Yes, some courses are exceptionally over-subscribed, even once you take into account that they have to over-offer to fill, because lots will accept somewhere else or. It make the grades. Others (majority) struggle to fill, even if they look competitive and have high grades as the standard offer.
Unis basically gather more info as the year progresses and adjust the amount ofoffers they are giving at that moment in light of the info. Until the end of Jan, they don’t know for sure how many applications or the quality of them. Until people start firming and insuring, they don’t know how many really want to put them first, so how many further offers they can or can’t make.
Factor in targets and goals for makimg contextual offers and offers to international students, and they are basically running multiple offer lists. No doubt, past experience gives a good indicator of how many applicants there will be, how many might firm, insure and fail to meet their offer…..or it was useful info pre Covid, when things were more certain. It’s been harder for unis since TAGs and CAGs and inflated grades and return to 2019 grading etc etc….all very up and down and more difficult to predict.
The popular ones were burnt by having too many make their grades in the Covid years. Struggles with accommodation and too many students for the facilities then ensue. But making too few offers and not filling is an economic nightmare for them too. I guess they have to be quite dynamic in their offer making and respond to circumstances as they occur….you see it in the Clearing details pre and post A Level offers. It has some similarities to EasyJet releasing batches of seats on planes with varying prices. Obviously it’s. It totally the same, but I think there are some similarities. And each uni course has differing levels of over or under subscription in each place, which is why it’s so hard to know what each place is up to.
I imagine that at some of the very popular places and courses, which often give out the majority of offers after Feb and often into May, by the end, they are literally watching for one offer holder to essentially decline them, by firming somewhere else, before they can make another offer….or something similar. Until people start firming and insuring, they haven’t got enough info to make the final offers (or not) to those they are basically ‘holding’. But often people aren’t able to firm and insure u til they hear from them! So at some point those unis have to make the decisions. At the very last minute, that’s why there can be lots of declines, which is very harsh for those who applied early and have held lots of offers for months, but couldn’t firm and apply for accommodation elsewhere, because they were waiting for the final place. It with pre-grades applications, there’s no easy way round the circus.