Uni offers - working out likelihood of an offer

[Ferrer]

Is there a way of working out how likely it is your child will receive an offer from a given uni?

My DS has five unis he loves and wants to apply to for Politics. All 5 have a standard entry requirement of AAB. He doesn’t want to apply to any of the unis that have lower standard requirements.

He is predicted A star, A, B. He thinks he will definitely get some offers at AAB unis as he has the A star prediction in politics. Is he taking a big risk that nobody will offer? His GCSEs are below average for his highly selective grammar school (4x 6, 3x 7, 3x 8). He has no EPQ but a predicted B at AS French.

Is there any way I can find out how likely offers are at Bath, Leeds, York, Nottingham and Birmingham? I see Birmingham has a handy offer predictor calculator but nobody else seems to.

This isn't particularly helpful but I've often wondered why youngsters don't aim for the best (within boundaries of common sense) and then if they don't get "their best".then nail the exam grades and take a year out.

Whilst that's probably not sensible for Mathsy type subjects, for politics he might be able to work alongside councillors or MPs etc for the year. Maybe getting involved even with a GE if lucky timing.

Then reapply for the degree with this experience and grades that have been nailed.

Just a left of field thought.

Similarly, if he didn’t get AAB would he re-sit the a-levels and apply again the following year?

I'd expect five out of five offers tbh. I'd also suggest he looks at Hull. Lower offer and they offer the opportunity to work in Westminster for a year.

I would've thought he'd get offers from all of them if their entry requirements are AAB and his predictions are above that. Best of luck to him.

Sorry but I wouldn’t necessarily expect offers from all of them. My son was predicted 3 A* (and got them) but was rejected by 4 out of 5 of his choices for Econ and Politics. None of them had entry requirements of above 3 A’s. I know it’s a different degree but I’ve also had friends with the same experience for History and straight Politics.

That's commonplace for economics. Never experienced it for history or politics!

OP from your list, theory one that might be able to not give him an offer there is Bath, simply because of the volume of very high calibre applicants they get for politics. The others are excellent, too, obviously , but they are not maybe quite as choosy.

Yes agree with @Piggywaspushed - common for anything with econ to need a good spread of requirements as offer rate is low - econ adds competitiveness that's not so common in other subjects in humanities or social sciences. For straight politics I think the OP would be very unlucky (esp as covid bulge has worked it's way through the system) not to get positive outcomes

I’d echo piggy’s comments regarding both her thoughts on economics and on Bath. He’s likely to get all 5 offers but it’s also likely that Bath will take a while as they do read personal statements. DD applied around Xmas with PGs of AAA to Bath x2 (both AAB), L’Borough (AAB) & York (ABB). York offered within 48hrs, Loughborough after a few weeks and Bath weren’t until early March, but did keep her informed. If your DC firms Bath then it’s highly likely he’ll need to get those grades or better - DD needed AAB, got A*BB with the Astar in uni subject and was rejected. Just so you know.

If your DC firms Bath then it’s highly likely he’ll need to get those grades or better - DD needed AAB, got ABB with the Astar in uni subject and was rejected. Just so you know.

I know this is just badly worded - but OP's dc won't need to gain grades more higher than their offer, but gaining a grade higher in one subject won't make up for another grade being lower than another required. In the example above, the A star didn't make up for the fact that the second A requirement wasn't met.

My ds was rejected by both York and Leeds for History despite his predicted grades being above the minimum requirements.

He sounds exactly like i did (same subjects and unis and everything). I got into Bath French and politics with lower grades than advertised. They wanted ABB and I got AAC. They were happy to have me. I applied with my a level results in hand due to a year out after school.

Having said all that, I'd have one decent insurance option tbh. A really high achiever at my very academic grammar school somehow ended up with no offers. Actually two of them had that but one was applying for veterinary only and didn't have the right practical experience

My ds got offer from Bath for AAB for politics and IR (dropped offer as had A star epq). He was very impressed by Surrey and offer there BBB and had as his reserve. Also got offers from York, Royal Holloway and Essex. All apart from Bath, looked like they dropped offers in clearing.

My ds predicted A star A B as well.
He did drop to AAB which was a surprise but got Bath as bang on offer. Thank goodness for the epq....

Really useful responses. Thanks. How I wish he had done an EPQ. I feel in my bones he won’t get offers from Bath or Leeds which are his favourites by far but the politics and IR lectures at the open days there were so oversubscribed and tons from his school are applying to the same courses at those unis but with better GCSEs.

is there any way of finding out whether it’s harder to get offer for politics and IR or straight politics?

He’s applying to politics and IR with a language at Bath. They told us at open day that language and politics course would be ABB but it’s AAB like their other politics courses that they said would be higher.

His school is very good, top 10 in the country, how likely is it that unis will judge his GCSEs harshly given his school cohort? Or judge him for doing no EPQ?

