Some advice re current UCAS process and withdrawing

[Betteroutdoors]

I could do with some basic advice for my step daughter. She has a firm and insurance conditional offers in place but has decided she would like to do a gap year and is also no longer keen to do the course she has offers for.

She is absolutely dead set on a gap year (which is fine) and is convinced she won't get the grades for her conditional places anyway. That said, even if she did she is clear that she wouldn't want to do the course.

Talking to her last night I suggested it might be better to withdraw at this stage, have a gap year and reapply with grades in hand once she knows what she wants to do. Is that the sensible course of action or does it need to be quick footwork on results day itself?

It also seems likely that she hasn't completed her student finance forms in any case, which if I'm correct would mean she wouldn't have a way of funding her fees if she did want to start in September.

As you can probably gather for various reasons we are pretty distant from the process and I am wary of making assumptions based on how things were in my day.

Any insights would be great so that I can gently feed them into the process.

Talking to her last night I suggested it might be better to withdraw at this stage, have a gap year and reapply with grades in hand once she knows what she wants to do. Is that the sensible course of action or does it need to be quick footwork on results day itself?

Yes, that's excellent advice.

If she's already changed her mind, and is unsure about her back up place, then she should NOT be advised to wait until Clearing and be pushed into fast footwork.

It sounds as though a gap year will be a really good maturing thing for her to do and she may change her mind completely about the sort of course she wants to do, as a result of her gap year work/activities.

Or not go to university at all, but gain skills, knowledge and experience through the workplace. That's not a disaster either.

Another vote for withdraw and reapply with grades in hand - it’s so much better anyway and allows them to make the most realistic choices

Wrt applying for finance, it's only too late if she tries to wait until more than about 9 months into the academic year; if she applied now, although sfe (sorry, am assuming that you are in England) won't guarantee finance to be in place by the start of the academic year, it probably would be and the university is unlikely to badger her for fees from the off if she has actually applied. She would just have to support herself re housing etc until the maintenance loan was paid.

If she has definitely changed her mind about both the year of entry and the course(s) for which she currently holds offers, then absolutely she should withdraw her entire application (through UCAS) for 2024 entry and start again for 2025 entry, if she still wants to go to university, with grades in hand. However, if she is ambivalent, then she can wait until results day and (iirc re the process) release herself into Clearing as soon as one of her conditional offers becomes Unconditional Firm.

Either wait until results day and withdraw or look at Clearing if she still fancies going this year. She can reapply in the autumn with grades and plan her year out. Don't worry about SF just yet.

Excellent advice. Withdraw now, apply in the autumn with grades for the course she wants to do and put into your diaries that student finance needs to be completed in May

Fab, thank you so much everyone, I really needed to test my thinking. I didn't want to fall into the trap of assuming that everything is the same as it was back when I went through this. I think we need to support her to take some pressure off and create some space so that she can actually think about what will suit her best rather than drifting into something and thinking she can't change it.

I have to admit I wouldn't want to be back at this stage again, it seems so much tougher than when we were 18

Any idea what dd would need to do if she does not want to accept the full time courses she currently has offers for, but she is hoping to start a degree apprenticeship with study at a different university?
(Conditional offer - awaiting results)

Guessing she can't just delete whole UCAS application if the other Uni may also be using it?
Wait for clearing?

Thanks

She needs to contact her firmed, accepted place and ask to be released into Clearing. It’s a fairly straightforward process - she may be able to do it through UCAS.