How typical are "typical grades"?

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Both Leeds and Exeter are showing a typical offer of AAB for History for 2025 entry. For 2024 entry, Leeds was AAA and Exeter AAA-AAB.

Do unis ever/ often offer above the typical grades shown on the website? In other words, if DD applies for either uni is there any possibility that her offer may be at the previous level of AAA?

Universities like these don't flex grades upwards. Just make sure to check the tarrif before applying as they sometimes change in late summer/ early autumn. Don't be misled by apparent ranges - the lower tarrif is contextual.

I am a former RG admissions tutor, and I mostly agree with @ SlenderRations. Firstly, I think you are referring to the Exeter entry requirement, OP, as well you should - though it hasn’t been updated for 2025 yet. As @SlenderRations says, the higher requirement is the standard one and the lower one is contextual.

‘Typical offer’ is a sloppy phrase. Admissions tutors aren’t obliged to make the standard offer to everyone who lacks contextual flags, but the phrase could also mean students were accepted who had an offer of the standard requirement, didn’t meet it, but were admitted anyway. That means the unit of admission couldn’t fill the entering class with students up to standard.

If a School is known to have many students with Contextual offers, having a lower typical offer than the standard offer is sensible and encouraging. Otherwise for the reasons above it is a slight yellow flag. It says ‘We’re pretending to be something we are not’.

Applicants need clear information from universities in order to find someplace they will really thrive.

Thank you. Re Exeter, yes I'm referring to the grades stated on the course info page, which are labelled "Typical Offer", which show as AAB for 2025 - although based on these replies it seems there is a chance this may yet change - and show as AAA-AAB for 2024.

I went to the CUG and did not see this phrase. If Exeter are replacing ‘Entry Requirement’ by ‘Typical Offer’ I agree with @SlenderRations they are unlikely to flex it upwards. Very poor PR for a start.

Lowered offers is a current trend following poorer post Covid A level results. I think the whole correction is overdue.

Something to keep in mind is that if lowered offers yields a larger applicant pool, which is the goal, excellent schools will make offers from the top. So Exeter might start by making that AAB offer only to those with PGs of A star A A or better, and pause offers until they get a big batch of rejections.

I am in STEM and know nothing about Exeter History, but I could name plenty of unis and Schools that do this. Everyone needs to apply to at least one place with entry requirement at least one grade below their PGs. Best wishes to your DD

I went to a talk given by the admissions team at Exeter at the open day on Saturday. They said that (a) they will never make an offer that is higher than their published grades (b) they have a large intake and make a lot of offers - their offer rate is something like 84% of applicants get an offer. They said the offer rate varies per subject- they mentioned economics and computer science as having lower offer rates (c) they band applications according to predicted grades - most offers won’t be made until after the January UCAS deadline apart from maybe a few where predicted grades are well in excess of their typical offer.

Disclaimer - this is just for Exeter, I don’t know how any other universities operate their admissions.

This happened to my DC for maths at Edinburgh, entry requirements were (and still are) shown as A star A A - A star A B but they received offer of A star A star A

This is helpful, particularly point a, thanks. DD & DP also went to the open day but didn't go to the admissions talk as had a lot to fit in.

I thubk Exeter only dropped the history down from AAA very recently, which may suggest less likely to pop up again this year. And it dropped to AAA from A star AA for students starting only 3 years ago.

I think this must be a response to grade boundaries being really tough.
incidentally I see that Leeds will drop a grade with an A or above in the EPQ. This has provided a bit of a safety net for my DC. I am so glad he did it.

A few unis so offer above the website indication sometimes, so a sensible question. And one well worth asking at open days/ directly to admissions.

Really interesting, thank you for sharing.

Ages ago now DH got the equivalent of a 4 A star offer from Cambridge Maths, which was also above their standard offer. He said it was a sort of anti-contextual offer, the typical one made to applicants in Maths and Nat Sci from his school because they were lucky enough to have a strong cohort and good teaching (all true).

Mat I ask if your DC is in a similar situation?

Times have changed. DH’s crowd thought the offer a badge of honour but how do applicants react nowadays when made an offer higher than the standard one? I am not sure it is morally acceptable at the scale we operate today.

