Applying for uni in 2021...

[Parsley65]

Thought I'd start the ball rolling on this one...

Dd wants to study psychology and we've been checking out dates of open days.

Her school still does AS levels. She's doing psychology, physics & business.

Please come and join us on the long and bumpy ride past revision and exams and on towards the much anticipated start of uni life in Autumn 2021.

@chopc

QS World ranking for Universities, for International Uni rankings and for employer preferred uni’s for employment he looked at the 2 most recent reports.

@Bee0808

My Daughter is 3rd year at Nottingham. Absolutely loves it. Nottingham has a great reputation.

Thank you chopc ☺

He likes the course (history and politics) at both universities but Nottingham is RG and its hard to know if/how valuable that could be for him later...
(I didn't go to university and my dh did a workplace degree so we are rather at sea in advising him!)

I think that Nottingham as firm and DMU as insurance is sensible.

Its very stressful! 😬

Thank you too apple
Glad she's enjoying it!

Thank you @Applepieco

Good news @Applepieco!- I think it must be really good for our dc to try to grasp a little certainty if they are confident of choices.
Had a chat with Dd yesterday evening and she is still not sure. She has decided to hold off making final decision in the hope that a visit might be allowed before the firm/ insurance deadline.

@TellTail The MSc Pscychology and Neuroscience was a brand new course last year and therefore the uni will not hold enough historic data to gauge yet the general spread of their undergrads A level/IB grades fall as yet so they are more liekly to wait until deadline to see the spread and then make offers.

Their other courses they will have historic data that shows e.g. (using entirely made up figures) that say 5% applicants apply with 3 x A+, full set gcses at A and 10 %at 2 x A*A and so on. Thus they can see the usual spread and offer accordingly.

The allocate 20% score to GCSE and 80% score to A level predictions when scoring the application.

will also PM you.

@SeasonFinale

sorry to bother you but I'm finding your posts really helpful in explaining the application/ offer process as you seem to know a lot about how it all works.

I wondered if you'd seen the question I'd posted a while back in the thread..

"I have an odd question that not sure if anyone will know the answer to....DS has had an offer from Lancaster and a follow up email mentioning a few things from his personal statement, giving him links to things he might be interested in at Lancaster based on those things they highlighted.

DH is massively cynical and basically sees the whole process as a sales pitch from the universities desperate to get bums on seats. He believes no person will have been involved in putting that email together- it will just have been a piece of AI scanning the personal statement for keywords linked to predetermined things they want to highlight. And it’s just to make it seem like they really care about the individual student - but basically your application is run through a computer and if you hit certain minimums (GCSEs and predicted grades) you get an offer regardless.

Is he right? Would be interested if anyone knows how it all works in reality?"

If you had time I just wondered if you had a view on Dh's uber-cynical view of how it works?

@pistachioicecream

I am afraid I don't know for certain but I suspect a bit of both happens and that some unis do use an algorithm and some do have admissions tutors who mark out students they want to court and I don't know what Lancaster does. One of DS's friends had similar correspondence from them last year and is in yr 1 now and despite their lockdown experience of a year one is very impressed with the uni.

Southampton and Loughborough are others that I know sends out similar emails to applicants and I would stress FOR CERTAIN COURSES before people worry that their DC hasn't had these type of messages.

I suspect Lancaster may be more proactive in that although it is highly ranked it is not an RG and as you can see on MN that is seen as being important to some people.

Sorry I can't be more definitive in my answer.

Ds1 has had lots of contact from all the universities he has had offers from...
Loughborough definitely send lots of stuff...e mails, offer holder hub invites, post cards...
Nottingham too.
The others have also, but not as much and not as targeted.
This is for a history and politics course.

@SeasonFinale

No problem. Thank you for replying. That is interesting to know.
So DH might be right ... I shan't tell him though ;-)

My current stress is that I think DS is going to end up with offers all at the same grades which is probably my fault!

Out of his five options 1 was at AAA and 3 AAB. He's predicted A*AB.
He struggled to find a fifth.

On looking at the stats about average grade profiles of those on the course, Cardiff appeared to have students with lower grades than the others he's applied to and they published their entry requirements as AAB-ABB. So I advised him that looked like a good insurance option and he applied there as his 5th choice.

The AAA option came back with an offer of A*AB but will drop a grade if he firms. He's had one other AAB offer back too.

Now Cardiff have come back with the same AAB offer too. We stupidly didn't realise the lower grade offer is only for contextual candidates.

He's still waiting to hear from 2 but if he gets offered places I'm fairly sure they will be AAB as well.

Feeling the pressure now to make sure he gets his grades!

