How closely do your offers match advertised grades for courses?

[KittyMarmalade]

DD is just about to submit her UCAS form. Her predicted grades are ABB Some of the courses she intends to apply for are somewhat aspirational and suggest AAA or AAB for entry.
If they do make her an offer (which the UCAS offer likelihood calculator suggests they might), any thoughts on whether they are likely to stick to their AAA / AAB standard offer, or do they actually look at her personal statement and think "This girl has some interesting work experience, so I'm going to offer her a place on the basis of her predictions" i.e. offer at a more realistic ABB?
Not done UCAS before; don't know what to expect!

Subject is Geography btw. She has found that there is not a lot of middle-ground of unis with standard offers at her predicted level - she either has to trade up to places with advertised offers of AAA/AAB, or down to places whose standard offer is BBB/BBC.

I absolutely think it’s worth a try. Unless it’s a typically heavily oversubscribed course there is always a bit of wriggle room and interest in what else students can bring.

Ds has same predicted grades, he's applying for history and got offers from York at AAB, Kent at BBC and Aberystwyth at ABB

The uni might come in with standard offer initially then offer to reduce it if she firms them. Seems to happening a fair bit this year.

Why firm before Christmas though? That’s just another pressurised “unconditional” type of offer but just lower grades to get bums on seats - again! Another nudge to students to coast.

She should go for one or two aspirational. Two spot on and one lower that’s the insurance. However if she really does not like the insurance, and wouldn’t want to go there, don’t put anything lower and keep three at more or less spot on and two aspirational. We know a few who didn’t want to go to the insurance choice when it came down to it.

You have to judge how much competition there will be for geography courses at these universities. We didn’t game the system by thinking they would offer lower but some universities are more desperate than others these days. When DD went to offer days it appeared some were more keen to have her then we expected! She did MFL though and Manchester more or less said they couldn’t care less about the grade she achieved in her third A level as long as her MFL grades held up. With Geography, I’m not so sure this would happen. I think the best bet is to use the approach I suggested above and make sure she wants to go to all of the universities. Then wait and see. They may not read her PS though so don’t expect miracles!

Different advice from DDs school for this year's cohort (they used to advise as per Bubbles but this year is a very low birth year). Assuming you like all the courses equally school suggests they should be more ballsy. Firm the aspirational course and insure a course with grades that match predictions. Then if it all goes terribly use clearing. I checked clearing last summer and her course was in clearing nearly everywhere (often at reduced grades). Different advice for Maths and CS.

Their bet is that many will offer at advertised grades but will allow the odd slipped grade on the day. Currently DD has 2 at reduced grades, 1 at advertised grades, 1 she will hear about in Jan and another that is still under consideration by the Uni.

DD is the exactly same as Bpisock's DD, but for a different subject. She has two offers where the uni has reduced each subject by one grade. Another is for the advertised grades, but she doesn't know of anyone else who has received an offer for that course at that uni. She is waiting for Oxford and one other course.

Advertised a*aa at two here, one offered at the same and the other was aaa, neither were unconditional.

Their bet is that many will offer at advertised grades but will allow the odd slipped grade on the day.

^^This.

Biggest fear for any university is students not enjoying it and dropping out. I think that’s why they will allow more ‘dropped’ grades if they are your firm choice. They already know you’ve chosen them over everyone else. Many universities have similar grades for similarly named courses.

Research, research and research. Then firm the one she likes the most.

Dd was predicted AAA (her school didn’t predict A*s) she went for a AAB course because she loved it. She begrudgingly put another entry down so had 2 on her UCAS form. Her first choice dropped to ABB so it was lower than the insurance.

She got 2xA and A and a box saying she could apply for adjustment. She accepted her firm straight away. The course she is doing is challenging and robust. But she had researched it thoroughly so she knew it would be already. Of the very few people who have mentioned their grades to Dd (not the done thing to do) many got A and As too.

I think there is evidence that students taking clearing offers are more likely to drop out. So I think the advice from schools on this has to be taken warily. You didn’t consider the university in the first place, so why does it appeal now? Plus the accommodation for clearing students can be problematic as it can for insurance students. Of course if there are fewer students it may not be a problem but it’s all a gamble.

In our experience (3 DC UCAS applications), they do tend to make lower offers if they think you are a good fit.

