How long to make a decision?

[mrsconradfisher]

DS wants to know how long after you get your results do you get to make a decision? He has a conditional offer for Birmingham for ABB and baring any huge disasters we are quietly hopeful that he will get those grades. Birmingham isn’t actually his first choice Uni and currently he is debating whether to take a gap year and apply again with his grades to his first choice for next year if by any chance he gets the grades they are asking for.
The course at his preferred Uni will definitely not be in Clearing so no chance of him going this year but he did say he would call and ask. Course needs A star AA.
Obviously I appreciate that he’s not going to get weeks and weeks to make a decision but I was hoping for a day or 2 to get his head around the idea.

You don’t make a decision. If you receive the grades needed for your firm choice your offer becomes unconditional and it’s assumed you’ll be going

you can reject your place, up till your start date (and even a few weeks into the term) so the issue is not accepting the place it’s about identifying the point you’ll commit to something like accommodation, which is a contract with financial implications, and making a decision before that point

If his preferred course isn’t listed in Clearing on the uni website, there is no point calling to ask for a space on it.

If he meets his offer he automatically gets the place. He can withdraw at any point up to a week or so of term starting (when student loan is triggered) but he may lose any deposit for accommodation if eh withdraws late or after arrival.

Did he apply to his preferred choice and get rejected, or did he not even apply due to grade predictions? What is the course? If he gets A star AA, and it's a competitive course no guarantee he will get offer next year even with grades in hand. Tricky.

That was my thought but I was told last week by several people on here that it’s worth him calling anyway. He’s got nothing to lose.

Nothing to lose, but even if reapplying he may not get an offer if the course is competitive,

He applied and got rejected. He is predicted A star AA but his 6th form refuse to predict A stars on UCAS (not just for him but for any student). It’s a tiny 6th form which is historically low achieving, there are only 6 including DS going to Uni.
Its Sports Science at Loughborough, he asked for feedback and it’s purely because he wasn’t predicted the A star. His PS and extra curricular are amazing.
Grade requirements for 24/25 are still the same so he figured if he got the A star plus applying with grades in hand and relevant work experience during a gap year it would put him in a really good position.

He accepted Birmingham but deep down he doesn’t want to go.

Well he's got up to the second week of term before he's committed fee and maintenance loan wise (what he's received would obvs need to be paid back), but the accommodation will be the issue and you'd need to check Bham's website to see when accommodation contracts and binding from.

Ahh thank you, he definitely wouldn’t need that long. He was thinking he had to make the choice on Results Day. I will get him to check out Birmingham for the accommodation side of things, they don’t even get to chose until they get given a random slot at some point in the week after results day so it’s not like he has chosen anything yet.

If DS gets those grades from a low achieving school it will be a major accomplishment and congratulations will be in order.

However they are the current published minimum and the question is whether Loughborough will be accepting them next year. If DS gets the grades he (no one else) needs to email an admissions tutor about this.

Tips, based on my experience as a Russell Gp admissions tutor:

1. Email is better than a phone call as this will be at a time when everyone is frantically busy. Asap when DS gets his results
2. Be polite, of course -try to get the name of the lead admissions tutor and use their academic title. Be clear but brief. If DS is eligible for a contextual offer, try to find out if these are used. In any case it is worth a brief mention that the school is low achieving and does not predict Astars
3. If DS doesn’t receive an email reply as his decision deadline approaches, he should allow time for one email follow up and three working days for a reply. After that it is fine to chase by phone. It is best to ring the School Admissions Office (or the Admissions Office for the degree programme) and ask them to pass a message to the admissions tutors.

I am frustrated reading this so I can imagine how you must both feel. With all the genuine problems that pupils from low achieving schools face, it is awful that a number of these schools have a policy against predicting Astars

Best wishes

I have NC for this.

DH was an admissions tutor at Loughborough though not sports science and I was an admissions officer at a different University.

Only the actual admissions tutor could potentially offer that place, outside the system as such. Then that admissions tutor makes a case to the overall head of admissions who no mere mortal would ever get to speak to. Getting hold of that initial admissions tutor would be really hard as results week is insane. Whatever you do don’t be that parent that calls, Helicopter parenting is a no no. The helpline will say no it would have to be the tutor and it’s a long shot anyway.

If he gets all A* then he would be better off applying when he has the grades. Spend a year working and getting some cash. Honestly as parents with 55 years of experience working in higher education between us so far, we advise it. Our own DS worked for 2 years before entering higher education and saved up about 15k. He decided to do a degree apprenticeship and managed to get a place, that was stressful as places are so limited, but no student debt for him.

Good Luck, Loughborough is a great University and number 1 for sports science so I can see why he is holding out. Loughborough has very good pastoral care and generally a good community. As an aside I went to the University of Birmingham but it was 30 years ago and DH and I met on campus. It was fab then but it is such a long time ago.

PS I see now that written requirements are the same next year. But for highly competitive programmes this is sometimes a minimum, not realistic for all applicants

Thank you, that’s really helpful. He doesn’t quite make the contextual offer unfortunately as our postcode doesn’t qualify. The school does though.
He has already done a programme called Zero Gravity last year which is all about trying to get students from state schools into high achieving Uni’s. They are linked up with a student mentor (DS’s was from Durham) and they help them to work on their PS etc.

