How hard is it actually to get offers?

[redskytwonight]

Just wondering ...

I'd perhaps naively assumed that DD would have no trouble getting university offers for her universities of choice, but having spent too much time on here and in WIWIKAU it now seems that even stellar students are not getting offers so I'm starting to worry.

She's not applying for medicine/vet/extremely popular/Oxbridge courses.
Her GCSEs are good although not by MN standards (i.e. not all 9s and even include a 5!).

She's predicted Astar A A with the A star in the degree subject she's applying for.
Her other 2 subjects are known to be ones where it's difficult to get an A star.
She's likely to get an A star in her EPQ (submitted already).

Her 2 top choice universities both make standard offers of AAA. One reduces to AAB with an A at EPQ.

Likely to get offers, or does she still need a following wind?

@Needmoresleep - Nope. Take a look at https://www.durham.ac.uk/media/durham-university/study/study---undergraduate/how-to-apply/documents/Applications-per-Place-2020-21.pdf

which shows that some courses at Durham (e.g. A&F, Management) have more places available for international applicants than UK applicants.

https://www.durham.ac.uk/media/durham-university/study/study---undergraduate/how-to-apply/documents/Applications-receiving-offer-2020-21.pdf is also informative - how many UK vs non-UK applicants receive offers

Yes, they may have more places available to international applicants, but that does not mean that UK students are directly competing with international students. There may well be a ringfenced number of places for UK students. The presence of a good number of high-paying overseas students may simply mean that the course is bigger than it would otherwise be.

DC went to an academic school which offered boarding and direct observation was that it could be harder for kids who did not qualify as home students to gain acceptance on some highly competitive courses.

Interesting for English in particular.

@Needmoresleep

Yes, they may have more places available to international applicants, but that does not mean that UK students are directly competing with international students.

Neither you or I will ever know the internal mechanisms by which offers are allocated on specific courses at specific universities.

However, if a course only has 34 places for UK applicants and 89 places for International applicants, it indicates to me you've less probability of getting an offer as a UK student.

However, if a course only has 34 places for UK applicants and 89 places for International applicants, it indicates to me you've less probability of getting an offer as a UK student.

No it doesn't. You'd need to know application rates, offer rates, and conversion rates for both home and international before you could assess the probability. And you'd need to know where similar quality applicants to you sit in that range.

Computer Science places...
It shocks me that DS's mates, with 3 x A star (typically computing, math & biology or FM) didn't get better offers than Bath. They got turned away from Cambridge, St. Andrews, Warwick... These are lads who had great work experience, zero issues or red flags, impressive personal statements, genuine passion, deputy head boy experience, that kind of thing. They are all going to DS's Uni instead, who offered DS a place for AAB.

Economics is very competitive too. DH got 3 A stars and an A in Maths, Further Maths, Economics and Physics, and was rejected by his top two choices. S were all his mates.

Luckily his third choice is working out well. It is what it is.

I don't think English is as competitive though.

My DS got offered all his 5 places for maths last year which included Warwick, Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham and Aston. I think each year is different.

@titchy take a look at the original pdfs I posted - they have the data you refer to, including the applications per place available.

True, it doesn't tell you about applicant quality though. If you're an AAA applicant for Law, the table you posted suggests you have a 34% chance of an offer. But it is entirely possible that 66% of applicants are predicted DDD and they're the ones that don't get offered.

So although tables like Dirhams are useful, they don't tell the full story.

@titchy Agreed on your "applicant quality" point in principle.

However my original post was specifically about my DS's situation, where I said:

Predicted grades above all typical offers, except for Edinburgh, where they matched.

not about applicants in general.

Universities often find the higher they set the entry requirements the more applicants they get.

Not worked for Nottingham if they are in clearing jgw!

In Scotland there is a set number of places for Scottish students, since they are funded by the Scottish government.

In England the same is not true (except for regulated courses - typically in heathcare) In England home tuition fees have not risen since 2011, there has been some inflation since then. For universities to keep their fees income rising in line with inflation they now need to take about 30% overseas students, a signficant increase in the numbers 10 years ago.
I wonder also whether Scottish universities are taking more overseas students at the expense of English students for the same reason.

Nottingham will still have had more applicants than places. Typically outside the top 3 or 4 universities a university needs to make between 5.5 and 6 offers for each place they have in order to fill their places come results day. This ratio was reduced during the covid years and some universities may not have entirely relaxed their offer making this year, so I wouldn't be the least surprised to see more places in clearing than some years.

The universities do their best to guess how many offers to make to get the required number of students going to them. They use lots of statistics, but inevitably some years they will be more or less popular than they expect. For instance a good run on University Challenge can change things.

It is worth noting that international students are more likely to apply to universities in a range of countries, and indeed accept offers from institutions in several countries. That means that the number of offers a university makes for the places available will typically be higher for international students, and there is greater unpredictability in how many students they will end up with.

There are many reasons why one might well consider Bath to be a better university to study Computer science at than the others you mention.

I was going to say the same. But some can’t see past the Russell Group marketing bollocks…

Most applicants here apply to more than one uni. As do the international students. So no uni knows who is a dead cert to come to them. However they need the money. DD found on her course some years ago, that the number of international students had doubled from the original number quoted on the open day. It did become a different experience.

I thought Bath was much better (more prestigious) than the Uni DS attends, tbh.

Actually Bath CS DOES rank above Warwick & St. Andrew (I thought it'd be below). So every day's a school day. Anyway, for CS, DS's mates with the 3 A stars chose to attend DS's Uni which is about rank ... 20!! DS isn't that keen on the course, although he's enjoyed learning C (who TF enjoys learning C, weirdo). I hope all of them are happy in the end.

ps: it occurs to me that I never once looked at that league table when DS was applying. I didn't even know Lboro offered CS. Was like pulling hen's teeth to get DS to choose anywhere, so I was just throwing out names of cities until he didn't resist any more.

@lljkk I said we didn’t look at subject tables for DD1 and was absolutely flamed a few years ago! So not MN! She just knew what she wanted and didn’t want. I think lots of chat at school and a couple of open days helped the decision.

This is because 6 of these are the target 6 for Investment Banking so if the student has aspirations to go into that then it is of course giving them the best shot at getting in

Not just investment banking. Four (Cambridge, UCL, LSE and Warwick - and presumably now Imperial) offer very technical mathematical degrees, so a real advantage for anyone wanting to go into an economic forecasting role, whether with a consultancy, bank, central bank or academia.

Would be employers will know that a graduate with a good economics degree from one of these will have covered the ground and be able to crunch the numbers. That said most roles do not require people to have advanced quantitative skills.

My dd found it pretty easy for psychology .
She was predicted good grades and had unconditional offers Fairly early on .
She got 3 A at A levels in law policy is and psychology and all 8 and 9 for gcse so not mega grades although excellent ..

Friends star for example for all 9 at gcse and 5 A star A levels for Oxford