Ucas strategy - only 2 to start

[stubiff]

Has anyone done this kind of thing - only put down 2 choices to start.

Am making up this example.

Predictions - AAA.
1st choice (at the time of submission) - std offer AAA.
Lower tariff 1st choice - ABB. (Wanting to have 1+ insurance choices at a lower tariff to predictions).

So, just submit the above two to start.
If (big) get offers/rejections before the deadline, then can tailor the other 3 choices accordingly, e.g. adding a couple of AStarAAs if get offers from both.

TIA.

Both of my DC did this. It works well

Unless 1st choice is Oxbridge it would be a gamble as to whether offers will come by January deadline.

But in that case you would simply submit the others before the deadline.

You need to have done the wait list work just in case the deadline arrives. And do some research on the liklihood of timely offers from the two.selected as there are some universities that are notoriously late in making offers.

It works if you go very early, and aren't paying to King's, UCL, Edinburgh, or a fewmothers that are notoriously slow. Somewhere like Bristol or York works well as they prioritise quick offers.

When DC1 did it we were then waiting for St Andrews for months.
With DC2 we are just waiting on Reading. Everyone else came back very quickly.

This works assuming you get these 2 offers through before the equal consideration deadline (which will be 2 weeks earlier next year btw). Some unis don't make many offers prior to then. As long as you are prepared to adapt your strategy to ensure equal consideration date is met for the other 3 then it is one way to go. Another is to apply for 4 and hold one space back to see whether you can slap in a truly aspirational or very safe option just before equal consideration date.

Thanks for the (very quick) replies.

Yes, all possible options, would be known, and decided upon, well before deadline day.
Yes, suppose it works better if the two being applied to first are known to offer early, or at least not offer-to-all after deadline day.

sorry, could someone help me understand why you would do this

I might be missing something but I don't see any benefit in this unless (i) you haven't done your research or (ii) your young adult could be anywhere in the grade spectrum for some reason (iii) you are only looking at super selective courses / unis (and even then it doesn't seem to help imo).

You can have 5 choices why not use them? In principle, I encouraged my lot to have 2 target unis, 1 'stretch' and one 'safety net', plus a 'wild card' of some sort. So long as every selection is a choice they can live with its all good. Get everything in for the October Oxbridge deadline and see what happens.

There is plenty of data out there about offer grades, real grades achieved, under subscribed courses etc so you are unlikely to see any surprises. If there are interviews involved then going later seems like a really risky strategy

I suppose the thinking is if the candidate gets an offer from the AAA uni, there’s no harm adding more aspirational unis to the application as it doesn’t matter if they don’t get an offer from them. On the other hand, if the candidate is rejected by the AAA uni, they could then instead add a couple of other less aspirational unis to the application.

Strategy seems fine, just don't do it with UCL or LSE...

ah, okay, sort of looking for incremental gains?

With my young adults we started looking at unis from GCSEs so by the time UCAS came around everything was pretty much sorted and the main unknown was their grade capabilities on results day

We did go to a few aspirational unis (Cambridge and St Andrews) but that wasn't where they wanted to be. Horses for course I guess

@BobtheFrog
As BiancaBlank says, it (assuming offers are initially forthcoming) gives more scope to tailor the remaining three at the Unis/tariffs where there are gaps.
Could be more aspirational, more safe or more insurance.

If you do all 5 in one go, you're pre-determining that you need 1/2/2 or 0/3/2 or 0/5/0, depending on what you decide at the point of submission.

With mine it was really that they'd made up their minds which would be first choice prior to submitting. So if they received that offer they didn't need to bother making another application to a similar level university.

So DC2 liked University 1 2 and 3. Preference was University 1

So applied to:

University 1 - asked AAB - received offer for AAB reduced to ABB if put as first choice.

Didn't therefore need to apply to University 2 or 3 since they were definitely second best behind University 1 but would also be asking for AAB. They would therefore not be good choices for insurance places.

Left 4 choices - applied for an insurance choice which offered the next day at CCC (published requirement BBB). Then felt secure that they could go a bit higher in the rankings and have another option for insurance choice at a BBB choice.

Then put in two aspirationals at A*AA

Had they done it all at once they'd have put down Universities 2 and 3 and wasted two spaces

Hi, OP -

Thank you for confirming @BiancaBlank ‘s rationale for this strategy.

It seems to me that you are assuming that the acceptance or rejection will be calibrated according to published standards. That isn’t true. If it were, the strategy would be sensible.

As it is, units of admission will apply varying amounts of flex depending on how well their entry requirements align with targets and application volumes. This can quite a lot from one year to the next. In particular, when entry standards are being raised it is often necessary to be a bit more elastic than usual. (And occasionally they are lowered. That is a real mess!)

@BobtheFrog ’s strategy is the one I prefer.

Yes, I advise some of our students to do this. Some universities have been much faster replying this year than in previous years. Good advice would be early application around Early Entry deadline to allow ample time. Be aware that the Jan deadline moves slightly earlier for 2026 entry. Also good to know is that if you are rejected within 14 days of submission you can replace that choice with another course.