@Pistachioicecream Has his school inidcated whether the predicted grades they gace of AAB were what they had optimistically hoped he might acheieve with some hard work and a fair wind on exams day or are they genuine predictions as to what he might expect not teachers will be assessing grades (if you can see the difference in my implication)? If the latter than I suspect it is just normal Mum's worrying and that your DS might not be. Can I ask what course it is and what DS's preferred uni is and his preferred insurance? (and even other choices if not too outing - PM if you would rather).

DS2 hasn't received any postcards etc from his Uni's Bath, Exeter, York and Birmingham, Oxford (rejected). DS1 I can remember received much more from Loughborough, Swansea, Nottingham, Leicester and Aston. I wonder if the middling uni's (excluding Nottingham) are more focused on the sales pitch or if it's due to the pandemic and things just aren't running as normal.

@pistachioicecream DS1 had the same grades for both his firm and insurance but we felt his insurance would drop on the day. You could have a look on TSR to see if there are any threads from last year on who accepted what grades for the subject on results day. We also made the error of not realising that the lower boundary is often for contextual, not made clear at all.

Thank you for the offer @SeasonFinale - have pm'd you

DS had lots of contact from Bristol and an invite from Exeter to book an offer holders day. Exeter also invited him to a taster lecture. Nothing from Durham nor UCL post offer. They might just wait longer to get in touch, I suppose.

Dd1 got so much stuff from Swansea! Pens, notebooks, postcards, links to relevant issues. They were so positive it was hard to be cynical about it

Can't comment on Loughborough (I believe it has perked up a lot, though, in the 4 decades since someone I knew went there and reported that it was so dull there that she had even joined the TA to relieve the boredom), but DS2 fell in love with UEA (green spaces, the Sainsbury Centre, the Ziggurats and, bizarrely, yes, just the vast amount of concrete) when he saw it for the first time.

Norwich is quite a quirky little place and this is another draw for DS2. It's a lot nearer to the seaside than Loughborough, if that would be any kind of factor?

Mind you, now he's had more contact with Sussex, he is wavering a bit. I can see him being happy at either. Or at any of his other three options (Warwick, Birmingham, York), so it will be interesting to see how he feels about them all once he's 'been' to all the offer holder days.

Dd has had postcards, a ‘personalised ’ letter referring to extra curricular clubs that that they think she might be interested in (judging from her PS apparently!) and a pack through with departmental pens / badges etc from York . She’s had an offer holders day invitation from Durham and an email saying her college allocation will be emailed the week beginning 8th Feb. She’s had no more communication ( other than offers) from her other 2 choices.
She also has problems as all her potential insurances are AAB - the same as her probable firm (contextual) -apart from one which came in at (ABB) and which she isn’t really interested in anymore.

Thanks @SeasonFinale. It is helpful to know how it all works!

I believe there is a website somewhere that shows the average grades/UCAS points students on each course obtained, but I've never been able to find it.

Hopefully it won't be too long before our DCs get some news.

Interesting how different courses at the same Unis seem to have different views on courting potential students. I wonder if they are doing research into the effectiveness of different strategies?

I think you might be right @PortTable. It does seem to vary with the course/ department

[quote SeasonFinale]**@TellTail The MSc Pscychology and Neuroscience was a brand new course last year and therefore the uni will not hold enough historic data to gauge yet the general spread of their undergrads A level/IB grades fall as yet so they are more liekly to wait until deadline to see the spread and then make offers.

Their other courses they will have historic data that shows e.g. (using entirely made up figures) that say 5% applicants apply with 3 x A+, full set gcses at A and 10 %at 2 x A*A and so on. Thus they can see the usual spread and offer accordingly.

The allocate 20% score to GCSE and 80% score to A level predictions when scoring the application.

will also PM you.[/quote]
Ah, that is really useful! I didn't know that - and it is the course DS has applied to. It is probably a smallish cohort too, so they will want to take their time and be even more careful who they make offers to.

I also didn't know about the 20/80% split GCSE/A level. It is not relevant for DS, but could be for other students who maybe don't do so well in their GCSEs but who thrive at A level. Do you know if that is a similar split for all Unis?

Sorry, replies for @SeasonFinale - apologies for the many questions!

Bristol are one of the most transparent at putting their selection criteria on their website so if you look at the course as well as Entry Requirements there is a link to the (subject) admission criteria. Other unis you may have to trawl their sites more for this info and some you may have to email their admissions department to ask but they will usually tell you.

Medicine courses are usually very upfront about how they treat applications and med applicants can therefore target to their strengths which is good as it is ultra competitive.

@PortTable maybe try www.theuniguide.co.uk

@PortTable

Also discoveruni.gov.uk/ gives info about average entry grades. You can search for a particular course at each university.

She’s got good offers but isn’t well. She’s thinking she now defers this year. BUT what happens if there’s no improvement next year. Is it contractual? Does she have to attend if they’ve agreed to the deferment?