@poetryandwine I don't think so no, their sixth form has a good reputation in our local area but otherwise nothing special at all. They (twins) are both predicted 4 A stars and were both given the same offer, they don't know anyone else that applied to compare with but going by what I've seen online it think some did receive the same higher offer while some were given the standard offer. One ds was hoping it would make a good insurance as he expected the standard advertised offer, he has nothing below it.

So Exeter, at least for the course my DD is applying for, will allow you to drop one grade if you achieve an A in AS level Core Maths (may also apply to EPQ - I haven't looked into that as DD didn't do that). Therefore my DD's offer of AAA, with her Grade A in Core Maths, means that she would be accepted with AAB. I wonder if that is what they are trying to say, albeit rather clumsily?

I am sorry to hear this, @Cx5

Perhaps Ed Maths think they have enough history with these schools to ‘anti-contextualise’ or perhaps it is a Scotland v RUK thing. Neither sounds entirely defensible to me.

Best wishes to your DC

DD got an offer three years ago for 3xA, but reduced to 2xA,1xB if you put them first. So that could influence the equation of "typical" offer. They also make reduced offers to West Country and Wales students, again reducing the range of offers.

Also interested in this, and also someone who has no idea as this is my first child going through the process.

For Exeter, does it mean that if you are at Eton you will get the exact same offer as someone who attends AN Other state schoo? I don't mean a low performing state school, that fits the criteria for contextual offers, but just a normal state school. Or do offers vary according to other factors including personal statement, school they're studying at, etc?

Sorry if this is a stupid question - I just can't work out if all offers are the exact same (ie are there two channels, normal and contextual, and everyone will get one of two offers depeding on which channel they're in), or if there are shades of grey.

Also interested in this at other unis. Thank you

Exeter say they put applicants into tiers. So they offer to those with 3 A star first. Then 2 A star and an A etc etc. Early applicants (ie Oxbridge) tend to have all or almost all A star predictions so will get offers very quickly. Those with predicted grades at the typical level are still likely to get offers from Exeter, but maybe not so quickly.

They have to significantly over-offer to fill. They are in that position where some applicants see them very much as their 5th choice and are extremely unlikely to firm or insure. For others, it’s absolutely at the right level for them and they may firm or insure. For others it’s an aspirational choice and those candidates with an offer are likely to firm. In all categories, some students won’t achieve their predicted grades or even their offer, but we know that often Exeter has taken students who didn’t hit the offer as they haven’t filled with students who did.

I suppose lowering the offer means more will apply from the bottom end. That means more offer holders are likely to hit the lower standard offer and they are more likely to fill or get closer to being full with firm/insurance offer holders come results day and not need to fill too many places through Clearing. I suppose Clearing is the university horror as they don’t know for certain if they will fill or how low they will need to take from Clearing - probably think a slightly lower grade ‘bird in the hand’ who is a firm offer holder is better than Hopi g Clearing might deliver a stronger student, but knowing they might have to take a weaker student.

Surely it’s all about numbers in the end. They want the highest calibre students they can get, but more important is to fill and get the funding in - and if achieving that requires having slightly more with lower grades or lowering the standard offer, they are willing to do this.

I recorded the Exeter admissions talk with one of those automatic transcript apps..

”We do not know where else you apply and we do not care. Allegedly there's an institution in the north of England beginning with D that has very not apply to Cambridge. I personally think that's a myth. All of us in admissions offices run big datasets to predict the kind of conversion rates, how many people are going to accept our offers if we make them and all of the data around where else they're applying is essential. should be built into those models. So genuinely, we do not know what else to apply at the point that we're making our admissions decision. And we don't try and speculate it is not a factor whatsoever in the process. We may have some courses that are still open for applications after the UCaaS deadline. And all of that will be communicated via the UCaaS hub for you. So thinking about how we assess your application, here at Exeter, what we do is your application comes in from UCaaS. And we automatically group it with other applications that are the same or similar for that discipline. And we call those batches tiers. So we typically have eight tiers Starting with Tier One, which will be all those candidates with have achieved or are predicted three a stars to two will be all those candidates who are predicted or have achieved to a star send in a 231 a star, two A's 243 A's. Do not be alarmed though because tear tear H takes us all the way down to the kind of BBC BCC territory. And for many disciplines, we do release offers to those who are predicted across that whole range. Remember I said at the beginning that we are an accessible Russell Group choice. The offer that we actually make you will be in line with the typical offer published in the prospectus. So, whatever your predicted grades, that helps us choose who gets the offer, but the offer we actually make will be consistent with what we've published in the prospectus. There are a small number of courses sometimes, where we can only make offers to people whose predictions are higher than what we've published in the prospectus. But the offer we actually send those people will be the typical offer in the prospectus. So for example, it is possible in theory, I'm going to take a completely unlikely example here, just not to put the finger on any one course. But let's say for the sake of argument that theology and religion did have 1000s and 1000s of applications, and we were only going to select students, we were only able to release offers to students who had to a stars and an A, but the offer we would make them would still be the offer that's published in the prospectus. So you would be looking at a be level for that offer. So the prediction really affects the chances of getting the offer, but the offer you get is as published in the prospectus. a really critical part of your application for Exeter is any subject requirements.”

