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...

These are interesting ideas @Needmoresleep Something needs to done. It’s really not working.

I know of two girls in DD’s class with predictions that are all A and A stars, yet neither got a single offer. I suppose people would assume there is something “wrong “ with them. I don’t think this is the case. With all 8s and 9s at GCSE and at least two A stars in their predictions, applying to any university in the country was not unreasonable. I think it is unkind to say they got above themselves. Students need a better idea of the odds when they apply.

on other threads there is a lot of slagging going on about who is getting an unfair share of places, state or private. I think this is a red herring. There simply is a lot of pressure on places and great students from both sectors are missing out.

Some sort of acknowledgment that the LSE, Imperial, Durham, St As, etc. are also a lottery, not just Oxbridge, would help. Then we could look for a way to manage the numbers, and DC could not waste so many of their 5 choices.

Stockpot, sorry to hear your news.

The issue is that though the LSE, Durham etc may have received applications in October, they are required to give equal treatment to all home students applying before the Jan deadline. Different from Oxbridge who have an October deadline.

It was difficult before as half the LSE “home” applicants were from non UK EU countries. Thinks are different now and there is scope to improve things.

Warwick is a great University. (They gave DS a very late rejection!)

@Stockpot its a good point. I know that when it comes to DC 2 & 3 I’ll be guiding them based on what I’ve learned. What I don’t understand though is whether there is a squeeze in places throughout (so for example are the A/B kids finding it just as difficult to get into for example Newcastle or Birmingham) or whether there are more places making it less of a problem. LSE, Durham, St A and Oxbridge are obviously v small.

Gutted to hear of a batch of LSE rejections being sent out, although I must declare a vested interest.

I very much fear that this will result in my own dc imminently getting a rejection from Warwick as I'd suspect that many LSE applicants held an offer from Warwick which they will now accept as their firm choice if the course being applied for was Economics of some kind.

@threestars I feel you - this was the reason LSE gave to DS also. He was somewhat frustrated as he has always wished he could have had the chance to prove himself at GCSE. It is slightly puzzling that Oxbridge are more or less openly acknowledging that they don't trust our lot's GCSE results while others are seemingly relying on them (I'm not sure I actually believe that they are to any great extet but if they need a reason to reject in the face of overwhelming numbers I guess it's as good as any). Proud of DS for making a strong application in any event, and as I reminded him yesterday it's not going anywhere if he wants to do a Masters.

@Needmoresleep thank you - I think in some ways it was just a relief to have certainty.

I applaud any efforts to expand access to under-represented groups but I am worried that contextualisation by algorithm is simply too blunt a tool. Applicants deserve to be assessed on their own merits; privilege doesn't always advertise itself while disadvantage can be well-concealed.

Personally I would scrap pre-A level applications and start the admissions round in August and the academic year in January. Or something like the Irish system.

I think it's definitely worth throwing in a couple of the bigger universities (DS did Manchester and Bristol on his form) as they seem surer bets just by dint of size, while still being great universities that he'd have been more than happy with.

So sorry for the girls that Stockpot knows, it's madness. It's so easy to post rationalise - if they'd got offers from Oxbridge they'd have had all their high hopes vindicated and now they've got all their imposter fears confirmed. When they're the same clever girls either way.

Needmoresleep - think you're confusing Stockpot as her DD had a nice and early offer from St Andrews like mine, which now feels arbitrarily lucky (DS's not hers).

@Valleyofthedollymix thank you - DS applied for IR; I wasn't aware how incredibly popular it was back in October (how long ago that seems now!).Just as well!

Yes I think had I known then what I know now I would definitely have encouraged DS to put a few more big cities down. They just have more wriggle room I think. In retrospect putting all 3 of Durham, LSE and St As for this year and for that course was too big a risk. I'd have said keep just one and sub in two from Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow, Birmingham. Aberdeen also looks impressive, and DS really took to Cardiff when we went to watch the rugby. Ironic that his Edinburgh offer is higher than any offer Cambridge might have made him.

I think a good idea would be to allow our DC to put one of their five choices as a less subscribed course like medics/vets/dentists do with biomed etc without it prejudicing their appplication. I think we're in that territory now.

Although some DCs who take biomed, actually want to study biomed rather than treat as a backdoor route into medicine… Just saying 😀

A work colleague told me today that her 3 A star predicted grade DNiece does not have a single offer from any of her 5 choices for Politics. She is at a private school and is now looking at an unexpected gap year. What has gone on this year?
(Her school was one of the biggest offenders for grade inflation for last year's GCSEs, but with the universities she applied to usually offering AAA, you would think she would get one offer).

