Applying for Uni 2020 :2: Offers arriving

[MillicentMartha]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/3655914-Applying-for-Uni-2020?pg=40

Previous thread

I think DD's tutor knew who she was by the time the reference was written. That's the joy of comps not having integrated sixth forms in our county. Everyone moves and the tutors in her school only see their group of 30- 40 for 30 minutes once a week to give out notices. I imagine the references become a bit more generic in the rush towards the January deadline.

DS1 doesn't hold any reduced offers (Bristol and Manchester) and if he gets an Imperial offer this week I fully expect it to be the standard (either one or town A stars)..

Since he qualifies for precisely no markers of disadvantage I think that's entirely fair.

No reduced offers here either (as Millicent said - not usual for Maths). Still hoping though that Warwick remove the STEP requirement from their offer if he scores highly enough in the MAT test though!

DS went to an average comp (progress 8 around 0) and is at a better than average state sixth form, and we are fairly poor, but that’s due to divorce rather than anything else. So we don’t meet any contextual criteria.

As I said up thread a while ago, getting a lower offer for maths (and only just meeting it) can cause problems with keeping up with the course, if the uni doesn’t provide adequate support once you have joined. And when they do provide ‘catch-up lectures’ the workload can be excessive.

That's not quite correct Hugo. EE for Oxford used to be the standard offer. Very, very occasionally since then Cambridge has handed out a similar offer but that's hen's tooth territory. I simply said what my reaction to that low an offer to her was - DD was also underwhelmed by the fact the uni in question needs to make these offers to attract 'strong' applicants. That doesn't imply other people are required to react in the same way! Anyhow, it's had the opposite effect to the one intended by the uni in this house at least.

I absolutely welcome lower offers! So handy if exam nerves or exceptionally hard papers raise their ugly heads! Nothing demeaning about it! Whatever offers my dgd gets whether high or low she will still want to achieve her very best because that is how she has always been. In her own words ' I haven't worked so hard all these years to obtain these high grades to then get complacent about it all, I want those grades!'

I clarified the conditions for a Durham "guaranteed contextual offer" with admissions a few weeks ago and was told that all applicants at state schools, including grammar schools, can be made a reduced offer providing they meet all other entry requirements, as can those at independent schools on means tested scholarships and bursaries.

I think you're misunderstanding Hoghgyni. Superselectives are almost all very high achieving and that's the context - grammar is a shorthand for high achieving would be a better way of putting it perhaps.

Reading backwards again!

Sostenueto different people have different reactions.

If your dd has received a very low offer from a reputable uni I would be doing a dance on the front lawn because I would know it would be a safety net for dgd in case things go wrong at exam time!

If my dgd that should read!😁

Sostenueto if I attempted to dance on the front lawn I'd probably go under a car (our house is right on the road) so that's another excellent reason not to celebrate I reckon. I'll just carry on being a grinch, in the safety of the house.

You are funny Goodbye with the assumptions you make. No I'm not misunderstanding anything. A super selective grammar and a child having a fairly grim background are not mutually exclusive. After all, the purpose of a super selective is to selective brightest and best regardless of their postcode, not just those who can afford to live in a certain location. I would have thought you would appreciate that as you are such an advocate of outreach.

As a recipient of an EE offer in the 1980s, I can confirm that after all of the hard work which went into obtaining it, I loved the fact that I could take my A & S levels without any pressure whilst those taking STEP looked fraught.

Hoghgyni with respect, you're being a bit convoluted. Of course kids at superselectives can live in postcodes which score highly for outreach, or they might have been in care. And yes, good superselectives with a decent outreach programme will target those postcodes to try to recruit able DC. I thought you were simply insisting that there's no distinction between any type of state school at uni admissions level, whereas there obviously is - in terms of the achievement levels in the school (and superselectives tend to score highly). There's absolutely nothing controversial about that. I think there may be some controversy about putting all indies in Cat 1 but of course other contextual factors will be grafted in, so it sounds pretty fair to me. It's only one uni as far as I know, for the moment anyhow.

Which uni was that EE offer from Hoghgyni?

Thank you Sostenueto! I have a very pretty back lawn with a sea glimpse though, so I'm very content.

No apologies for being selective with my celebrations Sostenueto :) I'll go yay when there's something actually worth celebrating.

My Ds got an unconditional from a RG Uni last year. I was pleased but he was underwhelmed- he has since said it put him off the Uni completely. He was capable of and achieved high grades and he said working for them was really important to him - and that the unconditional undermined that for him.
I thought that was interesting because I hadn't thought of it like that.

Ah well must be awful to get an unconditional offer and thank goodness it's now unfashionable . Just imagine getting 5 unconditional and your DC being unable to accept any as they felt it below them to have an unconditional offer! Heavens above😮

A touch of the Groucho M, perhaps?

(The club resignation telegram one, I mean, not the low level of light in a canine, obviously).

GS, it's a shame the university concerned didn't make its policy explicit from the outset, if there was a different university your DD didn't apply to that she would have named instead, had she known? Or is she happy with her remaining non-Oxbridge options?

Just because you get a lower offer does not mean you stop working for a higher grade....well not in my dgds eyes anyway!