Hi, OP -

Former admissions tutor here, Russell Group STEM subject.

When a School or degree programme has too many applicants, offers tend to be made first to those with the highest predicted grades. Sometimes this process is moderated by interviews. Many with PGs bang on the offer may not get an offer.

Bath is showing two standard offers for 2024, AAA and A star A B. As your DS is bang on, I agree Bath is risky. With an A star in Politics I wouldn’t necessarily be pessimistic about anywhere else. However I don’t know the subject and being only one grade over might not be enough in a super competitive place.

I think the AS French is neither here nor there unless any of these programs will accept UCAS tariff points.

My concern is that I don’t think your DS has a real insurance plan. He is only allowing himself a slip on the Politics grade, and anywhere except Bath his Politics offer is likely to be an A, anyhow. He needs to insure against a bad day on at least one, preferably both, of his other exams.

I realise that these are the five choices he loves best. The question is, is he prepared to either take his chances in Clearing or take a gap year, or would he prefer to apply now to a safe back up choice? I would caution him against assuming that A star AC or A star BB will necessarily be seen as an acceptable substitute for AAB. Many have sadly learnt otherwise. (It depends what the count is after all who have made the offer have been accepted. If numbers are short, those who have Firmed and are off by one grade are usually accepted. Relying on this is not a good strategy, however).

he won’t be penalised for no EPQ, he just won’t qualify for Bath’s reduced offer.

you can get an overall sense of the relative competitiveness of various courses by doing an FOI request on the whatdotheyknow website - ask for applicant and and offer numbers. Can ask to see them split however you want eg contextual and standard etc. Take your time ocer composing the question. Takes about 20 working days to get a reply

Mmm… if he’s applying for degrees with a language element I do believe these are often less competitive. So straight politics maybe more competitive than IR with French. Albeit I think IR is increasing in popularity. What does he really prefer to study? I do think he’ll get all five offers regardless but he will need to get the grades. Offers are only that. If he drops just one grade those universities may not be lenient. If he’s adamant that they are the ones then have a back up plan of clearing or year out & applying with grades in hand or doing a resit - I think all of those Unis accept a resit (Bath certainly do).

I wouldn’t worry about his GCSEs too much. He did 12 which is a lot and still got pretty good grades 8-6. The fact he’s at a selective grammar only means that he won’t get a contextualised offer - assuming he’s not first in family to uni & your postcode isn’t in the universities’ contextualised areas.

I agree with piggy and others – pretty likely with those PGs and those typical offers to get an offer at all four of those unis. Yes, some courses don’t offer in those circs, but those are the highly popular ones – economics is having a massive moment and I am sure we all have stories of young people with great A level grades who nonetheless didn’t get offers, esp at v competitive unis for econ – like LSE, UCL and Imperial.

And yes, if he gets an offer, even from a uni like Bath that is more competitive for politics, as long as he makes the offer, he is in. The issue in the last 2-3 years has been that the more popular unis have been so overwhelmed with students making their offers that they have had to penalise any deviation (such as a grade up in this subject but a grade down in that one). That may well be less of an issue going forward as the Covid-affected cohort works through.

I think there are always a lot of stories or chat on SM about people getting no offers – but again, these are often students who either aimed very high with all applications (nowt wrong with one aspirational bid) or applied for very very popular courses (medic, vert, econ) and didn’t add anything realistic (hard with vet I know).

My DC for arts degree and STEM degree received five offers pretty quickly – the longest wait was DS for Lboro which he got in about Feb IIRC – and four out of five were RG or RG+, with one safety as well. I would advise your DS to add in one uni that offers around BBB then he can decide whether to have that as insurance. FWIW neither of my two that went to uni held on to their lower offer; DS made the grades for his first choice, and DD did not but found somewhere great through clearing.

Don't worry about the EPQ; at best it knocks a grade down, but it doesn't even do that everywhere. At worst it takes the focus off the A levels and sees grades drop there, which is never going to help.

Bizarrely we did this year History.

A 3 x A* student interviewed at Oxford and was rejected but also rejected by KCL and Bristol but now at UCL! Very strange.

I mean I guess if anywhere would it would be those places...

I’ve often wondered how many Hull students actually get to intern for a peer of MP? They say “you could” so that sounds competitive. It’s a low level entry at BBC.

Sheffield is worth looking at. AAB. So better for insurance. Hull, for some reason, is 56th in the CUG yet always mentioned on MN. Cannot really see why as grad prospects aren’t stellar either.

Hull is probably over represented here considering its size and overall prestige...

https://studee.com/media/mps-and-their-degrees-media/

It really depends on the uni and popularity of the course. DD had better predicted grades than she needed for psychology at Exeter but it is very oversubscribed and she missed out. She got 4 other offers though also from very good unis.