OR 22 - Edinburgh, Warwick, St A, UCL, Durham, Nottingham, Bath and more

[Valleyofthedollymix]

Following on from the Oxbridge rejects thread but I've got rid of those two words. I for one am interested to know where they all end up and when Durham might finally deign to reject/offer DS...

So, UCAS has updated for DD after a fashion. A rejection from the UK based course and still no official word but she has had the email rejection from the France based one. So DD, predicted two A* and one A has only one offer. She is distraught. DH and I feel that her Leeds offer is a good one and at AAB very achievable.

Her ongoing health issues are a slight worry, but are being monitored and Leeds is only a couple of hours (well three by the time she gets the tube home) away.

Hopefully she'll be in a happier place with it by tomorrow.

DD has reported students at her school with brilliant predictions also being turned down by Leeds. I wonder if they over offered two years running and now have very few places left?

@ACloseMatch sorry to hear she’s upset. Seems unfair to have such good predictions. I forget what course / where she’d applied but she’s definitely in good company. I hope that she is is able to focus on the positives of Leeds once she’s over her disappointment.

@ACloseMatch

If your dd is likely to achieve the A*s and A, she could consider taking a year out and re-applying.

@ACloseMatch - Does this mean your DD has no insurance offer? I know she probably doesn’t need one since Leeds are offering at AAB, but still.... I’m sorry she is in this position and I think it’s absolutely ridiculous with her predictions.

It could well be that come August, your DD finds she has achieved three A*. Leeds is a great uni, but with the kind of grades she is likely to achieve, it’s only right that she should feel like she has a choice of where to go, in my view.

If she took a gap year and reapplied with grades in hand she would be in a very strong position. For many Oxbridge courses, three A put you in the upper half of the actual cohort who go there - no guesswork required on the part of the admissions tutors. This is why, for many (most?) Cambridge humanities / social science courses, there is automatic pooling for those applying with three A achieved. What subject is she applying for??

Even if she doesn’t feel like doing Oxbridge again, she could well have a few unconditional offers to choose from before Xmas. If you think about it, Autumn is not long now. Then she has the year to get herself together and perhaps travel or do something she would never have had the opportunity to do. At the very least, she won’t be applying in the midst of coursework and exam stress.

Hope she’s ok today. Tell her a random on MN thinks the uni admissions system is crap and she is proof that it needs to change!

So sorry to hear of rejections @kitnkaboodle and @ACloseMatch. I hope the great offers they have are of some consolation. This is such a horrible admissions round.

With the A level grade boundaries being set at a half-way house between TAGs and achieved grades there will still be very many more DC applying next year with 3A achieved than would be normal, so I'm not sure things will be very much easier. The limiting factor is accommodation guarantees to first years. It feels like there is a certain amount of market re-adjustment going on, and increased contextualisation at Oxbridge and elsewhere is a game-changer. So tbh I would think long and hard before advising DS to take a gap year, even though with 3A predicted he still only has one offer.

Thank you for the kind words. I agree with @fishingeagle that I am not certain a gap year is the right way forward for her. She is doing one of the politics variations, and at the moment the plan is to do that, then a law conversion before changing the world. I think a great degree from Leeds will serve her as well as many others, and so if she waits, she may find herself a year delayed, and at only a marginally better uni. The course has lots of flexibility and we think the city will suit her well.

Although it is a worry that she doesn't have an insurance (Leeds was meant to be the insurance!) there will always be clearance, or next year. She had a (very) part time job till last week, and they would bite her hand off to have her more full time if she does end up taking a year out. Hopefully by August results day, we will have a better understanding of both her recent ADHD diagnosis, and the other health issue and so will be able to take a better call all round.

She will bounce back quickly I am sure. She came down last night to show me online a dress that she keeps going back to for her leavers ball, and has now ordered it. It is absolutely gorgeous, so if it fits she will look stunning. She may also have ordered a pair of outrageous heels that's she has been looking at on the Oxfam site. If they fit she will be taller than DH (and my lovely DF who is coming) at the ball, which will be hilarious.

It is not as if there is anything at all wrong with Leeds. The other DDs both have friends there who have done brilliantly and are having a great time. It is a pity that we could not get to the offer holders day, but that is what it is, and the online version will have to suffice. She is a gym bunny and serious swimmer and the facilities there are great, and free for first years.

I will just keep repeating "it will all be fine".

Just to add. DH was chatting with an acquaintance yesterday who works in admissions at one of the other universities we discuss often here. She told him that this time, for the first time she can recall, they have rejected prospective students with a set of perfect GCSEs and A* A Level predictions and perfectly good personal statements.

@ACloseMatch Sorry to hear, it seems utter madness that these kids with fantastic grades end up with one offer. I wonder how many years it will take until the ripple effect of Covid will no longer be felt? DS wanted to apply to Leeds next year for CS but with all of the rejects I have seen I wonder if he will stand a chance. I hope she will be very happy there and there

@ACloseMatch

Just to add. DH was chatting with an acquaintance yesterday who works in admissions at one of the other universities we discuss often here. She told him that this time, for the first time she can recall, they have rejected prospective students with a set of perfect GCSEs and A* A Level predictions and perfectly good personal statements.

So what is the reason for the rejections? It sounds like admissions this year is a lottery. More reason to change to a post A level application cycle. It would level the playing field if you apply with grades in hand not a set of predictions with a 17% accuracy rate.

Is it only 17% accuracy? Wow!

@andshesoff I hope you won't mind my two pence? A few years back when my other DC applied (had one at Oxford, one at Durham) I would have agreed with everything you've said based on their own and their friends' experiences but based on what I've seen I honestly think things have shifted now.

