Warwick Offers Question

[ChangeforOneQuery]

So I'm name changing for this. My DD has been offered a place at Warwick for History. Their standard offer is AAA according to the website, and they've offered Astar, Astar, A.

I'm not sure if she should be offended by this (or I be offended on her behalf).

She has applied to Oxbridge, so the UCAS form went in relatively early.

Do we assume they don't really want her, or that the applicant pool to Warwick for History is cranking out A stars like no tomorrow?

That is bizarre - I have not heard of them doing that. Have heard of Edinburgh adding a star for english and history but no one adding two. I think it would be worth (politely) asking them about it, expressing surprise.

Especially as the contextual offer is ABB - a four grade differential seems huge.

We might do that, thank you for the suggestion.

Blimey, that 's odd.

That's way higher than Oxford! Thsi is mad by Warwick because this means if your DD gets an offer from Oxbridge , she will never choose Warwick as insurance.

It's good for history but not that special!

This could be because they've seen the Oxbridge entry and want to seem similarly high worth. I remember something similar with a few universities when I applied many years ago. And they were kind of right in their tactics - I immediately discounted Bristol because they offered me something like BBC (lower than the usual AAB at that time) and I thought it looked desperate (I was a silly snob at that age).

They can't see the other applications.

They can't see the entry, but may assume she's applied to Oxbridge because of the timing of her UCAS application going in.

That's really odd, OP.

Higher than any other uni that I'm aware of for history.

Ah interesting. I think they could when I applied or perhaps they assumed based on the timings as you say. If I recall, Edinburgh and Warwick were similar offers to Oxford. The others went much lower - Durham, Bristol, Manchester.

Yes, years ago they could and we also rank ordered, UCAS then stopped this to stop games of Silly Buggers. I still cannot fathom why Warwick would want to put people off!

Definitely contact them and ask. I'm surprised because I've only known then change from typical offer to PG offer for MORSE and Maths. History isn't the same ball park as far as competitiveness goes.
They do have the right to offer whatever thry choose though, so might stand by it. Please let us know what they say!

True, but anyone applying in October is highly likely applying to Oxford or Cambridge. However I don't see why that would result in a higher than typical offer.

We need time to find the right words, aka not sound arsy.

I think it is really unfair on applicants to do this. Cambridge is clear that its AstarAA is a minimum and they might ask for more. Fair enough. Durham and E’burgh say they want Astar AA. Fine. Standard offer is generally understood to in effect be the maximum asked - the non-standard option being contextual. If they want to sometimes ask more, they should flag that this could happen and explain why. Otherwise applicants who are sensibly constructing a range of tarrifs across their five choices can be totally wrong-footed. If AAA is the academic standard required, that should be sufficient. And a 4 grade swing to contextual is far too big.

Yes, only Cambridge asks that, and only for a few applicants. ,

Thanks everyone for your replies. I'm glad I'm not the only astonished parent. We will think about asking for clarification or we may just let it go and focus on the other 4 potential options.

Thanks again.

maybe they don't want to be anyone's insurance place. If they can fill up with people who put them as their firm it's easier to plan for I guess

and they can see from your timing that they are probably not your DD's first choice

Yes, it amazes me that good courses where they'll be some applicants insurance, but others aspirational/realistic firm that they can get the number of offers about right.

However in this case the exceptionally high offer might put the OPs DD off firming them if she doesn't get an oxbridge offer.

Yes ,as a strategy it makes no sense!

As we can see from OP saying they will concentrate on other 4 choices!

A stars in history are not 10 a penny. Is the history specified? My DS got 2 A stars and an A and is a historian . The A was in history. Would he have been disbarred by the almighty Warwick too?

It's worth checking because you can see on the UCAS website that the most common grade combination for history at Warwick last year was AAA.
My dd is at Warwick studying in a different faculty and history isn't a highly competitive course like economics, maths, law etc

It’s an interesting and rigorous course at a sought after university. It’s also a subject that requires the ability to read and digest large volumes of text properly and that’s a skill that isn’t pressed so much at secondary level so they are likely to want to weed out those incapable of doing that with ease.

Is she doing other essay subjects in combination with History? Does her school have a track record of Warwick as an insurance to Oxbridge?

It does sound like you want Oxbridge though, so it doesn’t really matter, choose somewhere else as your insurance.

Is she retaking any subjects?
Is there anything about her application that might have put the admissions tutor off?

Back in the day (30 years ago) I received a higher than typical offer from a university (Durham if it matters). Received wisdom at the time was that they thought I was likely to take up an Oxbridge place if one was offered and they didn't want to be a second choice to Oxbridge.

Of course, it's highly possible that if your DD does accept the offer and gets lower than the offered grades, that they might well still take her.

I think you may as well query it: if it's correct then no harm done and if it's incorrect then you will find out. It's not like they can increase the offer or withdraw it just because you've pissed them off by asking!

Maybe their thinking is that if your DD doesn’t get an offer from oxbridge, she will then be more likely to take Warwick as her firm rather than insurance (as the offer is likely to be higher than any others, eg Durham) - and the chances are they’d take her even if she missed the A*s.

You’d think this would be a risky strategy though, as it’s equally likely that the candidate will just think bugger that for a game of soldiers, and junk it straight away!