Question for Admissions staff

[RacheltheRobot]

I understand that once you've selected your firm and insurance, all of the universities you have applied to can see your offers.

If you don't make your grades on results day, do universities use this information in considering whether to take you, in addition to your personal statement? Are they more likely to take you if you'd had another prestigious offer which you had declined in their favour? Or is it not as in depth as that and purely down to how many spaces they have and how much you missed the grades by?

DC has applied to 3, with good offers from 2 and one we know we won't hear from until May. So therefore has two spaces on the UCAS form, so we're wondering whether it looks better to fill these up and get other offers, or leave them blank.

Hi, OP -

Former Russell Group STEM admissions tutor here. In my subject my School ranks in the tier just below the COWI Schools

You are thinking about this far more deeply than my colleagues or I ever did (I have not even checked current UCAS policy to check whether you are correct. I will assume you are but it doesn’t sound quite right). We get results four days ahead of pupils. I cannot describe the mad rush that comprises the following week. All we want to do is pull together the strongest possible cohort that will satisfy our overlords in terms of targets. No one, but no one, I have ever worked with has given a damn for the type of consideration you mention.

Your DC should definitely give themselves the best chance by filling in five options now
Best wishes

Yes, guilty of overthinking! Ok will proceed as normal, thank you @poetryandwine!

Agree with poetry as ever - honestly clearing and confirmation is manic enough. No one would ever check what HEPs the applicant had put down!

Although I will admit to idly wondering whether to persuade my dcs to put my institution down so I'd get their results in advance. (I didn't of course!)

Thanks @titchy!

If your DS doesn't make either his 1st or insurance choices, then he'll be in Clearing. A whole different ball-game.

And as other academics have said, if a Department/degree is looking fr candidates in Clearing, they're probably not too bothered about other places an applicant has applied to.

When I'm interviewing applicants I can pretty much guess at least 2 or 3 of the other places they've applied to - we're top in our field, but there are several other excellent departments & the type of applicant applying to us will also be looking at these other departments. It stands to reason. But it doesn't bother us - we have an application process where we try to see if the student will thrive in OUR programme.

I agree with what @EasterIsland said but it isn’t just about Clearing. Our offer is very high. In the years we don’t meet our targets with (Firm and Insurance) applicants who attain their offers, MTW of A Level week is largely spent analysing which of the near misses who Firmed with us might thrive here.

Under the proposed UCAS reforms applicants will have access to the actual AL profile of admitted students, in addition to the published Entry Requirements. I hope this happens.

@poetryandwine "MTW of A Level week is largely spent analysing which of the near misses who Firmed with us might thrive here."

This is interesting - do admissions tutors only look at near misses who firmed with them - not those who insured (but missed)? Or do you HAVE to meet your insurance offer?

Hi, @Theatreland -

I think we went into Clearing once, maybe twice, during my term on Admissions. I am sure we analysed the marks from Insurance near misses before moving into Clearing.

We certainly wouldn’t have held it against them that we weren’t their first choice. But realistically, many had already met our offer anyway and the near misses had probably been snapped up by their own Firms

We get results for Insurance applicants at the same time, but if they miss their insurance offer we can only offer, if we decide to do so, once the applicant's firm has rejected them so we have to wait.

Sorry unclear. We can and do decide on insurance applicants. But until the firm has said no, they won't get an acceptance from us.

That's interesting - my niece was accepted by her insurance (even though she missed her grades by one) while the firm was still thinking about it. I guess it varies by uni. Fortunately, all was well as the the exam board had lost a paper and then magically found it when the school queried so her grade went up by two!

So the firm were still considering her when the results were released to the applicants? That's really poor of them.

Yep - King's College, Cambridge (where she now is)

@Theatreland that sounds like a most unusual situation. As @titchy made clearer than me, when candidates do not meet the Firm offer, the Firm Institution must make a decision before the Insurance institution has a chance to take action

I am sure we analysed the marks from Insurance near misses before moving into Clearing.

That's our practice, if we have to go into Clearing, @poetryandwine . At my current place, I can't remember when we've been in Clearing in the last decade. We always look at whether Firms who've just missed their offers might still cope, and then we go onto Insurance acceptances. Only then do we go into Clearing, and that is rare for us.