Applying for Uni 2019 entry Part 4, UCAS & offers (and thinking about exams)

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

Following on from the previous thread.

What doesn’t she like about Swansea, Fazackerly? Not a beach fan?

We live rurally and I think she likes the idea of a bigger city. She's not visited though and I'm struggling to find any offer holder dates. I think she should consider it, the research in sports science looks really good and interesting. They have quite a few female academics which is unusual, and lots of research inot ethics and psychology which shes really interested in.

Fazackerley we live rurally, the only sounds, sheep, cows the clip clop of horses and the noise the hens, ducks and geese make when brer fox turns up. DS still chose to live 20 minutes away from uni. in halls in parkland.

Fazackerley - some unis do a talk and walk thing. We did these for St Andrews and Edinburgh. Also, requested to see a lecturer, Edinburgh didn't respond, but DD had over an hour with one at St Andrews who talked about the course, looked at books with her and allowed her to ask lots of questions. If Swansea don't do a talk and walk, might be worth her asking if she can attend a lecture (Warwick offered for her to come abck for one) and time with a lecturer. If you're able to stay in Swansea overnight, that would give her a good idea of what it's like.

When we went to Birmingham offers day last week, we went to the accommodation talk and they said that even though the accommodation was now open for applications they didn’t allocate on first come first serve (didn’t say how they do it thought) 🤔 I’ve already posted about this, but wanted to mark my spot on the new thread - this is exactly what happened to my niece, chose her accommodation early (already had results when she applied), but still ended up in most expensive, fully catered halls.

I hope this doesn't happen to DD. She would hate to be in catered halls.

Dd has only heard of one girl with an Uif at her sixth form she says. Dd gor an offer last night for Bath. This is same as Durham offer as she has an EPQ A* so will have to choose. Waiting on Edinburgh which she would like as her insurance.

Place marking too.
DS has all offers in. Offer holder days in the next few weeks, then decisions.
Hopefully he will then start to put some work in.

help needed. DS stated tonight that he needs teacher to put in his firm and insurance. Now he has an unconditional offer. I thought that if you had one you could just accept it and did not need insurance. He says that you put the unconditional down as firm and one other as insurance

Baffled here.

The firm does not be one unconditional until you submit it.

*become

Lonerica, we went to an offer holders day at Newcastle last Sat, I really liked it ( ds had gone during the week to the regular open day)
He just needs to go to Sheffield offers holders day in a couple of weeks then he can sort out his firm

Still haven't heard from Bath. Dd surprised me by saying she would firm bath if she gets an offer. Fingers crossed.

DS stated tonight that he needs teacher to put in his firm and insurance. Now he has an unconditional offer. I thought that if you had one you could just accept it and did not need insurance. He says that you put the unconditional down as firm and one other as insurance

Why would he need a teacher to do anything? - he manages his application himself once it has has been submitted by the school.

What does need to happen is that he has received a response from all the universities he has applied to, or withdrawn his application from any he has decided not to wait for.

If his firm choice is only an Unconditional if Firmed, I can see the temptation to feel that an insurance choice is still needed, but as soon as the 'firm' university confirms to UCAS that the conditions of its offer have been met (i.e. the university has been named as firm choice), Track will update and the insurance will become redundant.

Crikey, DS now has three offers - one of them where the standard offer was two grades above his actual results. This could be a trickier decision than he’d thought - he wasn’t greatly expecting any offers at all.

DitheringDan - that’s Brilliant a nice position to be in.
My DS is retaking and he applied to 2 unis where the standard grade is above his predicted grades, one has lowered his offer since we went to offers day, and we are still waiting to hear from Bath, but it certainly feels like it was worth submitting an aspirational application.
I’m slightly regretting that he didn’t take the schools offer to up one of his predicted grades (from C to B) as he might have been given an unconditional like so many seem to have been given, but DS didn’t want to put himself under even more pressure.
Just waiting to hear from Bath now.

That's fab news dan!

Dd wishes she'd been a bit more aspirational in her choices and hasn't ruled out adjustment if she does better than predicted. However we are holding out for the elusive Bath offer!!

The thing about reducing offers after students attend offer days is interesting. Do they have to be particularly bright eyed and bushy tailed, or is it just another bums on seats ploy?

We didn't go to Lincoln today : rebooked for the 16th, then Hull on the 23rd and Aberystwyth in March. that's why the NTU accommodation booking thing annoys me so much : we have to wait unitl DS's Aber exam result comes back (early March)! Despite all its various encouraging noises and financial offers, Portsmouth seems to have been discarded.

Bit of a PR disaster going on for Warwick at the moment. Dd shown me the messages the male students were sending - absolutely horrendous. Good to see the Profs all speaking out about it - the English Dept head response was very clearly anti letting them back in with reduced bans.

Many of the departments have spoken up : not history though to my knowledge, which is what these horrible young men were/are studying. In fact, they were leading lights of the hostory society. It's a dreadful state of affairs and they are abhorrent, entitled individuals.

MarchingFrogs your DS should be able to do it himself, unless he wants to feel 'at one remove' from the decision-making? It's a big decision for them, isn't it?

DitheringDan well done to your DS.

Piggy I can’t get my head round the fact that these young men would even think these things let alone, stupidly, put them in writing. Surely they were brought up with girls? Sisters? Presumably they would say it was, to use Trump’s line, ‘locker room’ talk but letting any of them back, most abborantly when the specific women they were messaging about are still studying, is awful.

Indeed, and after being disciplined they started up a new chat. Beggars belief.

Thanks, everyone! He's tremendously uplifted about it all, which makes me realise how downcast he was about his A-levels at the time. But he's also so much more ready to go to university now -- watching him emailing lecturers etc to check up on details of the course, I just can't imagine him doing that a couple of years back.

I might need to change my username to something more decisive in his honour.

DecisiveDan works!