Fishingeagle I know Christodolou's work. I do like her ideas, but disagree with some aspects. Mind you, I'm also a huge supporter of DC starting school at 7, which she also disagrees with. But that's for another day😁

Such AWFUL reports here about these girls getting no offers - 3 of them in total? Just terrible. I don't get it at all. How do they discriminate between these clever kids and all the others they did give offers to?

I'm beginning to realise how lucky DS was with early offers - especially Edinburgh after hearing how late they've been elsewhere. But that's because he had results in hand. All of us Scots have DC in this position and all of us have had a much less stressful time (well, with the other unis, not OxBridge- bah to them).

I do think something needs to change.

DD firmed St As today, after stubbornly waiting so long to hear from Edinburgh. I was surprised when she gave up so close to the deadline. She reasoned that she knew St As was her preference, and giving up her LSE spot might help someone get an offer in time. Bit late, but a nice sentiment.

Hurrah! Glad to have another fellow St A’s parents so we can move on together.

Yes there are several of us!

Morning all! Geam calling with the votes of the Italian jury.
Oops, other thread!

Hope you are all well, am sitting down to catch up with you all.

DD was FINALLY rejected from St. Andrews yesterday. Wtf? Obviously (boo hiss) they're getting nul points from me, but that said, I can't say I'm unhappy (and neither is she) as she's already decided to firm Bath and keep Exeter (I think) as her reserve, which she'll do this afternoon. She's now refusing point blank to apply for any Italian ones, despite them involving just an online test thing (in her case) that she could do right up until September. Hey ho. Ireland and Sweden may stlll throw a spoke into the works, but I don't think so tbh.

Here they have just done mocks, seemed fine, so just the real thing left. One 6x hour written (Italian) exam on 22nd June (nationally set for every school and every type) and one 6 x hour written one for their "second" pathway. In dd's case (linguistic high school) that will be English (phew) (could have been Chinese or German) a couple of days later, then the famous "maxi oral" in front of the exam commission. I need to submit a request for her to be one of the first to do that as we'll be coming over to the UK to work in a summer school at the beginning of July.

Reading that some of your amazing kids have already finished school forever and done their exams too! We finish on 8th June, then the exams start 22nd. They get their results as soon as the last ones have finished. So, by the first week or so of July everyone knows. They had their "100 day lunch" (big party with teachers in April and their "Salute to the 5th Years" assembly a fortnight ago. Which, as both teacher of 3 5th year classes, and mother of one was more emotional than usual this year!

Currently lost in the maze that is student finance. Urgh.

@TangoWhiskyAlphaTango Catching up with your rollercoaster! Will PM you later. Has dd decided to reapply?

So sorry about your darling cat. In our school yard we've got a colony of strays and I'm currently very worried about one of them. Some lovely volunteers feed and neuter them but he's clearly very old and looking really unwell the last few days. So lovely that your baby was cared for in her last moments.

@Puffalicious lovely to read about your students. Makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it?

Sorry not to namecheck the rest of you. My head is totally cabbaged and I'm just relieved it's my kids doing exams and not me.

Love and hugs to all, and an extra one for all your wonderful children!

Off I go back to student finance. Gah.

Does the hive mind have an opinion on whether so many Y13s with great TAG/CAG awarded GCSE grades and predicted A/A* A levels are having to be rejected because covid caused grade inflation to the extent that the pool of candidates with these sorts of grades is just so much greater ?

I suppose the government could have eased the situation by subsidising any university prepared to increase the percentage of UK students admitted compared with non UK, assuming the universities need to balance the books by sticking to a certain ratio each year.

DSis’ DS attends a highly selective independent london day school and apparently they have had a shocker with university applications. Students with four A* predictions and a clean sweep of all 9s at GCSE are getting one or two offers (from their least favoured choices) and they have 5 students with no offers at all - all boys. It’s all a bit bonkers.

Geamhradh great to hear from you. The process for DD sounds so wildly different and so interesting to our UK ears! My mind's blown by the oral test! What does that involve?

The Salute to the 5th years sounds awesome. No wonder you were emotional. Her offers are fantastic and she's sure to love wherever she goes.

IgglePiggle that sounds so tough for those kids: all that effort over all those years to be disappointed. Such a shame.

@nativityplayreject I know a bit from a friend involved in admissions but obviously it's all anecdotal and I don't know how accurate it is but our DC's collective experiences on this thread would seem to confirm much of it.

From what I can gather the limiting factor is typically the guarantee to offer accommodation to all first years.Many universities got caught out last year as many more offer holders met their offers, so many asked a lot of their offer holders to defer, meaning fewer places for this year's cohort.

