Contextual offers?

[ihearttc]

Just wondered if anyone could shed any light on Contextual Offers? DS1 is in Y12 and wanting to apply to Loughborough. One of his teachers said today that our postcode and school makes us be in a deprived area so he’s likely to get a lower offer?
We live in Rural East Anglia (without being too specific) so not an inner city area. We have googled but all I can see is things about quintiles and data which doesn’t seem to make any sense? If it matters, he isn’t likely to get the grades Loughborough are asking for but hopefully only 1 grade lower.

Universities have different ways of assessing if a student is awarded a contextual, so it's best to ask each university direct. Loughborough have a very good eligibility checker on their website.

Each university does their contextual offers differently. Ds had a contextual offer for one but not the other 3 he had offers from. Some just do polar postcode others combine that with things like first generation to go to uni, FSM, underachieving school etc.

For info our polar postcode was polar 4 quintile 2, and polar 3 quintile 2.

Quintile 1 is the lowest rate of participation so they want to encourage those students who apply. It is usually a one grade drop from their entry grade.

This is where you can find which polar postcode you come under, you have to tick to say you have read and understood it before it will give you the postcode box. www.officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/young-participation-by-area/search-by-postcode/

Re grades, he has a whole summer to work on his A level grades, a determined student can put the work in and bring up their grades there are 2 months of holidays and usually a lot of free time. Dh will tell you that Loughborough uni is the best as he went there

Thank you…yes that was what I did but I didn’t understand what the quintiles meant!!

He is very hard working and determined…he is currently getting the top grades in 2 of his subjects within his class but the required grades are A. He won’t get an A for PE as the practical side will lower his grade so we are trying to be slightly realistic. The other uni’s he is looking at have slightly lower grades which are achievable.

I shall have another look and see if we can work out whether these quantiles will make a difference.

www.lboro.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/apply/entry-requirements/contextual-admissions/check-your-eligibilty/ Use this tool. If it says quintile one you’re eligible.

you can also check if his school is on the list: www.lboro.ac.uk/media/media/study/ug/2022/downloads/access-loughborough-contextual-offer-schools-colleges.pdf