Offers for 2025

[ontheturn]

I noticed that in 2024 there was an offers thread where people shared when their children. had submitted to ucas and what offers they had received. Anyone interested? We have offers for Manchester, Bristol and Leeds all within ten days of submitting ucas but still waiting on Edinburgh. We do know others who submitted at the same time who have had Edinburgh offers already.

My neice has applied as an international student and got her offer from St Andrews. They replied within a week of applying. Didn't surprise me as any uni would be mad not to offer an international student at this point given the fees they bring.

Looks like their offer older day is 5 April so hopefully they plan to sort at least the offers (if not the rejections) by then.

*holder

The reality is that lots of popular places offer late. They make a tranche of offers and then are waiting to see patterns of people firming, insuring and rejecting them, before they know if they can make further offers.

DC might not want to wait, but it’s that or firm somewhere Elise and essentially withdraw their application from where they are waiting for. People doing this, also allows unis to get a clearer picture and make decisions about further offers.

Few places, especially top ones offer genuinely first-come first-served accommodation now. You might be able to express preferences, but many won’t confirm accommodation details until after results.

And there is usually no particular benefit of firming early rather than waiting ….and especially if you haven’t heard from everywhere.

The longer you wait, is usually an indication of how competitive the course is. Unis are balancing their figures based on previous stats about how many candidates will firm offers, meet their offers, etc etc. It’s very complex and info available to them evolves as time progresses through the current cycle. That’s why it takes so long. It’s not just administrative inefficiency but the business need to make offers so that their course is as full as possible (but not over full) come results day and that they can be sure they either won’t have to go to Clearing or need Clearing for v few places. Remmeber, they can make you an offer, but they don’t know where else you’ve applied and if you will firm or insure or turn down.

The date for equal consideration has just passed. The unis have until the end of May to offer. As @WombatChocolate says the very popular ones, in particular, are doing a complex job of allocation. Its hard waiting but it’s a blink in the eye in the scheme of things

@WombatChocolate she had offers from Durham & Edinburgh before Xmas though - arguably just as popular. I know they all do it differently though - it's just a long time to wait (especially if you're an Oxbridge early applicant, April will be a 6 month wait!)

Yes, it is a long time….but entirely normal. Remember some applicants only applied 10 days ago and until then they can’t see their full field.

it feels less ie ages ago hence you applied back in Sept. One of my DC did that and especially after a couple of quick offers, the last ones felt like extremely slow. But all the talk of pulling out before hearing and firming somewhere else is going to b cutting your nose off to spite your face, if it’s that place that they really love, or even might choose.

They just have to wait and know it’s frustrating but very normal. And not take it personally if r develop the attitude that X place really wants them as they offered early and Y place doesn’t due to slowness. Or worse still that they will reward the he early offer place by firming and ‘punish’ the slow place by turning them down ahead of a decision. Those places won’t care…..and in fact someone pulling out might just make it easier for them to offer to someone else.

Its a numbers game and not personal.

To add to @WombatChocolate, people do seem to take it very personally, the OP on the Oxbridge rejects thread was saying her dc didn't like one offer because it came too quickly and made the uni seem "needy." The universities are not punishing or rewarding individual students by being too slow/too fast - they have a protocol to deal with - often - tens of thousands of applicants

Dd isn't taking it remotely personally- more that she's just bored of waiting and wants to feel like she's 'getting on with it' when her other offers came in a while ago!

I would have imagined the universities don't wait until 29 Jan to look at the applications though. That would be a bit crazy. Wouldn't you still look at them as they came in and put them in an order and then slot new ones into the order as they came in. Then shortly after 29th, you'd offer to the top X number.

And also organise your offer holder days for after you've given out offers.

My eldest DS was an early applicant but didn't get his offer from Durham until late April two years ago. It was an agonising wait.

My youngest only applied on Jan deadline day this year and already has 4 offers for Sport Science: Newcastle, Surrey, Leeds, and Exeter. He is still waiting for Loughborough, which is his top choice by far. He isn't an elite athlete, just a good sportsman, so perhaps they are working through their performance/elite athletes first.

Anyone else who isn't elite got a Sports course offer from Loughborough?

We've got Loughborough but we are after Politics. Hope yours comes through.

My daughters best friend has a loughborough sports science offer. She plays county/regional level cricket but certainly not elite. Hers took a lot longer to come through than my daughters though (who is an elite athlete) so maybe they do pull out the sports people first.

