Not a good idea for DD to have firm and insurance courses at same Uni?

[Perfectmummy1234]

My DD has now received 5 conditional offers on her UCAS application and ready to select her firm and insurance choices.

She has applied for 2 courses at NTU one of which is higher in grades than the other. The higher graded course is the one she is super keen on although the other is similar and she could potential end up on the same study path after year one anyway.
He second choice Bournemouth have offered her a reduced grade offer on a very good course.

I think she would still prefer to go to NTU on the less favourable course than go to Bournemouth.

Question is....does she firm and insurance on the 2 courses at NTU or is that a waste?
We are concerned if she added Bournemouth into the equation then the 2nd choice course at NTU would be disregarded or is that not possible? Would NTU see she had applied originally for 2 courses there and potentially offer her the lower requirement course?

Blimey! That sounds confusing. I hope someone understands what I'm getting at.
Any advice much appreciated.

If she firmed the favourite course at NTU, and insured Bournemouth, but missed the grades for the favourite course at NTU, NTU could in theory make her a changed course offer for the other course but it’s hard to say how likely it is without knowing the courses. And there is no guarantee.

How are her predicted grades when compared to the courses at NTU?

Bournemouth is often in clearing, so she could probably pick up a course that way.

Are the two courses related? Is it possible that they would offer it anyway if she missed the first offer?

If she prefers the second choice NTU course over the Bournemouth course just put NTU course A firm and NTU course B insurance. Why put one she doesn't want if she prefers the other two and potentially miss out?

AelinAG that's kind of what we thought might happen as the 2 courses are related but like you say I imagine there's no guarantee

LIZS that's what we aren't sure about. Is it a wasted choice??

So if you put 2 applications in for same UNI it wouldn't necessarily be considered for both if you only firm one of them ??

It is probably worth looking on Student Room for last year's thread re. those courses. There would be no harm calling on results day if ntu course 2 is preferable to B or no offer confirmed from B

This was the dilemma we had. DS was offered both the Integrated Master's and the BSc for his chosen course and uni. We asked the uni if they would offer him the BSc if he missed the grades for the Master's and they said they would (and indeed would offer him the foundation version if need be). But his other offers were all for grades higher than the uni that was his first choice, so ultimately we opted to put the Master's as first and the BSc as insurance.

The other factor in all this is DS is not the sort of person who could go through clearing. He likes definite plans, and knowing where he's going, where stuff is etc. Our backup plan if he somehow wasn't offered a place at his first choice uni was to take a year out and reapply with grades in hand.

This is a good question and the answer depends on the particular universities and degree programmes.

When I did my stint as admissions tutor at the start we could see the other UCAS choices, and when rejecting a candidate we would contact them to enquire whether they wanted to be referred to a different programme at our uni with for which they satisfied the entry requirements. I thought this was very useful.

Now DD needs to know whether the admissions tutors at NT would do this for her. Asking at The Student Room is a good idea, but an even better one is to ask them directly: just email anyone on the admissions team (admin are fine) to ask. Whoever gets the message will route it properly.

I think the answer will depend on how popular the second programme is.

If Bournemouth is frequently in Clearing, that’s good news.

This is what we're thinking for ds. He applied for the MEng and got an offer. He's also applied for the BEng with foundation year at the same uni thinking it's insurance and that way he'll know where he is going.
But would he be offered the one with foundation year if he didn't get the (extraordinarily high) offered grades anyway ?

Depends on the uni - he wouldn’t where I work because our foundation year has limited places and is in high demand. But if he missed MEng we’d consider him just for BEng if we could.

I’d echo the excellent @poetryandwine advice to check with the admissions team for the policy at that particular institution

I think she would still prefer to go to NTU on the less favourable course than go to Bournemouth.

The best answer is for her to pick her two favourite/preferred courses. There's no jeopardy in two courses at the same university.

If she misses the NTU firm, it's quite likely they'd look at offering an alternative anyway.

For example, we make higher offers for a particular Combined (Joint) Hons programme we run than the single Honours - it's the difference between AAA for Combined and ABB or AAB for the single Hons. If an applicant doesn't make AAA for the Combined, but isn't too far off, we pretty much automatically offer them the single Hons place.

Not id she's really interested in the NTU insurance offer almost as much as her NTU Firmed offer.

There's really little gaming of the system needed or involved here: counsel her to think about her real preferences.

Or alternatively, how would she feel if Bournemouth were her settled course?

Agreed @AelinAG , that's what we did. Best of luck @NCTDN .

Thanks.
@AelinAG which uni are you?

PS - a minor point is that DD should include her UCAS number and the UCAS designations of both degree programmes on all emails. Makes life much easier for her correspondent!

A bigger one is that I wasn’t clear, but @LittleBigHead was, about whether there is any risk in having one’s Firm and Insurance at the same university. Not at all.

The only risk is whether the 2nd course has a low enough offer to function as a good Insurance, ideally allowing for slip in 2 of DD’s PGs.

Thereusually isn't a difference between thr Masters and Bachelors syllabus for at least the first year, so you would be applying twice for the same thing.

thanks for your help everyone!
she has firmed and insured the 2 different courses at NTU. If she doesn't get the offer from either (if her grades are lower than predicted) then she is hoping for a place in clearing at Bournemouth.
Fingers crossed xx

Best wishes to DD, OP. Thanks for the update