Do unconditional offers come from not so good unis ?

[JennyTals]

Or can you get them from RG units etc ?

I got one from a RG uni. Didn’t take it as I wanted to go to the Republic of Ireland but yes you can get them.

My daughter has an offer so low it may as well be unconditional. Think 9 grades below predicted and 4 grades below what standard offer is for course.

That's Brighton.

Why is that then ? why are they offering that ?

Why did they offer you that then ? I don’t get it

is it because you did 4/5 a levels or something

it’s all so confusing

They didn’t know of my intention to go to the Republic of Ireland - it’s two different systems - one is UCAS and one is CAO so I applied to both so to the best of their knowledge I could’ve taken the unconditional. I was predicted 4As in my a levels, and got 5 As (there were no As) at AS level so they worked off of that

If they really want someone then they make an offer that almost guarantees you will choose them.

Back in the day someone in my VI Form got an offer of EE from Oxford.

@JennyTals

Yes I understand it to be because they want her - however as her requirements for her top choice uni are still 5 grades below predicted she may out it on the form but has nominate room of going there - it was literally only put down so she had an insurance.

It depends. If it's a popular course they may really want the applicant so are trying to guarantee they'll take up the offer. Courses can ask exceptional applicants for ridiculously low grades especially if it's a course that interviews and they've been able to assess you in person. It may be that the course is struggling to recruit or it may be a low offer to a mature applicant who brings more than just academic qualifications.

Back in the day I got EEE from UCL for biochemistry. I wanted to reject it.

The EE offer from Oxford mentioned above was presumably because the candidate had taken the Oxford entrance exam and done well enough that Oxford didn't care about their A levels.

These days (not always in the past), an unconditional offer tends to come from a lower ranked university.

you would think they would be desperate for students

@JennyTals The best description of unconditional offers can be read on The Complete University web site. You will see the government strongly discouraged these from 2020. Historically they were used as marketing tools by the “bums on seats” unis that were lower tariff. It was well known Nottingham Trent, Lincoln and Brighton plus quite a lot of others used these offers. If was widely believed students stopped working though and A level results dipped. No issue for the student of course but schools didn’t like them.

There are also offers given to students who already have the grades and there’s no “condition” attached to these.

These are not sprinkled around as they once were. That’s a good thing. It was used mostly for marketing to 18 year olds and was designed to make students feel special. The reality was they weren’t very special but their money was needed. The better unis didn’t use them as much but Birmingham and a few others did. If dc get one now, I would still be wary. Ask why? Do the uni need the money? Could dc go somewhere better? Would a top uni offer unconditional to dc? Is dc being flattered? Where is the best uni for the course and prospects afterwards?

Higher education is a pretty shaky landscape for some low tariff universities and actually quite a few middling universities now because the government has restricted overseas postgrad students in bringing over dependents in order to address the huge hot political topic of migration. This has meant that many universities are really missing those higher-paying overseas students when they are already running at a deficit and can be pretty desperate to get bums on seats.

When students bring dependents..do they mean children bringing parents or parents bringing children? I have never understood this

It will be students bringing kids. So if you are wanting to study as a mature student in your own country, it will be very normal to go to you local uni or college or study an online course, maybe part-time, while living in a "normal" household (i.e. not uni accommodation and with your family) and holding down a job and/or caring for kids as well. Obviously if you are going to study abroad, you won't be able to commute to uni from your home, so you might bring your family over to the country where you want to study.

My Dc got an unconditional from Newcastle- a few years back. For physics.
Didn't end putting it as either a firm or insurance choice, but it was nice to have it.

ages ago a friend of mine had an offer of EE from Cambridge

As @LimeYellow said, those EE Oxbridge offers were to do with the much more difficult entrance exams and are long gone.

Nowadays any offers, excepting contextual offers, below the standard offer are marketing tools. We don’t use them.

I got 2 when I applied with grades in hand (slightly below tariff due to illness pre-exams). That was some years ago, though.

dd had unconditional immediate reaction from Salford, which personally put me off, perhaps i was wrong

It's most likely to get an unconditional offer if you already hold what they're asking for. If you got that qualifications and deferred, for example. If you're still waiting to see what the outcome is, and currently have nothing to offer but potential, most will still set a minimum standard.

Unconditional offers used to be (maybe still are?) common for Scottish students applying with Higher grades in hand. DC got them, usually with a letter saying to keeping working hard for the Advanced Highers yet to be taken.

The university needs to fill every course - they need your money. Unconditional offers are either because a candidate is exceptional (often if there is another element than grades like a portfolio or an audition) and they really want them, or because the course is undersubscribed. The only ones I know of from top universities is because a candidate has done exceptionally well in an entrance exam (Oxford) or an audition (RSM) and in both cases the student then took their foot off the pedal and did less well at Alevels than expected.

Like Oxbridge offers many moons ago, some specialist courses (eg music at conservatoires) do give EE offers because the ‘real selection’ - by exam, interview, audition - happens in advance of the offer being made, with A levels relatively irrelevant.

Common in Scotland if the required Higher grades are achieved in 5th year from all unis