If you miss the grades, will they ever let you in to Uni?

[Peverellshire]

Just pondering this for one of mine. I think they may miss by a grade in a couple of subjects, guessing that means , generally that you lose the first choice, Uni place?

If your offer is A star,A and B an you get A star, A star, C - and the C not in the subject you are studying, is there broadly, some flexibility these days?

Out of country/unfamiliar and out-of-date with 'all this' re: UK system, until fairly, recently, hence ignorance, all hugely helpful thank you. Researching in parallel. Good to have this insight and very much appreciated.

Doesn't it make sense to opt for the easiest A'levels that require the least bandwidth that are vaguely relevant? Does it matter if vaguely linked to degree if 'well regarded'? Strikes me as (much)? easier to get an A star or A in some subjects and boards than others?

It happens automatically, so on results day the first thing that usually happens, unless your school opens very early, is you log in to UCAS at 8ish in the morning and it will say congratulations, you're going to Bath, or whatever. They don't tell you your grades though.

You get your grades from school / college and that might be in person or by email. I think most schools hand out the grades a little later than the UCAS update, but some might do it at the same time. If I remember rightly, last year the embargo lifted at 0815 or something like that, UCAS updated pretty much straight away, and then DS could go into school to get his grades from 9.30am. So he had an hour or so of knowing where he was going but not knowing his grades.

Once you have your grades, if you're still chasing a place, you can hit the phones. There is no harm in phoning up a uni that has rejected you to plead your case. I think opinions vary on how likely they are to change their mind!

So if you log into UCAS at 8ish it will either say congrats you're in to first choice, congrats you didnt get firm but you're in at insurance choice or sorry you havent made either in which case you phone up insurance and beg and also start looking in Clearing?

I guess you cant start that beg/Clearing process until you've been to the school and found out what the actual grades are. Is this a time sensitive process or do the unis tend to see what they get in clearing and then decide once they've seen the calibre of who is tryig to grab their spaces? or do they do it ad hoc as they go along?

And yes thank you for the info/experience - it's a nuanced system first time around.

On that point about phoning up your firm if they rejected you - some say don't bother, because if there had been any chance they would have accepted you already. But I just remembered my nephew talked himself into sports science at Loughborough having been rejected for missing his offer (I think he missed by two grades too). At that point you have nothing to lose. Maybe have a quick think beforehand, so you have something more persuasive to say than PLEEEEEEEEEEASE though!

Also, the wait between UCAS updating and getting your actual grades is miserable if all you know from UCAS is that you have been rejected by both firm and insurance. This is the time to hone your clearing strategy (if you want to try and get a place in clearing). You can't phone anyone until you know your grades, but you can strategise, get the phone numbers ready in order of preference for various eventualities and get your family ready to hit the phones with you. (They will be useful for staying on hold on your behalf while you do the talking as and when you get through to a uni.)

very much course dependent and probably year dependent. So the course I teach on we over offer. We rely on people not making their grades to have the exact number we’re supposed to have. So we have never let people in who haven’t made their grades. Saying that if there was a bad year one year and a large number didn’t make their grades we’d take some to get our numbers to hit the recruitment target.

A friend of DD’s didn’t make her Oxford offer and they let her in.

No, not at all. I wouldn’t even know or think about this when making final decisions in august.

No entirely separate. Firm may take slipped grades, or not, depending on number of offers met and places available. If Firm is no but Insurance offer met Insurance will be confirmed when UCAS opens on results day. If Insurance also not met they may still, or may not, confirm the place. This is an automatic process before exam results are released. They may also offer an alternative course, related but perhaps less popular(ie.Comparative Literature instead of English), or a Foundation year to make up for lower results. If no place confirmed then a phone call may be worthwhile once they have the results paperwork and/or look on Clearing.

Sorry, cross post.

Yes, you can't start phoning until you know what your grades are.

And yes, it's very time sensitive - clearing places get filled very quickly. I think what usually happens is that if you're quick, you might end up with a handful of offers (if you keep looking after your first offer of course), and the unis give you eg 24 or 48 hours to make up your mind. So there's a lot of movement in the first few hours as people try to bag those places.

You can search for clearing places on UCAS any time from - can't remember when exactly but think it opens maybe first week of July? There's a fair bit of shuffling before August though, Scottish and IB students get their results before A levels, so some places get taken that way. The best time to look at what might realistically be available if the worst happens is the night before results, by which time the unis should have sorted out who they have to take and who they are going to be generous to, so will know whether they have spaces available.

The insurance can also depend on the course. We do not take anyone who puts us down as their insurance if they get rejected by their firm. Even if they have made our grades. Some courses are exempted. I keep asking why ucas allow students to put us down as an insurance but never got an answer from admissions apart from being reassured not to worry as we don’t have to take them.