He got a lower offer from Birmingham as he did 3 of their required subjects, PE, Geography and Psychology. Incidentally the subject that he is hopeful of getting the A star in is Psychology, the teacher left at the end of Y12 so he has had to teach himself with the help of a tutor once a week since Christmas. So if he does manage it then it’s even more impressive.

If a course isn’t in Clearing it’s because there are no spaces. They won’t magic one up on the basis of a phone call.
It won’t do him any harm no, but it also won’t get him anywhere and gives false hope which I feel is unfair on students. There’s a lot of advice on here giving false hope.
@poetryandwine has good guidance about how he could make his decision but ultimately if he doesn’t want to go to Birmingham, he shouldn’t.

To clarify, OP -

My comments are geared to getting an early Unconditional Offer for next year.

Loughborough Sports Science will almost surely fill their places with applicants who make their offers. It isn’t their concern why your DS firmed B’ham, harsh as that sounds.

If he is keen to go this year and has the grades, he could mention that in the email.

I was not Head Admissions Tutor but we are all difficult to reach by phone during the key period of time. However @Lugaburuga is correct that any Admissions Tutor can make a preliminary judgment on the situation of your DS so if he prefers to email someone else that’s fine. At my place that would be the Admissions Officers and they pass emails on in rotation

With stellar A levels and a possible WP application I won’t say categorically that there is no chance this year. But I wouldn’t hold out hope whereas I am optimistic about next year

Thank you that’s so helpful. I doubt he will get all A stars, Geography was particularly horrific so he isn’t confident in that at all. I’m hopeful for one for him in Psychology and potentially PE.

No don’t worry I definitely won’t be the parent that calls, I’m just helping him with a bit of the groundwork. He’s actually working full time over the summer doing 2 jobs and I’m a TA so got lots of time on my hands!
He has always wanted to go to Loughborough so as lovely as Birmingham was he thinks he is always going to be wondering what if. Also I think it wouldn’t hurt him to have a year to earn some more money and travel and have a bit of a life as they missed so much due to Covid.

No I appreciate that and tbh giving him false hope is the last thing he needs.

Thank you. I think if (and it’s obviously a big if!) he gets the grades then he will email and explain and see what happens with no expectations.

Im probably being really thick, what does WP application mean?

I'd add an extra caveat to what others have said, due to the situation with covid etc there's a lot of uncertainty around grades, whatever he achieves is great considering! Sports science at Loughborough is one of the most complex courses in the U.K. so he needs to be realistic and if he opts for reapplying, he needs to urgently look at his extracurricular and other activities that could push him above the park even with 3*'s

WP is Widening Participation. Because you mentioned that the school is underachieving I thought there might be a possibility that your DS will fall under the WP umbrella. Sometimes WP applicants will get slightly lower offers to reflect that they’ve had fewer academic resources to work with. Usually this is indicated with a stated range of offers. WP applicants get offers at the lower end. In my School they end up performing the same as everyone else. I don’t know whether Loughborough Sports Science practises WP

WP data are flagged by Admissions Teams when used, you don’t need to do anything.

PS if reapplying a good plan for his Gap Year showing personal development in some way may be important to their decision

Thank you. He is already doing a L1 football coaching course and coaches a team. If he takes a Gap Year he is also planning on doing a Sports Psychology Coursehttps://www.derby.ac.uk/online/psychology-courses/sports-psychology-certificate-of-credit-online/ as this is ultimately what he wants to go into. There is also a possibility of him getting work experience with a Championship Football Club but you can imagine how difficult that is.
He is very sporty, plays football, cricket and cycles but not to a county level or anything that would set him apart from anyone else. I’m not sure what else he could do to add to his PS, maybe some volunteering abroad?

Hi OP I have read your messages before about your son and I really wish him the very best.

I wonder if it would be an idea for him to defer the Brum place - if the uni is willing - as it sounds as tho he really doesn't want to go there, so at best it would be second-best (even tho it is great). I don't know tho if you can apply elsewhere if you hold a deferred place - it may be that you are not able to do this. But if Lboro reject him even with the grades, what would be want to do then?

I agree with others btw that there is no point calling on results day as SS at Lboro is not and will pretty much never be in clearing. It won't do any harm but is just a wasted call that gives false hope. People often say "oh, call on results day" but speaking from experience, a call with no point on that day is a bad idea.

Best of luck to your DS and hope to run into him at Lboro in 2024 (DS2 is there on a 4-year course so has two years to go!).

@Clary has good ideas, OP, both here and generally. But you cannot (re)apply whilst holding a place

Thanks Clary, we’ve just been on holiday and he’s done a lot of talking about the future and what he wants to do. Ultimately he really isn’t feeling Birmingham is for him.
I think if he gets the grades needed for Loughborough then he’d like to try again next year with grades in hand but also try some other Uni’s as well which he didn’t apply to this year like Bath, Durham and Newcastle. He applied for 4 University’s (2 courses at Loughborough) with no guidance from 6th form at all really and one of these was our local uni for a course he didn’t really want to do as wasn’t actually Sports Science. In hindsight he would have chosen 5 completely different Uni’s apart from Loughborough.

All this obviously depends on his grades, he might not even get the A star then he won’t have much choice. It’s been an awful year tbh, my Mum passed away on Boxing Day and I feel as though he just isn’t ready to commit to something so a Gap year might be the best thing all round.