Do unconditional offers come from not so good unis ?

[JennyTals]

Or can you get them from RG units etc ?

The specific course she wants is humanities doesn't have particularly high grade requirements. It's basically Edinburgh at Astar AA and then drops to Exeter / Durham at AAB and York at ABB.

She preferred York to E / D. We have not seen Edinburgh yet.

So basically she was adamant she needed somewhere lower to put as insurance if she went for the York offer. So she literally just stuck down another one in a city she knows.

It's essentially to fill out the form as it would have to be a complete disaster in the exams not to get the grades for York. If for some reason there was a disaster she would take a year out.

@Fluffycloudsfloatinginthesky So Brighton was a pointless choice then? What course is only offered in 4 unis? York looks like the instance as it’s 1 grade lower than Edinburgh all round. Brighton is an ex poly so not comparable with the others. Not remotely.

Sociology but BA not BSC, so places like Bath, Bristol and Loughborough were off the list. If she likes Edinburgh then York will be insurance but as it stands at the moment York is top choice. Obviously Edinburgh is 4 years and a long way from home (we are south of London) so she may write it off in that basis.

She was adamant she needed somewhere with lower grades to be an insurance on her form.

There are other places that offer it but they were also ABB so no use as insurance. The Brighton published required grades were BBB so seemed a sensible choice for insurance.

That's what I meant.

Unconditional (if firmed) offers were common at some RG universities ten years or so ago. My daughter had them from Birmingham and Nottingham and she was certainly not alone.

She kept Birmingham as her insurance offer (so it was no longer unconditional) and every now and again they wrote to her and repeated the unconditional offer if she firmed it. The final time was the day before A level results came out.

The Birmingham course looked really good and I'm sure my daughter would have been happy there if she hadn't got the grades for her first choice, but their tactics put me off because they smacked of desperation.

More recently unconditional offers have been discouraged, which I think is right, especially when it comes to lower tariff universities.

DD currently has an unconditional offer from Nottingham Trent - it wasn’t her first choice, but she did like the course and she already knows the city as we live pretty close. I’d quite like her to take it up TBH but I’m leaving her to make the decision.

Birmingham was known for unconditional offers. The unis were told to stop offering them and linking them to accommodation. It was a bribe and mostly still is. They work out who should get much higher grades and possibly won’t actually choose them but they want to lure them in. They don’t care whether this is in the best interests of the student or not, let alone that they signal to some they no longer need to work as hard. Research found this.

Undoubtedly NT will be doing exactly the same. The main thing for any student to do is evaluate if the uni meets all needs or is it the convenient choice? For some courses it makes little difference and also for some careers but for others it does.

What do you mean by 'globally well regarded'? Outside Oxbridge and some London institutions, I'm not sure there is any such thing

on a course by course basis maybe quite a few. For the subject Dd studies Manchester is 5 in the QS rankings.

The dependents thing was being used as a backdoor immigration route though. Obviously people weren’t applying to Oxbridge or RG universities just to immigrate with their families, but there were institutions exploiting this. ‘Dependents’ means spouses, children and possibly parents too.

@JennyTals the Office for Students announced a new code of practice for unconditional offers in 2022, so anyone's experiences before that are less relevant.

These days you're only likely to get an unconditional offer from a decent uni if you have an interview, audition, portfolio or you're applying with A levels in hand.

www.theguardian.com/education/2022/mar/07/universities-advised-against-conditional-unconditional-admission-offers

Many are in the shit and I include some RG Universities. I retired a few years ago, DH was head of a dept until 2 months ago. So whether Unconditional or conditional they are so short of money it’s an issue.

The last RG University I worked in was taking people this year with grades that a decade ago would have been an absolute no.

This. I'm employed at two universities, one RG one non RG but pretty good still. The non RG one is really feeling the pinch and redundancies are on the horizon. They are looking at closing a STEM department. I would be wary of really generous 'bums on seats' offers since it may be that such undersubscribed courses may close.

DS got an unconditional from Birmingham. Pretty sure that's considered a reasonable university.

What sort of course was it (e.g. STEM, humanities, arts, vocational?), and did he have an interview, audition, submit a portfolio or apply with A levels in hand?

Birmingham was top of RG league for unconditionals. Usually courses they could not fill. They were meant to stop this. LSE, Imperial and a few others never needed to do this. As students are in short supply now, marketing and bribes will probably reappear.

I got an unconditional from Durham, long before contextual offers. I did do AS levels so they had a good idea of what my grades would be and I scored 100% in all of the exam papers for one of my subjects.

How long ago was this?

I remember the topic of unconditional offers, especially unconditional if firmed, was frowned on when DD went to university 5 years ago.

Both Birmingham and Nottingham had their wrists slapped. Nottingham stopped offering them and Birmingham started giving low offers for students they really wanted.

Not sure I agree with this. It was nice for DS to have a relatively unpressured S6 year after working really hard in S4 and S5. He had enough common sense to know his advanced highers were still important, and did really well. It just took the stress out of it.

It's different in England and Wales @menohnopausal
GCSE grades aren't a good enough tool for universities to use for offers. The jump from GCSEs to A levels is significant, so offers are based on predicted grades for A levels. Research has shown that students with unconditional offers often do tend to take their foot off the pedal.

GCSE grades aren't a good enough tool for universities to use for offers. The jump from GCSEs to A levels is significant, so offers are based on predicted grades for A levels.

The Scottish system (offers based off Highers) would be closer to basing offers on AS levels. The GCSE equivalent are Nat 5s.

Yes, I thought the highers were more rigorous than GCSEs.

I wonder if universities regret English schools dropping AS levels?

DS got an offer of lower grades (not unconditional) if he put a RG uni as his first choice but higher grades if he didn’t. He put it as his reserve offer and we were fairly confident had he missed a grade they would have taken him at the lower offer anyway as the course had previously been in clearing. He didn’t need it in end as got into first choice but I felt it was an unfair bribe and if he’d been more borderline it could have swayed him. I don’t agree with bribes as ultimately you want them to go to a uni they really want and where they will be happy, not one they feel pressured into.

I don’t agree with bribes as ultimately you want them to go to a uni they really want and where they will be happy, not one they feel pressured into.

I agree.

‘Grades in hand’ is not unconditional though. The universities already know his grades. I’m guessing they are not CCC for an AAA course? Or worse if they were indeed unconditional.

Exeter do this. Lower the grade if you make it first choice. I’m sure it’s not alone.

My DD had an unconditional offer from Birmingham (2019 to 2022) for English Lit. Was her first choice and an absolute lifeline at the time. She loved it there and was the best possible outcome for her.

Dd2 had an unconditional from Newcastle (RG) back in 2016 (yikes!). It wouldn't have swayed her if it hadn't been her favourite already, and it definitely took some external pressure off. Don't know if they're still doing them.