Applying for 2023 - all welcome thread 2

[AnonymousThreadStarter]

I have started a new thread as our previous one is nearly full. Name changed so I won’t forever be the OP. Originally for non early entry applicants I am sure anyone who would like to can be on this thread as we wait for final decisions to come in, negotiate UCAS extra and hope that the results will match the offers come August.

Christmas markets are not for the fainthearted! Can't he accept the other Loughborough one and swop over. Normally you can swop in the first two weeks. Risky but at least he will be at Loughborough.

Plus Birmingham will be a lot quieter on the offer holder day. Also you don't have to go into the centre of Birmingham.

i understand the placement thing, DD is the same and wasn’t interested in applying anywhere without a placement year. Thing is, finding and getting on an actual placement can be very hard, meaning a fair few students doing the 3 year option after all. So I’m not sure if it should be a deal breaker. Plus he can do internships in summer instead.
Could he call admissions and see how likely a swap would be? He needs to know so that he can make an informed decision.
If he’s thinking of using extra where is he fancying?

I spent 3 very happy years at Birmingham and rarely went into the city centre - student life revolved around the Vale, Selly Oak, the Campus and a wide variety of curry houses.

A swap would be the perfect solution but I doubt with Loughborough that it’s as easy as that. It’s definitely worth him calling though and asking. If they say yes then he also needs to get it in writing.
His plan with Extra was always Sports Science and Psychology (it’s a joint honours) at Newcastle but it’s now disappeared from Extra so I’m assuming that means he can’t apply? He’s going to call them as well. He didn’t apply for there initially as it’s a very long way from where we live and he wanted to be slightly closer to home but at this point it’s more important he actually has a course he wants to do. That would have been his preferred choice other than Loughborough but very few places do it as a joint honours.

Definitely worth him calling both Newcastle and Loughborough @mrsconradfisher . Good luck to him! With extra do you have an insurance or do you have to withdraw from all choices?

Thank you for the semester info for York@Roundthecorneranduptheroad it wasn’t mentioned at the offer holder day. It also means the rental agreements should be majority 38 weeks (like Bath’s - her first choice). The accom still shows 40 & 44 weeks as the majority. Six weeks more than required would be circa a thousand pounds more a year. Quite a sum for a student.

@mrsconradfisher is your DS into a particular sport? Birmingham have v good sport set up. My DS is a hockey player (not good enough for Loughborough!) and so Birmingham made his list. Sports all in the main campus and hockey excellent. Sometimes it's the stuff outside the course that can swing it. Know nothing about Surrey.

No DS wouldn’t be good enough for Loughborough either…it’s football! But tbh he is generally very sporty and can play most sports (apart from athletics!). I did point out that at the time of applying that he wouldn’t even get on a team at Loughborough but he was so fixated on there that it didn’t matter, I think it would when he got there. If Birmingham did a placement then he’d go for that I think. Honestly out of everywhere we looked, Surrey is the one I liked the most but it’s not me doing the course. It seemed a great fit for him. He has got it into his head that it’s a lesser course as it’s BBB rather than AAA (which I know is rubbish) but his thinking is a degree from Loughborough etc looks better than the same degree from Surrey. Honestly we are just going round and round in circles!

Sorry to hear about people getting rejections. Really tough if they have their heart set on it. We have a friend’s son who ended up with their 3rd choice. However they ended up going as it was still an excellent choice and then they swapped courses after a year. Not easy financially and it draws it all out a bit, but perhaps if Lboro is crucially important and the only place your DS wants to go, it might be worth considering. They may end up liking the course they’ve been offered more than they think - is another option?

Thank you. It’s definitely worth considering the other course but it’s so very different from the path he wants to take that it would almost be a bit of a pointless degree for him. He applied early under pressure from 6th Form and it was a case of applying for it to try to get to Loughborough. 5 months on it doesn’t seem such a great idea!

Ah but it has partly achieved his aim - which is to get him a place at Lboro. So perhaps he needs to consider how badly he wants to go there and whether the reputation in the sporting world outweighs other unis. He’d also have the benefit in Sept of knowing his actual grades, so he’d have a place where he wants to be, and it then might be about course transfer. We went to the lectures at an open day there, and there was definitely a degree of overlap across the sports courses in terms of modules in the first year, however I appreciate that the course he has been offered a place on is far less ‘science’ based. My son knew when he heard the lecturer speak on that specific course that it wasn’t for him, hence he didn’t put two courses down for Lboro - having contemplated it - but it does sound like your DS might be more keen on the uni itself. Hence, it might be worth seeing how much overlap of modules there is - admissions might be able to assist? They certainly implied the first year there was a lot of cross over.