@poetryandwine
Yes, appreciate that it’s not as simple as if you’re predicted AAA and it’s the same as the std offer/reqs then you’d get an offer. Also aware that some Unis start with the highest grades first and work downwards.
Still don’t see much wrong with it for the scenario I’ve talked about.
In Bob’s scenario the wildcard is one of the three types, stretch, safe or insurance, so even apply for 4 and save that last choice when you have a better idea of which type the wildcard is.

If you get rejected by the potential insurance then you know you need (in my scenario) to add another one in.
Depending on the grades, course and competition, you may not want to start with a stretch one, but you could add one later if you get offers from safes.

I think the biggest thing is picking 5, eventually, that you’d want to go to. So many stories of missing grades of firm on results day and then not wanting to go to the insurance.

I’ve never seen the point of applying anywhere you don’t want
to go, much less Insuring it, unless you are prepared to turn it down and risk a gap year if Clearing doesn’t work out. IMO part of why applicants are often unhappy with their Insurance is the residual disappointment of missing their Firm choice through their own actions. For many, it’s the first time they’ve come up short and it is difficult to cope with.

I had not thought before this thread about retaining a wild card choice until you see which way the wind is blowing. This makes a good deal of sense, for the reasons you mention, @stubiff . I think that strategy has much to recommend it.

Retaining three seems like a gamble. I am glad that it worked for some PPs here but it is giving the two degree programmes you applied to huge influence over your life. Tiered offers seem to be a growing trend, so except for the strongest applicants there are likely to be more delayed responses. Waiting for those responses, wondering if, when and where you will be making more applications, seems to me potentially to take an awful lot of energy and add unnecessary stress, during the most difficult and important academic year (to date) of DC’s life.

If you have very good reason to believe that your first two applications will be decided quickly - some Schools advertise this - it helps a lot. But you still won’t experience the relief of being done with your application and able to mentally cross it off. I recognise that this will affect some more than others.

I don’t think it adds stress. Completely the opposite. Neither of mine had five to put down initially but were sure about a couple so they got those in and then had time to think about the others

Ds had his grades in hand. He applied to one at his exact grades (supposedly the banker), one at a grade above and two that were two grades above. He left the last one empty in case he didn't get his banker and needed another lower grade option - or in case he got both his higher grade options and decided to try for another high grade course. He applied at Christmas and heard back from all 4 within three weeks. He's got three offers he's happy with, but he put a speculative 5th in with a higher grade offer, just in case.

I think starting with 2 or 3 is a good idea, if they offer quickly.

So your DS used the wild card strategy.

If you start with 2 or 3, do you restrict to those known to make timely offers?

@poetryandwine
Think Crofter DC's situation would be a bit unusual as they had grades and went for 4 (in the end) stretch/higher options.

I would start with a top 3 (prob 2 safe/1 ins), full stop.
If there are possibilities of pre-deadline offers, then I'd submit those 3.
Def wouldn't come up with a starting 3 based on the likelihood of early offers. Bearing in mind DC are, ideally, after their top 2. And I'd be surprised if they had 5 all at the same preference. Bound to have a 1-2, or 1-2-3.

But, if (of those original 3) it is more likely that there will be offers post deadline day, then just submit 5 to start. Or more likely, 4, with a wildcard.

The strat is particularly useful, I think, when the DC is less risk-averse and/or their actual top 3 have 2+ stretch options, and they really want to go to one of them. Then, no point putting 5, with 1 stretch, 2/3 safe and 1/2 ins. Better to do 3 (inc top stretch) with the option of adding the other 2 stretch later, if safe/ins offer (bearing in mind the latter are actually 4/5 on the overall list).

I think the other aspect, which has not been teased out explicitly yet on this thread, is that DCs' academic performance can still be very much a moving picture in Y13 (eg accelerating or stalling); my DC were only tackling the most complex aspects of their physical sciences and FM in Y13 and grasping those elements had a material impact on A level outcome and likely suitability of some unis and not others.

They got round this by leaving 1-2 UCAS slots free until January to buy them time before deciding, fully and finally, if they were pitching things right. Another aspect is that teachers vary in their ability to predict and/or manage expectations about predictions and students and parents can fail to pick up on the nuances and caveats around predictions.

This type of strategy is only worthwhile if you have very granular information about response times from specific universities/courses. One of our DC applied in October and didn't get any answers at all until March.

@poetryandwine "But you still won’t experience the relief of being done with your application and able to mentally cross it off. I recognise that this will affect some more than others."

Indeed, feelings about the application process are deeply person-specific. Getting the application in early and done and dusted can also leave room for months of agonising and what-ifs, especially if A-levels (or equivalent) are not going as anticipated. I think every family/applicant needs to use the very great flexibility offered by UCAS (which is a huge bonus IMO) to submit the application when they feel ready. No pressure.