This year the high tariff universities have been inundated with applications from DC who did very well at A level last year and have taken gap years to apply more aspirationally. These universities have offered very cautiously and slowly in the knowledge that the grade boundaries are being adjusted this year to produce a half-way house between a normal year and last year, so again more DC will get the higher grades this year too. It's been a challenging admissions landscape for this year's cohort right enough especially for over-subscribed courses at high tariff institutions and I'm not sure it will be any less so next year.

@fishingeagle I think you are absolutely right that the squeeze is happening at the higher tariff universities - and on paper these applicants must be very hard to distinguish between. Hopefully it will sort itself out in the next few years in time for DS2!!! Not sure I can go through this level of stress again!

It's basically a round table with a "commission". Internal teachers, (but an external "president of commission") and not all of them- dd is very happy to not be getting the maths and physics teacher, lovely though he is. Dd will get: Italian, English, Science, History, Philosophy, German, Chinese, and physical Ed.
They have to prepare 10 possible topic areas: The 13 we're currently all working on are these, and then 3 get eliminated. The kids have to pick an envelope the day of the exam and then each teacher asks questions from relative area.

Certainty and Uncertainty
Intellectuals, power and society
Man and Nature
Innovation and Progress
Conflict and Dualism
Disease
Hero and anti-hero
The Journey
Beauty
The Rights of Man and Society
Identity and Diversity
Man and Science
Globalisation

Dd feels she writes better than she speaks, so hopefully she'll have her marks in the bag before the oral. They get 50% of their marks through what they've done in the past year, so based on their term marks basically. Then 15 marks from the Italian written, 15 from the second test, and 20 from the oral. That's changed since Covid. It used to be less weighted.

@Igglepigglesblankie DS at a similar school and same thing. V few offers from Durham and St Andrews in particular. Economics and social sciences seem particularly badly hit.

@fishingeagle Interesting, although the "being caught out as many more offer holders met their offers" first happened 2 years ago in 2020 and on a far larger scale than in 2021 (as many Unis made less offers in 2021 to compensate), last year just added to it.

So frustrating for my dc who actually formally sat GCSE exams in 2019 (pre covid) and achieved a full house of grade 9s plus was predicted all A*s for 2021 (which they did indeed achieve). How can they be sure that Warwick, which they haven't had an offer from have actually taken this in to account when comparing their application to those from this year's Y13 cohort.

I see that many in the press are blaming lack of offers on positive discrimination towards state educated applicants. My dc achieved their results at a state comprehensive, just not one on a list of those below par where students get a bit of consideration accordingly, so I'm not convinced.

@Geamhradh I'm so sorry to hear about St As. No idea what's going on there this year but so pleased she's got such fab options elsewhere.

Those topics sound absolutely fascinating. Hope all goes well for her.

@nativityplayreject I think the effect has undoubtedly been cumulative - since covid first hit more DC have been doing better than they perhaps might have done had exams gone ahead and are understandably taking gap years to give aspirational choices a spin.

I guess that your DC having achieved highly at GCSE would lend more credibility as it were to their awarded A levels. I feel for your DC - being denied the opportunity to prove themselves is massively frustrating.

I don't believe that there is a wholesale blanket positive discrimination towards all state educated applicants. If DC are applying from a high performing school no matter what its provenance they will be expected to do well.

@nativityplayreject At the university where I work it has been a real mixed bag. Some of our most popular and competitive courses in arts and social sciences have actually seen a fall in the number of UK applicants this year (unlike some other courses in engineering and the sciences). They are still the most competitive courses and will still reject the majority of applicants, but there isn't actually more competition in numerical terms.

For us the differences have been:

• While we have always said that we don't just take people with the best grades, it is true that people with very, very high grades and predictions did stand out a bit and did have a somewhat higher chance of receiving an offer. Now such a high proportion of the applicant pool fall into this category that it's much less special and gives the applicant much less of a boost. Consequently, people who may have thought they had a very good chance of being accepted simply because they had such high grades will be disappointed.

If they have applied only for competitive courses asking for very high grades, there is a chance they will end up with no acceptances simply because they have (often through no fault of their own, though I do question the schools) misjudged how special and exceptional they are in the applicant pool.

• There is always uncertainty with predicted grades but there is so much more uncertainty with most, but not all, of this years cohort because of the additional issues with their GCSEs. Consequently less weight can be put on grades as part of our holistic review.
• While the academic profile of the applicant pool in terms of grades is higher, our admissions tutors report that their own perception of the overall quality of the applicants is lower this year than we have seen for quite some time. While we accept that they have had a very disrupted education and a lack of opportunity, this does kind of back up our general view that the grades of this particular cohort are not a very good guide to the suitability of applicants for our courses. I do not have the impression that we would be interested in expanding our intake simply on the basis that there are more people around with very high grades because to us there has not been a concomitant increase in the quality or suitability of the applicants.

Are you still waiting for Warwick?