Thank you. He’s going to call them this morning. I did suggest at the time of applying (we went to the open day too) that it was a massive risk in applying for it as it wasn’t the course he wanted but he also thought from the open day there was quite a lot of overlap but having looked in greater detail at the modules there doesn’t seem to be hardly any science at all, it’s literally mostly coaching.

@mrsconradfisher my sympathies go to you and your son. It is so tough when they had their heart set on somewhere. My dd is similar with UCL. Applied to two courses, rejected from one and still waiting on the other. She has offers from Newcastle and loved it but similar to your son is struggling to adapt to the fact she might not go to London now. I think in time they will start to accept it (if you don’t go for the swap option) and sometimes I think maybe end up having an even better time. I didn’t realise it would be this stressful!

I presume he has the required grades for the sports science course? So perhaps the call with admissions should be around him expressing his true preference. Please keep us posted how it goes as we could be in a similar boat - still no news!

Pure Sports Science needs A star AA, on his UCAS he was predicted AAA but it’s now A star A star A after 2 sets of full mocks so I’m confident he will make the grades they need. It says didn’t meet grade requirements on the reason for rejection but his 6th Form apparently never officially predict A stars on UCAS (it’s a very low achieving school) so I suspect it’s due to the fact he was predicted A rather than A star.

That seems really unfair. If they never predict A stars, would the school put that in writing and then could your DS contact the admissions department and ask them to reconsider? Especially if they have already given the reason that the predicted grades were not high enough.

Hi. I've been following but not posting on this since the start of the last thread.
Dd1 is back having graduated from York and is job hunting.

Dd2 had offers from all 5 she applied to for accounting but we have been waiting for the contextual offers (advantage of living where we do is that it ticka that box, as does attending the sixth form college she does).

After offer holder visits she has finally decided to firm Leeds and has Cardiff as her insurance. She now is eading through accommodation info, though thankfully it is not first come first served!

I'm finding it interesting how different unis approach things in their different ways.

Good luck to all the DC in their revision and exam weeks!

Hi @DrMadelineMaxwell well done to both your DDs, one graduated and one with lots of offers. My DD1 is studying accountancy but via an apprenticeship - it’s not easy! DD2 has insured York so I’d be interested to know your DD1’s thoughts.

Dd1 did History at York and loved every minute of it. She chose to stay on campus for the full 3 years.

Wow! I hadn’t realised staying on campus for the full 3 years was an option. DD2 looking at accommodation at the moment. Did your DD self cater? Mine prefers Self cater, shared bath, she thinks but there’s not many with that option.

All halls accommodation for three years is why Oxbridge is often cheaper than many other Unis. They can often accommodate for all three years term time only rather than 48 weeks etc.

yes a few other unis can offer this and the UCAS predictions of greater numbers year after year mean that whilst the number who applied for 2023 start was only 15,000 fewer than 2022 is about 50-60k less than predicted and universities have planned accordingly and so some may well have an over supply of accommodation so living in halls for longer may be more common at more universities.

Dd did self cater. She chose Vanbrugh college due to proximity to the history dept. And was housed in the one court all 3 years. Self catered en suite.

Some of the catered blocks in other areas were much older and less nice. But they are improving them and I think a new one has been built since then too.

@PettsWoodParadise so Ucas we’re expecting 50-60,000 more students to apply this year than last year? Have I understood that correctly?

Thanks for the new thread. Lots of revision going on here - somewhat of a personality transplant! Starting to look at accommodation.

Yes, application data for 2023 entry is here
https://www.ucas.com/data-and-analysis/undergraduate-statistics-and-reports/ucas-undergraduate-releases/ucas-undergraduate-applicant-releases-2023-cycle/2023-cycle-applicant-figures-25-january-deadline

and UCAS have updated their ‘journey to a million’ materials to say that 2023 was a ‘recalibration’ https://www.ucas.com/about-us/journey-million/what-journey-million

but Unis had been working on the basis of a continuous upward trend