Thank you, both! We will just keep our fingers crossed.

Just wondering about the next steps for those who have their offers in. I think my DD has decided which to accept, but not done anything on UCAS yet.

I have seen a couple of people on WIWIKAU are starting to choose their accommodation, which seems very early since not all offers are out yet. Are they just preempting this or can they actually select now? Do all unis open accommodation for selection immediately after you firm them or would DC receive an email from uni to say 'accommodation is open' (whether you have firmed or not)? I haven't seen any of her emails.

Basically is filling in her UCAS form now important in terms of accommodation or anything else? She isn't fussy, it's more about the price for us.

Then is applying for student finance the only other thing to do?

Just thinking, it would be great if schools gave a talk to parents on the steps involved. Even for those of us who went to uni ourselves, that was 25 years ago for me and the system seems quite different.

I think Durham are offering earlier this year. My daughter got a surprisingly good offer from them. But probably won't start rejecting others until after the offer day.
She still has Bath to come, but is becoming quietly enthusiastic about Durham (just colleges to choose now).

Every university has a different way of allocating accommodation - most won’t start doing it until after the deadline for acceptances has passed, in the case of my DC1 at Edinburgh no allocations were made before results day when places were confirmed. There was no advantage to applying early.

So you need to look at the individual universities or DC is waiting for and check their policies. The most sort of universities tend not to offer incentives of guaranteeing accommodation if you firm early - having said that, I do remember some fuss about UCL last year opening the applications before all the office have been made, but that’s just my memory and I don’t know if it made any difference in the end.

Because every university is different I’m not sure schools could be particularly helpful on this issue, also schools and the universities are encouraging the DC to take charge of the application process themselves and make themselves aware of all these issues. They want the parents to stay out of it as much as possible because this is the beginning of their journey into adulthood. I remember I kept asking DC1 if everything was okay with accommodation and repeatedly being told it was all in hand – and so it was! WIWIKAU is full of people fretting unnecessarily and that stresses everyone else.

That's true about WIWIKAU! OK, I will let her get on with it. I guess my feeling about accommodation though is if we are paying for it, I don't want her to end up with an expensive option just because she left it to decide. Yes, she is an adult, but one reliant on parents' funding to some extent (as are all kids whose parents earn more than 25k).

DS has a Durham offer, @Perzival (as you were also waiting). Two A stars, one A for MPhys.

I totally get that, you don’t want your DC signing up for a studio flat with an ensuite without your specific consent – I’d say it’s worth checking out the unis in contention online and seeing what their policies are because it is extremely likely that there’s nothing you can do at this stage!

I think that some unis make much greater use of private rented halls rather than uni owned halls. These are typically newer unis. These private halls can start offering accommodation whenever they like and may allocate specific rooms and take deposits etc.
When people are fretting and signing up now, it’s usually these private halls. Other students reading get confused and think the situation may be the same where they are applying too. But the key is to understand what uni owned accommodation there is at each uni and their own policy about timelines for applying and allocating. Students in most cases shouldn’t need to firm and insure sooner than they are comfortable with to get accommodation.

As parents, I think it’s helpful to mak sure our kids know not to firm and insure until they’ve had a conversation with us about choices. Parents probably need to do some reading on websites too. Likewise they need to not sign up for accommodation and especially not sign contracts without discussing first.

Every year there are threads about accommodation not working out. Often parents say they left it to their kids as they thought they should be independent. Kids miss emails and deadlines to get uni accommodation or sign paperwork which commits them to year long contracts that aren’t suitable or a good option. Personally, I think it’s an area to be keeping an eye on and helping DC to keep on top of and giving a steer about it….as the consequences of it can be significant.

It is early to firm and insure now. People still waiting for offers need to know there’s still months of the cycle remaining and not to be rushed into decisions.

I think Warwick will give offers on TMUA results day, so patiently waiting. Ds had an early offer from Durham for maths, and has not even looked at colleges. All I know is he wants self catered and not to have to share. I'm going to try and press him to do it this weekend, but he'll probably just roll his eyes and ignore me

I certainly don't want ds firming any places until after the offer holder days.

Liverpool uni accommodation portal is open - my dc has it as their insurance and since it’s first come, first served he thought he should register his 3 preferences - although they don’t guarantee you’ll get any of them

Congratulations, well done to your son xx and thank you for letting me know. I think we're still waiting, when did he get his offer please?