No offer....? Bad sign?

[Magnolia21]

DS applied for a computer science degree at Loughborough University in January through UCAS. He has heard from all of his choices apart from Loughborough. He rang admissions at Loughborough who say they are still working through applications.

Is it a bad sign if you still haven't heard from a university 5 weeks after application? Does it mean they have put you on a reserve list and might give you an offer depending on who else accepts offers from them?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

Does Loughborough interview? If so, it could be that they don't make offers until afterwards. If they have had a high number of applications, then it can take a while to get everyone through the interview process and out the other side with offers.

Or, yes, it could be that your ds is considered to be 'borderline' and is being held in a pool which will be considered at some point later on in the cycle .

Five weeks isn't a particularly long time though and at this time of the year we're often still dealing with the peak in the applications cycle after 15 Jan deadline.

Not all unis are centralised with their processing and some are in-department. While this is a good thing (the applications are seen by those with subject-related knowledge) it can slow things down a bit, especially around the peak times.

No cause for worry yet, I don't think.

(I'm an admissions officer btw!)

Oh and in answer to you final question, I think it's probably unlikely that universities wait to see who accepts before making remaining offers. The deadlines imposed on us and on applicants wouldn't really make that feasible.

We tend to have a feel of how many might make us their firm and ins choice, and have a target number of offers to make to enable this to happen. We look at these numbers at around this time of year and, if we need to make more offers, we'll go to the 'borderline' pool. Hope this makes sense!

I understand that univetsities may have internal deadlines of e.g. 31st March for getting decisions out(?), but the UCAS deadline for responding to on-time applications isn't until early May, frustrating as it may be for applicants. DD submitted her application at the beginning of December (2019 entry), had one or two responses before the Christmas, but was still waiting for the last - Warwick - when she had already attended the applicant days for three of the others, iirc.

Been there, done that. DS was kept waiting until mid March for three of his choices, despite applying in early October. (Plus one rejection and a fifth choice that no longer appealed.)

It is not unusual with oversubscribed courses. They have a statutory duty to give equal consideration to home and EU students. They will have accepted the outstanding ones, and rejected the weaker ones and will be holding the rest in a "gathered field". Especially on courses where they do not want to take more students than planned. (Its easier to put more students in a history lecture than in a science lab.)

Probably they are waiting for people to start accepting and rejecting them, to get an idea of how many spare places they have.

It's a pain, but no news is generally good news, and suggests that the course is popular and attracting strong applicants.

Fingers crossed, and he should not take it personally. I suspect with Brexit this is a particularly hard year for Universities trying to forecast offer/acceptance ratios, which may be why they are being cautious. If I remember correctly, Loughborough was one of the Universities that had an accommodation problem last September because they had too many students, so again a reason why they may be waiting to see what happens to their early offers before making more.

(We went through the same with DD, though for medicine. One early rejection then three interviews one week in March. We seem to do UCAS stress in our house.)

A few years ago now but I got an offer from Warwick for Politics at the end of April my year - had my UCAS response deadline extended and everything. My college tutor reckoned I was probably literally in the last couple of students they were deciding between and totally on the borderline. It was a long wait because I'd applied for Oxford so they had my application over 7 months!

Friend's ds is waiting on Loughborough for Engineering. He had to submit a portfolio and that was all done well before Christmas. They do seem slow. Another friend's DS got rejected within a week for Geography so if they don't want you they seem to say no fairly fast.

Thank you all so much for your responses. They are all very helpful in throwing light on the situation. I have been at work all day and have only just read all your posts!

By coincidence, when I got home from work Loughborough had emailed DS and asked him to send scanned copies of GCSE and A-level certificates. Although he is predicted to get the required grades at A-Level, he did the bare minimum for GCSEs and didn't do well. He got 4 Bs and 5Cs at GCSE, but apparently needs 5Bs at GCSE for Loughborough. They haven't said no yet, but it looks like they probably will. I think he bitterly regrets not putting his back into the GCSE years. We are just crossing our fingers at this point!

Thank you all again for your posts!

He could write a nice short covering email, explaining this, recognising that he does not meet their sift and suggesting he has learnt a useful lesson, has done much better in sixth form, and will not make the same mistake at University.

Boys in particular will be boys, and not all are focussed at 15/16. Universities will know this.

@Needmoresleep Yes I think that would be a really good idea. I begged him to do it but he didn't. DS tends to always know best and thinks his parents know nothing!