University offers for 2018? (Part 1)

[OnlyTeaForMe]

OK, I know I'm a bit early, but let the hand-holding begin...

Come and join us if you (and your DC) are about to start the UCAS process in September - applying for a place in 2018.

I've got DS1, who wants to do Computer Science in 2018. Looking at various Russell Group unis and maybe Oxbridge.

I agree. Getting work experience was difficult because most places that she applied to wouldn't take anyone under 18, and she isn't 18 until July.

Lonicera - sadly not unusual with medicine. I know several young people with stellar grades who didn't get any offers for medicine. Some opted for other courses, two I know reapplied for medicine the following year and were successful. Would she do that?

That is what she wants to do. She won't consider anything else, but she needs to be realistic in case she doesn't get the right A level grades, but she is burying her head in the sand. I don't want her hanging around the house with nothing to do because all her friends have gone to university and she hasn't. She needs to pull her finger out and get some work experience lined up.

Lonicera - well yes, she won't be successful second time round either if she can't demonstrate that she's spent the year productively.

Lonicera my Dd is on a gap year. Partially due to retaking her Chemistry .I didn’t want her to have one and was apprehensive for the very same reasons you are. But it’s actually been a blessing in disguise. She has regained the confidence she lost in the brutal process of applying for vet. Medicine, earned money ,applied for jobs and just generally matured. Its actually been the best thing ever. Lots of her other friends are on a gap year too ( several are retaking Chemistry) so that has helped too.
Please do encourage your Dd to do as well as she can in her exams .With good results she can apply next year. Jobs can be found once her exams are over. Don’t put pressure on her to look for jobs now. Indeed.co.uk will be her friend. Dd went for several interviews and picked the best contract ( job also offered holiday work)

To med school applicants who are waiting or declined, the game is definitely not over.

The 4 schools DD are holding have all switched to recruiting mode. Love-bombing has increased markedly this month. All schools want holders to firm, insurance placements are very very low (as you'd expect) so no school will sensibly rely on them. Even DD who is skeptical from birth, and usually decisive, can see how the love bombing is extremely persuasive, especially for parents... so much that she will not firm until May.

By May, when multiple offer holders 'firm', schools will naturally prefer to enter into unofficial 'clearing' of insured and declined places, rather than wait until July. Previously declined applicants will be reviewed. These later offers, if successful, will show up as firm placements in September.

IB and Scottish applicants get first dibs at official clearing. Even so, official clearing placements have doubled (to four times insurance placements) over the last 5-10 years. (This is not the case for dental and vetmed clearing placements, which are stable.) This may be of no help to A level applicants unless a school puts aside the administrative (and possibly image) benefit in confirmed places, for the sake of 'equal opportunity' across the entry qualifications.

On care experience, the holy grail was not to be found for DD. Whatever she learned at her 3 hours weekly for a year at the local charity shop was sufficiently convincing. So that is an unlikely barrier to entry.

In what way are the med schools "love -bombing", Maryso? My DD has 3 offers for med (not heard back from the 4th yet) and not noticed anything persuasive at all. Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean.

Tis entirely possible you do not understand, adrinkofwater... unless you're a, possibly the, 17-year old in question.

Six invites (so far) for 'days out' with dissections, etc, lots of advice and events to 'make sure you get the grades', buddies with current students, as well as the usual 'gifts' in the mail. While they started before Christmas, March has seen a steep increase, but, sure, you're probably a lot more blase than young DD. Nevertheless she does feel love-bombed and is curious as to how this will change up to May...

The point is that it is very clear to DD, who is not as experienced or strategic or otherwise as clever as some, that it is a myth that any applicant who has apparently been declined or still waiting should assume they will not be starting in 2018. Tactical types may even consider IB for sixth form, since they start clearing in July.

Good luck for the 4th! Will your DD firm before May?

I admit to finding your post a little confusing maryso

Are you saying that the medical schools who don't get enough students firming their offers have a B list to select from?

DD only got one interview and I doubt that she will suddenly get called for interview from the other medical schools who rejected her straight away.

I find it confusing too. DS wasn't love bombed as far as I know and he had several offers with ample time to love bomb. Maybe they didn't really like him but felt obliged to offer for some reason better known to themselves. I think DS would have been decidedly put off by love bombing actually, it suggests the schools are needy - not an attractive trait.

Are the schools in England maryso or elsewhere in the UK? Or maybe Ireland?

I should also have said this is also true for others in DD's school. It is a pattern they have all noticed, possibly because many have applied to the same schools.

lonicera it is not really a 'B' list is it? Schools have to plough through masses, and a significant number of near misses is not to be unexpected. It is competitive; even some very old, possibly seen as prestigious, ones keep their admissions procedures 'commercial in confidence'. Sure it can look (did to us) that schools hold all the cards, however they need to fill the places.

