Clearing and Difficulty with Accommodation (deposit?)

[pgtips2]

My DS is going to apply to university for 2025 entry. He's going to do the usual of putting down 1-2 aspirational, a couple of more likely options and a banker.

However, some of the courses he has been looking at as 'bankers', seem to have lots of choices for clearing. So, I'm thinking, would it not then be better to leave putting these on the application form as that would free up space for some more of the likely (but not guaranteed) options?

He can then - if he doesn't get near what he's on track for - apply via clearing.

But then someone said the issue with clearing is that it's difficult to get accommodation.

If so, is there anyway one can put down a deposit for accommodation even before being offered a place, or is that only possible for placeholders?

Good idea, thank you!

Another strategy that could be relevant, is to initially leave 1 space free on the UCAS form, and see what offers actually come in from the aspirational preferences before deciding what best to use the final slot for. Need to plan timing for this and note which universities are known to offer "early" or only after the main application deadline of course.

This is interesting, never heard or would have thought about this. So basically you just put 4 down, then wait (hopefully) for offers whenever they come in and see what you have to play with? Is that right?

In theory all applicants before end of January are treated equally (excluding courses with an October deadline). In practice I imagine your chance of an offer probably is affected by when you apply but not always in the same way - if a university makes a lot of early offers they might be a bit harder on those further down the pile. Or if fewer applicants/lower standard than expected they might relax a bit as time goes on,

DD applied for Economics and it is very competitive and she added universities in stages which helped. First just Oxford and LSE then added Bristol. In Jan when knew Oxford offer added Bath then Bristol and Bath offered. LSE can take forever to respond. She just did the 4 Economics ones as she had offers she wanted. She was 3 A stars predicted.

Yes there's an accomodation issue for insurance at some places and clearing and also worth checking where responds late, seemed to be competitive London ones and Scottish ones. Worth checking how many with those grades get offers. DD has Bath as insurance as they give accomodation and slightly lower offer there but it's as she's contextual there. Competitive London ones think it can be very tricky re accomodation potentially impossible as insurance. Need to check case by case. The Student Room website forum could be useful though some is fake on there. Sometimes a joint course with Economics can get grades down 1 or so.

You might find this thread useful as they had similar grades for Economics

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/further_education/4901030-just-how-competitive-is-it-to-get-offers-for-an-economics-degree

Newbie to all this and not sure how the adding courses as you go along works?

Sorry, can you explain as if you're talking to a very young person! Similar the idea of leaving one of the 5 spaces 'blank' until you have some offers.

Not sure I understand at all.

@pgtips2 , you don't have to apply for all 5 uni's at the same time (although your school may encourage you to do this). Your dc could apply to Bristol but not Bath and if he gets rejected by Bristol before the cut off date in Jan 2025 he could add Reading (rather than taking a risk on Bath) as his 5th choice.
I would echo everyone else that economics is very competitive and maths based, he should ideally be studying 4 A levels including further maths and predicted 4 x Astar to realistically consider Durham and Warwick for straight economics.

It's worth spending some time on uni websites on Thursday morning to see what type of finance courses go into clearing, ie the accounting based ones.

Yeh agree with @tennissquare - if he is only doing three A levels is he taking FM? He might be of course, as it's increasingly offered as a third rather than a fourth. (My DC's sixth form now gives it a full A level timetable of lessons.)

If he is not taking FM, then he might be wary of the very top econ courses tbh - check out what proportion of students doing econ at Warwick have FM as well as maths. The info is available.

Yes, DC ruling out Warwick and definitely not going for Oxbridge. Would probably like Bath, Bristol, Exeter!

Doing EPQ rather than FM (did get a 9 in GCSE maths and all 8s/9s but only the true boffins got to do FM at their highly selective school).