I think it’s a mistake to start thinking ‘they don’t want me enough, so I don’t want them’….and then reject them if a late offer arrives.
That is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
If you get an offer, you’re good enough. They want you. You can go there and do well. If it’s the best place for you, it’s the best place.
Of course some applicants are a bit stronger on paper. GCSEs and A Level predictions differ, as do wider engagement in the subject. If there are people with stronger applications than yours, then when it’s a vvv popular course, unless you are the perfect applicant, that might be the case. But no course totally fills with ‘perfect’ applicants and an individual who receives an offer can know they are strong enough. Maybe their dropped grade was in a less relevant subject and so doesn’t really matter but just has to be used to decide who to offer to first?
And of course, we don’t know what people end up with from A level yet. Some of the not quite ‘perfect’ applications will start their degrees with stronger A Levels than those who on paper looked better.
It’s a numbers game isn’t it. Predicting how many with offers will firm and insure. Predicting how many will be holding an Oxbridge offer and turn Warwick down and how many offer holders will miss their grades on results day, so how much to over offer. And making offers in right proportions to internationals with their superior funding stream, contextual offers, etc etc. They also have to factor in things like TMUA, Step, sometimes MAT or other entrance exams.
Unis have imperfect info, but more emerges through the application cycle. Students are starting to firm and insure, so Warwick gets a better picture and then knows if it can make many more offers or not. Those people aren’t really the ‘reserve’ and actually could be a large proportion of the course. But they might not be the “perfect’ on paper applicants either….although quite often some of them also find themselves in this late waiting phase, because the unbent as much info as possible before deciding who to offer to and who to reject…they are hedging their bets and keeping their options open.
It’s certainly annoying for candidates and time goes slowly ….but it’s definitely not personal. And taking it personally doesn’t help the student make rational choices. It’s hard to wait, but really you have to and try to remain hopeful and open to all the options you will finally have.