Do not lose heart! Your DD got one interview, she's definitely capable of med school. Someone else more strategic may be able to explain about the other 3. FOI answers often yield strange 'stats' and it's human to focus on the published hurdles. Some schools just ask for Bs in English and Maths GCSE, some make you think anything less than a 3A* A2 prediction is not enough. I'm sure someone else will have said it's a job interview, one where everyone can do the job and really about whether you fit, on the day, at that time. On another day it could easily be different. Sadly that's the way of competitive processes. Any one with one interview is as good enough as someone else with 8 interviews. Yes, apparently some schools will invite even when they have been substituted within the 14-day UCAS submission date! From their view point they have places to fill. One can only hope the person sifting is human, not tired, not under the weather, etc on the day they look at your application...

You were concerned about WE. If DD has any 'customer care' experience, she can use that effectively.

The schools , as far as the girls in DD's school have experienced, are mostly the 5 London ones, drink

DD did play with spreadsheet data in Year 12. In the end her favourite data sort was 'walking distance from home'. She reckoned with a 6+2+6+(50?) year horizon, what mattered was being able to see her siblings at a whim. Perhaps she 'should' have been more ambitious, more curious, more careful, but in the end she was tired of being more more, and chose on a personal basis. She has been extremely lucky.

drink DD does not see any school as needy just because they 'sell' themselves. If anything she sees it as a 2-way relationship and not one where the weaker party is taken for granted. And make no mistake, students are the weaker party, no matter how needy a school gets.

Not med, but dd has been love bombed by Northampton with a comfort pack mentioned a while back, offer of free laptop or discount on housing etc

Those were my questions maryso, I wouldn't want adrinkofwater wrongly attributed.

Imperial was one of DS's offers and he got that just a few days after interview in early January, so I'd have thought he was in the frame for love bombing. Perhaps love bombing medical students is a new thing for Imperial. Your DD may not see it as needy but I do and I can't quite see why UCL and Imperial need to be needy. Several of my other DC have got recent UCL offers for different courses and while there's been a sensible amount of communication there's never been anything which could remotely be described as love bombing. It sounds very oppressive, it must be awful for these students or at the very least a bloody nuisance. Someone should tell the unis to stop.

Absolutely no ‘love bombing’ in Vet.Medicine - perish the thought.
I wonder whether the London Hospitals are having trouble filling their places. Didn’t St George’s have over 100 places left in clearing for Medicine a couple of years ago?
I also wonder whether there are the same number of overseas applicants as before.The trend is for increased numbers of Asians to go to American Universities rather than to the uk.

That's reassuring teta. Yes perhaps it's in response to not being popular - but surely UCL and Imperial at least will have enduring appeal?

goodbyestranger if you can be bothered, surely ICL and UCL will find your advice very helpful. As has everyone on mumsnet.

My DC live the simple life. They are grateful and try to be gracious when receiving gifts. The older ones were not love bombed by ICL or UCL but that was when some offers arrived without interview, can't explain why that may be, since it is said med school entry is no more demanding than any other course.

teta surely it must be good news that London is 'struggling to recruit', the RVC may be bending over backwards to fill their places. Or perhaps they are one of the ones that don't wait until August to clear?

Thank you maryso that's flattering but since my DC aren't currently the victims of love-bombing I don't feel I have the appropriate legal or moral standing :)

Everyone in my DCs' cohorts have been interviewed prior to getting an offer for medicine from Imperial and UCL but that only goes back ten UCAS cycles perhaps your family goes back further if they had offers without interviews. But then you're love bombed and we're not so....perhaps you're just special :)

goodbyestranger 'perhaps you're just special'
is an error in logic since everyone else at DD's school who had similar offers got the same treatment... (and I can't think why anyone remotely sane would consider receipt of a 'corporate' gesture as special. Even teenage girls find it amusing, not 'special')
Likewise no mention that the offers without interview and lack of teenage 'love-bombing' (as those you quoted) were medicine but curious that you would assume they were...

And yes, goodbyestranger I do go back to the very old days when med school offers on occasion were made without interview. That wasn't considered 'special' either, even by teenagers then. Any more than EE was special from Oxford.

Is it me me is this thread is getting weird?

Or, not me!

Well if its any comfort I'm finding it weird too Lonicera. I think it became weird with the introduction of love bombing and the complicated stuff about clearing, or pre-clearing, which I also didn't completely understand.

I am totally confused with the talk of love bombing and schools. Is this just to do with medicine? Not much love bombing going on in the music degree world !

Glad it's not just me. Earlier on in the uni application process DD kept being bombarded with mail and voicemails from Northumbria University. I guess it is the ex polytechnics that want to attract more bums on seats, so they are trying harder.