Context is everything. I would agree that if DC are applying to Oxbridge not for STEM from a non academically selective school and not from top 20% socio-economic home postcode then 3A attained puts you in a really good place for another go. STEM I think they'd expect 2 + Maths and FM if school offer it. My DS is at an independent and (as we were in fairness warned would probably happen by the school) no-one in his year got anywhere near Cambridge (or Oxford for that matter) for any subject who wasn't doing 4 A levels and predicted straight A, and most of them still got rejected. Stellar score in any pre-test seemed decisive as they basically didn't trust awarded GCSEs.

Also most of the places that our kids are applying to now don't seem even to look at applications until after the UCAS deadline in January because they take a 'gathered field' approach so having grades already in hand probably won't translate into an offer before Xmas because they wait to assess the strength of the applicant cohort each year. Several of DS friends on gap year and plenty of kids on TSR with grades in hand are still waiting on LSE, Durham, UCL etc although of course I guess those with attained grades next year might have a competitive advantage. I absolutely agree though the system is crap and getting more broken year on year. Hope I'm not preaching to the choir, just I truly think this is the year to grab any good offer with both hands and move on.

The 17% accuracy is actually the fault of the pre A Level admission process , not the teachers, despite how Ofsted and unis like to play it.... a student could get many different sets of predictions throughout A level years but he one that is heralded as 'inaccurate' is the UCAS prediction, often done in summer of year 12 and intended to be optimistic/ wind behind you/on a good day. You have no idea how many emails/letters/phone calls/visitations/barters and bribes an average teacher receives from students and parents requesting an uplift to UCAS grades!

Also, the 17% is for each individual grade. DS is predicted for UCAS A A A (although Cambridge thought different. Teachers don't have crystal balls and we know full well he could get 3 As (whihc would still be deemed inaccurate and no one talks much about under prediction which affect comp students more); he could get AAA (and thus his teachers would be 'wrong') and he could, at the outside , get BBB if he panics in every subject.

@Puffalicious

Is it only 17% accuracy? Wow!

Studies of prediction accuracy according to a student’s best three A levels show even higher rates of inaccuracy (unsurprisingly, since it is harder to predict all three A levels correctly). For example, Wyness and Murphy find that only 16% of students received accurate predictions for all three, with 75% overpredicted and just 8% underpredicted.

From blogs.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/2020/08/11/predicted-grades-what-do-we-know-and-why-does-it-matter/

Yes, see my post above. These are UCAS predictions. Honestly, when did we start believing teachers are soothsayers?? I used to work under a Dep head who used to always bang on about 'accurate predictions'. Surely that's an oxymoron?
Denis Sherwood has done some really interesting research - basically pinning the inaccuracy on the teachers does ignore the fact that exam outcomes themselves are 'inaccurate' much of the time- especially in subjectively marked subjects.

@Piggywaspushed it's why I have a bit of an issue with A level re-marks, I understand why they changed it as it favoured kids whose parents can afford to pay, but in subjective subjects I think there is an argument for a substantive re-mark by a more experienced examiner.

Yes, definitely. Way back when on MN when DS1 was GCSE year, I encouraged loads of MNers to get Eng Lit remarks! Nearly all were successful...except my DS

@Piggywaspushed

Yes, see my post above. These are UCAS predictions. Honestly, when did we start believing teachers are soothsayers?? I used to work under a Dep head who used to always bang on about 'accurate predictions'. Surely that's an oxymoron? Denis Sherwood has done some really interesting research - basically pinning the inaccuracy on the teachers does ignore the fact that exam outcomes themselves are 'inaccurate' much of the time- especially in subjectively marked subjects.

A clear oxymoron. Interesting point about actual results often being inaccurate. I find more often in recent years that kids over achieve: 'There's no way she should have got that' in my head, whilst being happy for the pupil. I feel it leads to universities/ employers wondering what on Earth schools are doing when these pupils inevitably struggle later.

It's mad that the UCAS prediction is based on one from so long before. I think we're only asked here for the prediction in January (one year courses, so perhaps given more time).

Underachievement is actually probably more common tbh at A Level anyway in history and English.

The predictions go in when the application does, don't they? But the school processes are often pretty longwinded! Your Oxbridge predictions would have to go in before Jan?

Diian Sadly DH is not as interested in the whole admissions process as I am, and since DD did not apply there, he let the conversation move on to chat about the dog.

@ACloseMatch

Diian Sadly DH is not as interested in the whole admissions process as I am, and since DD did not apply there, he let the conversation move on to chat about the dog.

@Piggywaspushed

Underachievement is actually probably more common tbh at A Level anyway in history and English.

The predictions go in when the application does, don't they? But the school processes are often pretty longwinded! Your Oxbridge predictions would have to go in before Jan?

Yes, Jan, forgetting about Oxbridge as we've only had 1 pupil apply in all the years I've been there, and most applying there would be S6 so have results in hand (not AH).

DS's school have their prelims (mocks) before Xmas, so that's v useful for Jan productions.

Not sure if I'm doing this correctly but mine has just turned down a Durham offer for a UCL one (plus another insurance). Durham would have been my personal favourite, but it's DC's choice and as it wasn't their top choice among their offers it made no sense to keep it. The offer was harder than any of the others.

Yes, Durham's grades are v high. It was one of the reasons DS didn't apply : it would never have been an insurance, even for Cambridge.

UCL is a fabulous university.

Thought of you today @kitnkaboodle 😁