Wow really? I thought offers were legally binding. Never knew this would happen. Poor kids. Absolutely shocking system.

Sorry that's either bollocks or poorly explained. If you offer an applicant BBB, and they accept your offer as their insurance, you are legally bound to take them if they achieved BBB and their firm rejected them due to missing the firm offer. UCAS automatically updates their offer from you from CI to UI, and once their firm has rejected them UCAS again updates your offer from UI to UF.

Delurking to say wth? That can’t be right, surely?

Which uni / course is that @QuintanaRoo

As far as I know offers are binding contracts. There was a bit of a hoo hah when some places tried to add an over-subscription clause during the pandemic, when more people than expected made their offers, but I thought that had gone away.

Cambridge were the bad guys in that story but even they were only planning on asking people to defer. (Or so they said when challenged.) And it was only if they didn't have space, not just because they were someone's insurance choice.

You can search for clearing places on UCAS any time from - can't remember when exactly but think it opens maybe first week of July? There's a fair bit of shuffling before August though, Scottish and IB students get their results before A levels, so some places get taken that way.

So A'Level students are at a disadvantage when it comes to Clearing then, as some courses in Clearing may have already been snapped up before August 18th ?

Hang on? Are you saying there are kids who think they have an insurance offer who actually don't?

Yes.

Hang on? Are you saying there are kids who think they have an insurance offer who actually don't?

I am really dubious about this - even medicine courses which have a government imposed cap on how many people they are allowed to take, can't withdraw their offers once they have been firmed or insured. Hence the big sums of money offered to students to defer during the pandemic, it was a cheaper solution than paying the fine for over-recruiting. Plus the govt raised the cap a bit I think, just for a couple of years.

It’s purely a numbers game isn’t it.

Universities make offers in excess of places available, as not everyone will Firm or Insure and then not everyone who Firms or Insures makes their offer on results day. Some years, more achieve their offer than previously....and then they have to reject anyone who didn’t exactly make their offer, even if the slipped grade is in the least relevant subject and they’ve exceeded the offer in the most relevant.

Top tier are most likely to be unable to take students if they’ve dropped a grade.

For places that aren’t quite full - often RG included in this, they’d usually rather accept a candidate who firmed them, who dropped a grade, than take the risk of getting someone with better results through Clearing. They want buns on seats and the places filled, and the bird in the hand (firm candidate who wants to come, has applied for accommodation etc) is better than offering to someone on results day, who might get several similar offers and not actually materialise.

None of it is personal or mean or generous. It’s about numbers and space and needing to fill up but not over-fill. Prestigious places have their eyes on higher paying international students too.

There will be lots of good but not top tier places which have to significantly over-offer to fill and who will take candidates for many courses with a grade below.

But you will never know until results day. That’s the difficulty and reality everyone has to be ready for. With offers made ahead of results, there’s no way of avoiding it. Only if the system changes to application/application and offer post results will this change.

Yes, some clearing places will have been snapped up by students who get their results earlier.

But IB/Highers students who haven't made their offers won't find out until A level results day whether they have been rejected by their firm and insurance because the decision depends on how many places are filled by students who have made their grades. The universities don't know whether they will have space to accept students who didn't achieve their offers until the A level results come out.

OP, are then any mitigating circumstances why your DC might drop a grade eg the school didn't have a specialist teacher or they left part way through the year, the syllabus wasn't completed, they have been unwell or have had personal issues during the year, they were unwell on the day of the exam, coursework was heavily moderated down and the school is appealing etc? Universities can take that into account, although it still depends on whether there is a place available. You can apply for mitigating circumstances before the results come out.

I am also puzzled as to how anyone can reject Insurance applicants who have made their offers. The institution has a legally binding contract with them.

In my first post I sloppily said that one of the initial steps is ‘Insurance offers begin’. I meant that on Sunday afternoon we begin noting them and their impact.

I think that he had to call them it wasn't automatic.
-Yes they did enjoy it there, Southampton has two Uni's and so it has quite a large student population.

Thanks @ZelleZelle - that's a really good point you made about the IB/Higher students still having to wait until A'Level results day to find out about their firm/insurance rejection status.

I guess it means they basically have more time to get used to the fact their results weren't as good as they hoped and can be better prepared in terms of doing their research of clearing opportunities, but that's about it

@ZelleZelle
Just checking - students with early results who do get rejected - they can enter clearing straight away? I think there are quite a few of the competitive courses that might reject immediately without waiting for A levels, even if the achieved results are pretty close to the offer.

@SoTedious Clearing doesn’t open until individual Schools know their positions and British pupils have their results. IB pupils could certainly prepare for Clearing early.

Apologies, @SoTedious Clearing opens on 5 July this year. Presumably some degree programmes will know early that they have places. (I am nor familiar with that situation.)