Universities not replying to UCAS applications ...

[TalkinPeece]

Form went in November last year
but one University has decided that it CBA to respond
and
shock horror
its the same university that messed around my other child
what IS their problem ?
Why can they not say yes or no within five months?

They'll give him an offer if enough people with offers decline them, it's that time of year. I'm surprised your DS wasn't put off Exeter by your DD's experience tbh TP. Don't know what's got into Exeter really, with it's two A* offers etc. Have they not even sent holding e-mails to your DS? That doesn't take much and if there's just been a silence then I'd be pretty pissed off too.

Talkin, if your DS would prefer his other offer over Exeter (and the conditions are similar), he could go onto UCAS Track and withdraw his Exeter application.

Then he could get on with firming and sorting out accommodation.

Well, well.
This is amusing.
I have to assume that somebody in Exeter admissions has read this thread and has worked out who my child is.
Rejection has been received.

Offer from other University will be gladly accepted.

Oh bum.... Sorry.

That's a bit farfetched TalkinPeece that your DS could be identified from your recent posts on MN but I can understand that your family has good reason not be impressed by Exeter. I guess it will motivate your DS to nail his grades for his firm choice and it will be Exeter's loss.

I think you are taking conspiracy theories to new heights. The idea that somebody from Exeter admissions would both bother to read this thread, then trawl through many other threads to identify the student, then send out an immediate rejection is very far fetched.

Much more reasonable to say that this is the first working day after Easter and the next batch of responses were due today anyhow.

Genuinely bewildered as to why so many on MN think Exeter is terrific, though. It's really not terrific for most STEM subjects and seems to trade on its higher reputation for humanities to get students in these subjects.

My daughter has firmed on Exeter and we had only good experiences from both of the open days we went to. The university my daughter's friends had to wait ages for was Durham. Three of them had rejections from Durham on the same day my daughter and I were at an offer holders' open day at Exeter.

One of the problems, I think, at the most popular universities, is that many children hold onto 4 or 5 offers for months, before deciding which to accept and which to reject. That clearly makes it difficult for the universities. The same thing seems to happen with independent secondary schools. Some parents seem to hold onto multiple offers for ages.

In both cases, the sooner those with multiple offers make up their minds, the sooner the released places can be offered to others.

In my daughter's case, she took ages to decide between Exeter and Birmingham as her favourite, but decided on her insurance offer quickly, so was able to decline her other two offers promptly. My older daughter did something similar and rejected two offers before Christmas.

Agree fifyhtimelucky
I think OP has taken this all too personally.
Ds had to wait until march/april for Durham and Loughborough. He was borderline in predicted grades. He also got offered a different course at Bristol, dont get what the problem is with that. Its not nice having to wait but its understandable why, when so many people applying for limited number of places.
Dd has had 4 offers this year since Jan, huge decision and only made her mind up on friday.

I would agree the OP is taking this rather too personally and I sure the admissions staff are far too busy to attempt to cross reference her comments with applicants. However, she is correct that there are admissions staff on these threads. Last year I asked a very specific question about my own DC which was unlikely to be relevant to any other applicants at all and a member of admissions at the Uni in question did comment( in a very positive way I should add.)

Durham is only really slow if you're near the bottom of the queue, although it's fair to say that it doesn't seem to ping out these offers-by-return in the way so many unis these days seem to do. Same as everywhere else. Plenty of DC get offers before Christmas or just after it, across all subjects.

I doubt OP was being serious about Exeter monitoring this site.

Exeter seems quite a pleasant place (it's our local uni and we have a lot of interaction with it at school level) but asking for 2 A* in certain subjects was frankly ridiculous. They probably lost a lot of good students that way.

I hope his one offer is easily achievable OP . It's good that he's really keen - the rest are irrelevant then.

Yes, my older daughter had an early offer from Durham but it was for music, which is not particularly oversubscribed, her predicted A level grades were quite a bit higher than their standard offer, and her practical music grades were also higher than their expectations, so I imagine she was a pretty safe bet.

It's the same for very oversubscribed subjects too though Fifthtimelucky.

"Durham is only really slow if you're near the bottom of the queue"

Yes and no. For some subjects in some places the queue can be pretty long, which is why I suggested OP check the applicant to place ratio. If there are, say, 13 applicants to a place and your DC is held waiting for a decision till Easter, they have probably done well.

"Plenty of DC get offers before Christmas or just after it, across all subjects. "

But again this depends on subjects and where they are applying. And often the ones kept waiting are those who narrowly missed Oxbridge., or those who are applying for the oversubscribed courses popular with DC who narrowly miss Oxbridge.

I accept that most dont have this problem, but OP was not suggesting this. When it happens, it is really tough on the applicant. All their friends are booking accommodation and getting stuck into revision, whilst mine were still waiting on three replies each.

It worked out fine for us, and I hope the same is true for OP's DS. I got my sort-of revenge moment. Warwick waited till March to give DS a weird Tesco substitution offer. DS is now deciding on which funded PhD offer to take up. There was no interest at all in applying to Warwick. Far too low down the rankings.

But my comment was Durham specific Needmoresleep, I was talking about applicants to Durham.

Sure, but as far as I can tell sought-after Universities with over-subscribed courses behave in much the same way, using the gathered field approach. I don't see anything particularly unqiue with the Durham approach and suspect that had DS applied there he would also have had to wait until the University had a clearer idea of numbers.

But happy to be corrected.

There can't be a true gathered field approach for the popular courses at popular Non Oxbridge unis for as long as they dish out pre-Christmas offers! Which they do!

Or even non Oxbridge!

Anyhow, fact remains that it must be not just tough but massively tough if a DC hasn't got any offer until March or only an offer which they're not enthused by. Happily that doesn't seem to be the case for OP's DS.