Predicted grade disapointment - how does that affect applications?

[landyland]

My dc has been trying to get their predicted grades up from BBB to ABB as this gives more scope for uni applications - A for the subject they want to study (Business). The school won't budge and are sticking at BBB, despite recent assessments coming in in the 70-80% range. I feel they might be being a bit over-cautious due to recent controversy (private school) and they are capable of getting ABB.

Should we only apply to universities that state BBB or below? Would an application to a uni that states ABB be a completely wasted slot, given it's going to be a hard year for university applications? And given that his reference will, presumably, say that he is close to the B/A border for 2 subjects, including Business A level?

And advice welcome as he is feeling very demoralised and thinks that he won't get any offers now.

She can apply to a couple above her predicted, especially if she has any additional or relevant experience to highlight in her ps. They may or may not consider her but give her the higher grades to target,

Thank you, I thinkk he will try maybe one or 2 ABBs and 3 BBB and see if he gets any offers.

If you get a refusal on one of your 5 slots before the January deadline can you apply for a replacement/6th choice?

Would the school agree to hold off making the predictions until later. You son can apply up until mid Jan and be on an equal footing with other applicants. (Unless that's changed recently).

No they are refusing to hold off or change the predicted grades unfortunately. But that is a good point, he oculd hold off until December say and see if anything chnages. They will put a huge amount of pressure on him t apply now though, which is why I wondered if you can re-apply within the same round if you get rejections before the deadline.

You can't add any more to the form, unless you get five rejections. In that case you can then apply for one at a time till you get an offer.

My DC emailed admissions departments for choices where they didn't have the predicted grades needed and basically said that they were interested in XYZ course, that they knew they didn't have the entry requirements as predicted grades but they were hopeful of achieving them in the exams and although they realised that the admissions team couldn't tell them if they would receive an offer, would they be able to say if their application was likely to be considered or if they only considered applications which had the required as predicted.

Some wrote back and said yes, please do apply and others wrote back and basically said, don't bother (presumably they only made offers to those with correct predicted).

Sorry, haven't worded that well but hopefully you get the idea.

Please remember the school won’t have given those grades out of any sort of spite and they do have more experience of student trends than parents do. That said trends are just that and a student can perform better or worse. The important thing is for you DD to have a plan to make an improvement to get the grades she wants so she can meet any offers she meets.

The advice my school gives is 2 above (so ABB) 2 at grades and 1 below as a safety. Yes, some courses will give an ABB offer to a BBB candidate - it is very hard to say which ones as it changes so often depending on lots of different factors.

Best to include at least one below BBB, so that he has a fallback if for any reason he doesn't get the BBB.

My DD's sat two lots of early mocks at her private school? Has he sat a mock yet? DD had been predicted ABB and both her mocks she received ABB for. They were remarkedly accurate, she got ABB in her final results, the A gained as she was one mark into that section.

I'd say definitely have a back up for something that's achievable. DD applied for a niche subject and many unis wanted AAA, but one required ABB. Her first choice needing AAA flatly refused to take her even though she got A* in the subject that related to the course.

I would try and check if any courses DC is interested in go into clearing. That means they don’t fill up and might have more leeway. I would do 2xABB too. Look at former polytechnics. BBB is possibly low enough. If he gets no offers, he starts again. Most schools don’t like waiting until December. They won’t change anything and will prep their input earlier anyway. So nothing will change.

Yes this. Ideally the first choice should be at his prediction (or one grade up if he’s feeling hopeful) and the insurance choice should be below.

You never know what will happen on the day.

Except don’t put insurance if you really don’t want it. BBC might not be at a great university. So use last choice wisely. Any port in a storm isn’t always the best plan. Insurance Dc might not get accommodation either. I would be confident and do BBB minimum.

Some universities will drop their offer by a grade if you make it the firm choice. Reading, for example, ask for ABB of Business management but will lower it to BBB if firmed.

@landyland UCAS have a tool for teachers that tells us what the students who actually went to study a particular course got in their A-levels. (this has of course has been distorted by the pandemic) For some courses and universities the actual grades are mostly higher than the entry requirements - I am aware of some cases last year where universities were so over subscribed that the entry requirements effectively moved up from that published on their websites. Equally there are plenty of other courses where the published entry requirements are above the average grade that the students actually achieve.

It might be wise for the ambitious courses to fall into the latter category. PM me with which course and universities if you would like me to look the information up.

I think that depends. There are plenty of courses where universities vary the entry requirements on results day for offer holders, and also many courses in clearing (although there were fewer this year than previously) so there is already a safety net for those who fall below their predicted grades - although that does mean results day involves a stressful few hours, and they may end up going to a university they have not visited or considered in as much detail.

And then find the accommodation is 30 miles away in another city! Don’t do clearing if you can possibly avoid it.

I also thought universities had been told not to make “buy me” marketing offers for firming. Just like unconditional offers.

Thanks for this great advice. Really appreciated. The school have gone up to ABB predicted now based on last lot of assessments (not sure why there was all the drama about BBB - possibly for a kick up the bum which is no bad thing!). He is feeling more positive and that has more options now so over to him to get the grades ......

He's going to stick to choices made for BBB I think with your advice about going 1 or possibly 2 over and a couple of solid safety nets.

That is I am afraid more of a function of how some universities consider students to be customers to make money from, more than students whose well being they care about.

There are plenty of universities who do care about their students and will work very hard to look after all of them and especially those who get places in clearing, and there are some universities who do not seem the least bit interested in students.

Dd had Surrey as her insurance which was BBC. It's quite a good uni I believe. She ended up getting the grades for her firm though so went there.

@jgw1
Its not entirely the fault of the university. The only way to stop this is to come down hard on grades and offers. Then young people are disappointed. QMU, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bristol, Manchester and many others did not have enough accommodation for freshers this year. Grade inflation is an obvious issue.

Plus airbnbs instead of student housing in subsequent years.

Some universities last year made fewer offers for each place they had than in a more typical year, because they knew there was more uncertainty around. It is one of the reasons that far more universities last year than in previous years waited until the equal consideration deadline before making any offers, so they knew what they whole field was like. Others just carried on as if nothing had changed and got bitten by it. For me that says lots about how much a university cares about its students.

A girl in my son's class got an offer today!! (Sorry don't know the uni)

@jgw1
It doesn’t say that to me. It says it doesn’t want to disappoint students. Also they misjudged grades snd deferrals played into it too. Bug yes. Fewer offers is the only way.

Just to add a couple of other options - if your son ends up getting much better grades than predicted, there is a mechanism called Adjustment which would allow him to reapply to a better uni at that point.

Also, he could just take a gap year and apply post results, which removes a lot of the uncertainty and pressure on results day.

Adjustment doesn’t exist anymore