A good possibility and thank you, @TheCompactPussycat

Off the top of my head:

Our standard entry requirement is AAA. In addition to making contextual offers, we will allow you to drop one grade if you achieve Grade A in AS Level Core Mathematics’.
Insert any sentence about EPQs here.

Please contact our admissions team with any questions you have about our offers. We can be reached at ……

I cribbed from you.

Interesting that they want to emphasise that they are ‘an accessible RG choice’
Most universities are recruiting universities - in reality they have to work hard and make many more offers than places available, in order to fill-up.
Anyone with the predicted grades at the standard offer or above are very likely to receive an offer at these kind of universities. If they miss their offer, they are likely to be taken if missing by just one grade or sometimes more. So getting a place is highly dependent on predicted grades. And in some ways, these are more important than actual grades, because without the predicted grades you don’t get an offer in the first place.

Some universities or courses want to emphasise how competitive they are. They know that being highly connective has a great cachet for their target audience. Others need to emphasise how accessible they are. It seems Exeter is moving in the latter direction. This will be a direct response to what happened last year with results.

So at the Open Day this time last year, the 2023 results hadn’t yet come out. They had to set the standard offer and run Open Days on the basis of what they expected to happen with 2023 results. This year, they have those 2023 results. Perhaps they expect that grades again won’t be as good as expected and many will miss their offer….so for next year they need to pre-empt and make sure they have more applicants and make more offers including more of the bottom end of the scale, so they can fill up.

Great post, @WombatChocolate I agree with you.

I think it would be better to wake up and combine the top tiers so as to work through the list faster. We were being pressured to break into the COWi ranks at one point and to try tiering. It only works for the super elite. And we are pretty much a selecting School now.

@Rollingdownland basically yes. For most universities there are two offers , normal and contextual, sometimes with exciting variations re reductions for EPQs etc. But basically yes, there aren't gradations within the non-contextuals.

Cambridge are explicit that their tarrif indications are indeed indicative and they often ask some people for higher grades, sometimes as reverse contextualisation, sometimes if they are borderline so they set them a challenge, or at least so it is speculated.

As mentioned upthread Edinburgh has recently started to ask for more from some candidates (the ones I know of are from high performing U.K. independents but I don't know if that is germane). There was nothing to indicate that this could be the case on the website which I think is unfair - it's their call to do it of course, but the chance that it could happen should be flagged so that pupils can chose a sensible range of courses on their UCAS form.

Similarly, some unis make it clear that there is a contextual and normal tarrif while others show a range without clear explanation and I think that is very unhelpful. Every year one sees people wondering on MN whether child was asked for the top of the range, clearly not having understood that they were always going to be set that.

Yes, @Rollingdownland I agree with @SlenderRations . Based on the Exeter talk recorded by @DorotheaDiamond Exeter (History?) operates very my h in Recruiting mode as discussed by @WombatChocolate , but the Admissions Talk did its best to disguise this.

Much better not to do the doublespeak, IMO. The students you want can see through it

The Exeter talk wasn’t subject specific - she said that was the way they do it for everything (except medicine obviously)

My DD had a similar experience to Cx5’s DC with Edinburgh last year. She applied for Chemistry and the standard offer was either A star AA or AAA - can’t quite remember now. Her offer was A star A star A. She was at a very average state comp for GCSEs and an FE college for A levels.