Can’t decide last 2 UCAS choices - leave til last minute?

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Hi, I know about equal consideration deadline but wanting to ask whether, in practise, there is any disadvantage in not submitting final 2 choices to ucas til late Jan just before the deadline? Are you any more likely to get an offer by submitting early ?

Dd is an early applicant, predicted A stars, and has currently made 3 choices on UCAS - Cambridge, LSE and Edinburgh - so obviously all risky in terms of getting an offer . She can’t find 2 more that she particularly likes and course is not at many unis so choice a bit limited. From what we can see LSE & Edinburgh could offer from January onwards though know they are often a lot later?

Would it be unwise to just wait til later in Jan to see what status is for Lse / Edinburgh before deciding about back up plans? Or just so little chance of hearing from them by then? Anyone done similar?
thanks

Think this has got buried. Hoping for some experiences? Thanks

Edinburgh usually offer quite late, so you probably wouldn’t know about them by January anyway.

i don’t know about LSE.

My DS is doing this. He has submitted his early application with 4 choices and left the 5th one blank to see how things pan out, ie if he gets any offers and if he changes his mind on which one to apply for (there are currently 3 or 4 he is considering). As far as I know there are no problems with doing this - his school seem happy with this approach.

if your DD is only interested in those three, is there any point putting down other unis? My DS is in a similar position and he would rather take a gap year and reapply than accept a place at a uni he doesn’t like.

Having been through the UCAS process last year: there is no disadvantage in leaving the last two choice until Dec / mid-Jan. Only Oxbridge and medicine need to be chosen earlier. Most of DS's choices didn't process the applications made in Oct/Nov until March/April. The London universities seem to leave it later than the regional ones.
When choosing the last two, be careful about applying to an "insurance" course at the same university. Admissions teams can't see your choices at other unis, but can see if you've made 2 choices at their uni. In this case, there is the temptation from the perspective of admissions to offer you only one - the less popular - of the two courses. From their point of view, it balances demand. But from the student's point of view it can mean you only get offered the insurance course, not the one you really wanted. You can never be sure of the rationale, but this appears to have happened to more than one student we know.

My DD has done the same. Applied to Cambridge, Durham and Bath. Rejected Bristol snd Exeter after attending open days. Would consider Glasgow but so far plus four years and not attended an open day there. Looking at last years TSR Bath started offering in late November and as that's her second choice if she got an offer she may not need to add any more (she has grades in hand so offers should be unconditional). Doubt Durham would offer before January deadline.
We are going to Surrey open day next weekend - grade requirement much lower but the course is in too 20 across the league tables (7th on the Times) and good rep for placement Year and graduate jobs.

Thanks everyone, sounds like no downside just problem of Lse and Edinburgh being slow to reply which is frustrating as so many RG unis already sending out offers. I looked on tsr and it appears a few Lse and Edinburgh offers start coming through mid dec/early Jan but clearly it’s a minority.

@SOWK in my daughters case if she doesn’t get offers this year with her predictions then applying with grades in hand is unlikely to help. But I can see it does make sense depending on the situation. Agree it’s hard to know if it’s worth putting down unis that you aren’t really interested in! I just wish she also liked a slightly easier one to get an offer from - the offer grades for her particular course aren’t too high at Lse /Edinburgh so it is more an issue of getting the offer in the first place!

Fair point, but I think a candidate applying with 4 A * in hand rather than predicted grades might have a slightly higher chance of an offer. Also with Cambridge there’s the option of applying to a different college and maybe getting different outcome.

My ds applied last year. The school advised them all to add their final 2 choices just before the January deadline.
What course does she want to do? I think she should put some slightly less aspirational ones in as well.

It's not unknown for Edinburgh and LSE to offer for some courses before the January deadline plus she will know about Cambridge before then. I'd hang off adding any other courses until the last minute. All astar predictions should get an Edinburgh off for most subjects.

How confident is she about her grades and choice of course? My DDs interest in her degree subject waned over her last year at school.

Thanks. Course pretty set and tbh, Cambridge aside, it’s not the most competitive choice at the other unis so that is a plus.

This is a good plan in theory, but you may find that neither LSE nor Edinburgh respond before the deadline, so might be none the wiser. Choosing last minute won't affect the chances of an offer from the last two courses though, so worth a go.

The thing is if she doesn't want to apply to anywhere other than the 3 then if she did put any old uni down just to fill the spaces would she even want to go there? LSE and Edinburgh could well offer or reject after the January deadline. LSE has around a 70% international student population so what is her plan B if she doesn't get any offers from the 3 she has put? She has a lot of choice uni wise with her grade profile.

Are there any unis that would allow her to study her subject choices as part of a flexible degree? Thinking of something like Edinburgh's Interdisciplinary Futures (50% free choice of subjects plus in early years able students can take additional modules time table permitting). Would any of these be worth slots 4 and 5.

By late January, your DD will know whether or not she has an offer from Cambridge, even if she has not yet had a response from Edinburgh or LSE.

My advice would be to wait until after she hears from Cambridge and see how she feels then.

Slightly stereotypical strong maths applicant in our house - was hard to motivate him to do the university research. So early application went in with 1 course and over the Christmas holidays he was convinced that Imperial and Warwick were appropriate to add. Left it at that and since he got the offers that was enough. His school normally preferred them to all put in fully completed early applications, then focus on their study without distraction.

Thanks all for your input. In answer to a couple of questions - she’s after a joint hons or combined course but her key subject is not available at a lot of the usual unis. In terms of top20 ish the only other ones that offer her combination are St Andrews, Durham, Exeter, Manchester and Birmingham. St A’s just too isolated and and Edinburgh bad enough from a distance pov! Durham visited and good course but she wasn’t sure about Durham as a place/vibe, Exeter visited didn’t really like course or campus environment but liked city, Manchester not visited but concerned about size/rep for being impersonal and lacking support /party uni, Birmingham not visited but she isn’t keen so far re course or it being a campus uni. Sadly none of these options are within reasonable travelling distance which also not ideal.

I am beginning to think she should consider putting Durham as her 4th in Nov as it seems to have better offer stats than her top 3 and then she can leave 5th slot and possibly visit Manchester or Birmingham in January to compare with Exeter. Is it considered too risky to have a 4th that is still quite competitive in terms of getting an offer?

Birmingham is a campus university but in the city. Also easy to get by bus, train or plane. As is Manchester. Birmingham is very young, vibrant and surprisingly green whereas Manchester is big industrial and steely.