No offer despite better than required A levels

[Midlifephoenix]

If a university states the offer level requirements for a course is, say, A,A,B, and your predicted grades are A*,A,A, surely you could expect to get offered a place? Extra curricular includes gold D of E, grade 8 music and work experience in the proposed field of study etc. Do you think the increased last year acceptances due to the better grades plus those who deferred entry last year has decreased the numbers universities are admitting this year? It was the second choice so now fear she won't get her first choice which is tougher!

The reason that other unis cannot do an offer date (unless you want it to be a particularly late offer date) is because they simply have far, far to many applications to go through. Remember Oxbridge application date is 3 months before the deadline date and that is why they do start to assess and make offers early as it allows people to firm up and they can see the level of interest by the time the equal consideration date passes.

There were circa 75,000 early deadline applicants in this cycle and 616,000+ applicants overall which is up from 568,000 last year. reapplicants were only up by 3,000 from around 47,000 reapplicants to 50,000 reapplicants.

The unis are simply not set up to consider all applications alongside their regular work unless it was for late offer days which then doesn't allow time for offer holder days and so on, and may fall during exam periods.

If a pupil already has offers that they wish to use as firm and insurance there is simply no reason not to withdraw from any other choices especially on the say so of their school unless their school wants to use their number of RG offers in their marketing literature. It is the pupil's application and up to them.

If a school is telling someone not to make decisions yet for any other reason than that then they must know they have inflated the predicted grades to a point where that student is unlikely to achieve them.

While there is some insight into how a state or private education may influence an offer, what is difficult to discern is what percentage of offers going out is being made to overseas students. It is clear that the business of operating a university has been significantly impacted by the pandemic and more overseas students are attracted to studying at UK universities. Your DD sounds very bright and am sure will thrive wherever she ends up @Midlifephoenix I hope she isn't finding the process overly stressful; the year has been stressful enough for that generation.

I'm a senior lecturer on a popular course. I get over 40 applicants per place, all of whom have the grades. I turn a lot down without even interviewing them. The personal statement is a massive part of the application.

I think this year it is because a lot of DC's have not received all their offers and I think their tutor would like to talk through their offers with them. I appreciate this is not the case in every school - so I don't want to generalise

And to add in DS's case, the grade requirement for his 5th choice was still AAA. In any case he hasn't heard back from all his choices

@SeasonFinale

If a school is telling someone not to make decisions yet for any other reason than that then they must know they have inflated the predicted grades to a point where that student is unlikely to achieve them.

And yet, universities are reportedly making less offers this year on the basis that more students will make the grades.....

Didn’t think extra curricular count

Yes but the school will know more than the university.

I think there is some merit in just letting the dust settle before making the final decision plus we don’t yet know how universities are going to play next year in terms of teaching etc

[quote hardrightwal]**@SeasonFinale

If a school is telling someone not to make decisions yet for any other reason than that then they must know they have inflated the predicted grades to a point where that student is unlikely to achieve them.

And yet, universities are reportedly making less offers this year on the basis that more students will make the grades.....[/quote]
which is precisely my point - that if a teacher is saying they need to discuss there is a real possibility they aren't in that category!

No grades have been decided yet. We only got the guidance on Friday. No school should have given any indication of actual grade - there's 2 months to go.

No but most teachers will have a pretty good idea whether the grade predictions on the UCAS form are still achievable or whether they should make sure they have a good back up.

If they think they are not achievable then they should be doing more revision lessons and more practice papers. No one can predict final outcomes until all the assessments are set. I have one who if I had to go on past data would get a D. Now pulling his finger out and has got A/A stars on every paper I've given him since we came back.
There is time to pull those grades up. So hope no school is telling kids they won't make it - unless they really are failing badly.
We were waiting until Fridays guidance to formalise plans.

Our school specifically asked students to hold fire on decisions until they have met with each and every one of them. Students were only back for 2.5 weeks and I'm pretty sure they did not manage to get through c160 students in that time. The main reason is to make sure the school can give advice, check they are not making any rash decisions and that particularly the insurance choice is a wise one. In some cases students are borderline between grades (certainly not over inflated predictions) so it will make sure everyone is on the same page as to expectations. It is a request though and they are not laying down the law. Those students desperate to finalise decisions I'm sure were at the front of the queue making appointments.
3 of DD's friends were borderline back when predictions were given and whilst they are now working more securely at the higher grade, a lot hinges on them performing in the up coming April and May assessments. At present we are not even sure what % these final assessments will be compared to other work from the two year course. They plan on waiting to see how they perform before they finalise what they will do. DD would also like to make some visits - both to cement her thoughts on her firm and particularly to decide on which should be her insurance (and visits will likely not be until after May assessments). In fact every single one of DD's friends is wavering about which institution to put as an insurance. No one is in a rush, the offers aren't going to disappear and they are all more concerned about revision. I therefore don't think universities can bank on lots of early decisions to help their offer ratios.

Although the JCQ guidance came out on Friday we all know schools had a pretty good idea what was going to be in it.

Actually @SeasonFinale our school has changed the assessment of Pre U after Friday as they have stated they would like one of the three pieces of evidence to be a full past paper or one issued by them - I can't remember.

The main topic of conversation on these threads for weeks has been about the unfairness of having to wait for history and geography offers from Durham, LSE & UCL since rejections came through from Oxford and Cambridge. Even St Andrew's has hardly had a look in this year.

That was in response to CHOPC's comment earlier about Durham & Oxbridge being the only universities.

@Hoghgyni

The main topic of conversation on these threads for weeks has been about the unfairness of having to wait for history and geography offers from Durham, LSE & UCL since rejections came through from Oxford and Cambridge. Even St Andrew's has hardly had a look in this year.

DS only got his Durham offer last week.

@chopc

Actually *@SeasonFinale* our school has changed the assessment of Pre U after Friday as they have stated they would like one of the three pieces of evidence to be a full past paper or one issued by them - I can't remember.

CIE guidance had already been received about the 3 types of evidence they require before JCQ guidance came out. I assume your school does a mixture of PreU and A levels and thus waited to see the JCQ guidance to rather than drip feed info to parents.

@mumsneedwine

If they think they are not achievable then they should be doing more revision lessons and more practice papers. No one can predict final outcomes until all the assessments are set. I have one who if I had to go on past data would get a D. Now pulling his finger out and has got A/A stars on every paper I've given him since we came back. There is time to pull those grades up. So hope no school is telling kids they won't make it - unless they really are failing badly. We were waiting until Fridays guidance to formalise plans.

Yes they should be but the reality is in normal times only 17% meet or exceed their predicted grades. Predicted grades are often used to draw out an offer for a student and then there will be some unis that will accept on dropped grades on exam days (an obviously others that won't which is why a sensible insurance place is required too).

You will also know that despite the fact it may indeed be more likely that pupils will meet the grades this year some won't and although they are not using an algorithm in the next breath the guidance hints that a school's set of results does need to be in line with historic results.

In my experience the offer level is unrelated to who gets an offer at a selecting university . Everyone who applies will have at least the minimum offer as predicted. If it’s an academic university then the music and D of E will be irrelevant as they are only interested in your academic interest in your chosen subject and the personal statement should reflect this

This.

Last year's and this year's cohort are getting higher grades due to teachers assessments. Unis know this and take it into account.