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Higher education

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Insurance choice - how much pragmatism needed?

51 replies

RoseZinfandel · 21/12/2023 13:23

Wondering how people go about choosing insurance choices.

DC hasn’t applied yet, but is planning application.

Top choice (Newcastle) published offer is AAB, which I think is realistic-aspirational.

Second favourite (Liverpool) published offer is BBB, but they don’t guarantee accommodation to insurance.

University in commuting distance (Manchester) published offer is ABB. No need for insurance accommodation as could commute, it’s about an hour and a quarter away. But DC doesn’t like the course as much.

Other option is choose a university with a lower offer that guarantees insurance accommodation, but they seem like hen’s teeth!

So the questions we are wrestling with are:

How likely is firm choice to take you if you drop one grade? Do universities publish this information anywhere?

Is having your insurance just one grade below your firm too close to be useful? When I applied 100yrs ago, we were advised 3 grades below, but perhaps things are different now.

How much of a nightmare is it trying to find accommodation if you end up somewhere via insurance? If anyone had experience of Liverpool in particular that would be really helpful - also interested to know about Glasgow, Leeds and Cardiff.

OP posts:
LuckyOrMaybe · 08/01/2024 22:18

I think my DD ended up with an insurance offer the same as her firm, and certainly at one point an adviser at her school was saying she needed to include something lower to provide an insurance option. However, her PGs were I think 3 A*s, and other than Oxbridge she was looking at likely AAA offers for her course. I think she ended up with AAB as her offer with a relevant EPQ, and only missed one A star in her results. She had concluded, and we were happy to agree, that if things went "wrong" enough to miss her offers, she'd need to rethink drastically, and her backup plan for that eventuality was applying outside the UK in our country of origin.

So yes, if their first choice course offers significantly below a realistic set of PGs, then a "matching" insurance offer may not be totally mad.

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