This year DS has an ABB offer for Durham for a course advertised at A*AA.
And a BBB offer for York for a AAA course.
We think this is because he is quite a good choristor and they want his voice

Conversely Birmingham and Nottingham, neither of which are noted for their choirs, gave him their standard AAA offer.

The same went for DS1 who was a rower and received lower offers from the unis with competitive rowing teams.

I know of friends’ DDs who have got into good Russell group universities with grades 2 lower then advertised. One applied through clearing for a different course at a better university and one missed her grades but was offered anyway.

My son (geography BSc) who is now at university (Bristol) was offered 3 As and got 3 As so it was all pretty consistent. His twin also Bristol but not geography was advertised and it was offered at AAB and he got exactly that too but I don't know who common that is. They do have quite a lot of friends who exceeded their Bristol offers.

Bristol is complicated because those in the 40% of worst schools in the country get lower contextualised offers under a system which is specific to Bristol however (mine didn't get a contextualised as I as a single mother paid school fees etc).

It also varies over the years. Their older siblings applied 13, 11 and 10 years ago and supply and demand for places, numbers of students applying, number of 18 years olds in a year group varied and I think when the older ones applied there were huge caps on the number of offers a university could make even to high grade candidates -then the rules changed to allow (if they have enough desks etc) universities to make as many offers as they like to those with AAB or higher. That is probably the reason my son on one course at Bristol has double the number of students on it as when his sister did the same course 13 years before (both she and he got AAB and that was their grade requirement although in her day there were no A stars so possibly her AAB was better than her younger brother's AAB grades).

I think this years cohort are fortunate in being a relatively small year group, caps on numbers were lifted a few years ago and many universities have massively expanded the number of places available.
My friends DD was offered a place to start last September with exactly half the points the uni require for this particular course, so there’s deals to be done at some unis at least.

It’s a concern though that very low grade A levels are now accepted. Half the A level tariff points is very low! I would genuinely worry about ability to do the course! Getting a place is one thing but being successful and enjoying it is different and challenging.

My dc had predicted grades ABB and applied for courses who advertised AAB. He actually got BBB (thanks to coursework disaster but that's another thread) but his firm offer (AAB) took him and he is now studying geography at a RG uni.

DD was predicted AAA, she did two lots of mocks and got ABB both times, the A being in a different subject each time. She worked her socks off for coursework and revision for her A levels, the result being ABB. Not saying this will happen to your DD, but her results were nearer her two mocks results than predictions, so it's really worth having a good back up. DD ended up at her insurance, it wasn't the end of the world, in fact she's having the time of her life in a lovely city, nice halls. Part of her course is stretching her, but she's adamant she's sticking at it.

Four of DD's offers were the same as advertised grades, one was reduced from A*AA to AAA, which they said they would do if an essay (which they also had to submit) was of a good standard.

DD's PS was 100% geared to the course, explaining why she was passionate about it, what work experience she'd done and the fact she was more than capable of working extremely hard. Not sure she could have improved it more.

@BubblesBuddy I agree with you and was very surprised that the uni was happy to accept the student given the achieved grades. But I think it does show that if you’re looking at a course with low take up and/or a less popular uni then they are needing to do this to keep up their numbers.

I agree errorofjudgement but I don’t think it’s right though.

Added to the stress, predicted and actual grades are notoriously wrong, especially in humanities.

inews.co.uk/news/education/half-of-a-level-students-could-be-getting-wrong-grades-analysis-reveals-496077

So, to an extent it’s a bit of a game anyway.

Zanda, it is, if only because my actual thoughts on what students might get are then tempered by a whole heap of school “suggestions”
Ie student 1 has been on a U throughout y12, however they are good verbally, known to be last minute champs and I reckon they will be good for a B, however I am not allowed to put that down as it is too far off current achievement ( they get a B). Student 2 has been on an A all trhoughy12, however they have not sat a single exam on time ( always ill/ uni day etc) and from their performance in class I reckon they are D/C grade material, as before I am not allowed to predict that but guess what they get a D at the end of y13.
Basically the reported predicted grades often bear little resemblance to what the teachers actually think the kids will get, often for good reason, student working really hard trying to turn around a bad start and one doesn’t want to demoralise them.
Would be really interesting to do a decent properly blind study of this.

DD has applied for Psychology and has received two offers below standard but these are contextual offers from Bristol and Southampton. Exeter and Nottingham gave their standard offers and Exeter gave a standard offer but one grade lower if firmed.