When all offers are for the same grades?

[EmmaStone]

DD has 3 offers so far (still waiting on Edinburgh). All 3 are for the same grades (AAB), which should be fine, but she was hoping to use Edinburgh as her insurance, as they quote ABB for her course. However, she's now hearing of many people getting higher grade requirements from Edinburgh, and has slightly gone off the Uni as a whole.

As I say, she should be fine with her grade requirements, but it's not impossible that something could go wrong. If Edinburgh comes in at the same or higher grades, how do you choose an insurance (she's very happy with her firm)?

I've seen this question on several forums and the responses have always been to try and work out which of the universities may accept grades lower than the offer.

One possibility, but not at all guaranteed:

Take a look on https://www.theuniguide.co.uk/ for each University for the course(s) she's applied for.

One of the metrics it lists per course/university is Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved) - this might provide an indication if they accept students who miss the offered grades.

Bizarrely enough, Edinburgh is the one from my DS's 4 main choices where the grades listed - AAB - are below their typical offer - AAA* to AAA.

Thanks @bguthb90, that's hugely helpful, just been doing some quick fire analysis as a result, and dashed off to DD to consider.

I've got a preference for her insurance, and the site above helps confirm it's a good option over her current preferred insurance of Edinburgh (who haven't actually offered yet...).

My DS deliberately chose a lower grade course for this exact reason, i.e. so that he'd have a viable insurance option, as he'd heard of people getting identical offers and effectively not having an insurance option.

Unfortunately, that didn't work out as he planned as the Uni he applied for the lesser course "upgraded" their offer to a better course which had the same grade requirement as his others!

Luckily, one of his Uni choices gave him an unconditional offer, which he put down as his insurance option, so it all worked out in the end. (Didn't matter anyway as he got above his predicted grades).

You could also try and do some digging around on The Student Room to see if any historically have still accepted a student if they drop a grade on results day - some are more flexible than others.

Might be worth a try!

No problem @EmmaStone . I wish we'd known about this site before applying - I think DS would have selected differently.

It seems a lot of DC are going off Edinburgh and their lack of responses and communications. From TSR threads it almost seems like their Business School hasn't even started reviewing applications yet 😭

People are constantly asking about Edinburgh offers on Wiwikau. I think they're pissing lots of people off being so slow.

DS had all his offers through ages ago. It seems unfair some are still waiting.

Similar predicament here in that Edinburgh have offered ds at three A stars, so not really viable as an insurance! It is different from the one he wants to firm, but seems to risky to put as an insurance. It's such a shame as it is absolutely the top end of what they can ask for and would be a strong second choice for him, where he'd be delighted to go if his firm didn't work out.

*too risky