calmed down to her parents' relief.

Uni application post-results could level the playing field. There wouldn't be the concerns about the opportunity for private or state schools to inflate students' abilities via predicted grades or references and reduce reliance, where it exists, on extra-curricular opportunities for the well-heeled or well-connected.

sendsummer, yes, it should be that simple.

decorhate, the WaPo article you linked is quite misleading to people unfamiliar with US college ('uni') admissions.

Students can apply to any number of US colleges - separately, and receive separate decisions, often on different timescales. They're free to get on with accepting another place, get their housing app in early, etc. Doesn't affect the other college at all. Which is very different to Op's dd's Exeter mess.

At the American Oxbridge/RG level, waitlists are actually more of a frustrating compliment - you were just as good as the students we accepted, but we can't fit everyone.

ljny it's not a 'mess' at all. The OP's DD had to wait like plenty of other applicants do. Two of my DC got decisions on March 31st and we didn't go round berating either Birmingham or Warwick, we assumed they had their reasons. The OP's DD had four offers in the bag so she wasn't hanging on waiting for her one and only last chance. This seems to be about wounded pride, nothing more.