When do school leavers have to accept offers?

[Helpagirlout222]

New to all this!
DC has applied to 5 unis, 1 college. As they are courses which require portfolios the offers/rejections will be slightly later coming through.
Do pupils generally wait to hear back from all their applications before deciding? Do they all have their own cut off dates?

The universities must offer or reject your DC on or before 14 May. Your DC needs to make a firm & insurance choice by 5 June. A firm choice means that if they meet the conditions of the offer they will go there. If they don't meet the firm offer conditions & that university turns them down, they will go to their insurance choice if they meet the insurance conditions. If neither takes them they will go into clearing.

Thank you so much, incredibly helpful!

Applicants have to have no decisions outstanding to be able to submit their responses, so if your DD is certain that her Firm and Insurance choices are universities from which she has already had an offer, and she isn't bothered about any which have yet to make a decision, then she can withdraw her application(s) to the latter and submit her responses. This may be advantageous where a) the applicant is cast-iron sure about their preferences and b) e.g the Firm choice university operates a 'first come, first served' policy for accommodation.

However, other than that, there is no advantage in not waiting for all decisions and then taking as much time as necessary (up to the deadline) to decide on Firm and Insurance. Every year, there are people posting on here and other forums that they / their DC submitted their responses months before they needed to, have now changed their minds and how do they resolve this situation?

Thank-you! They've only heard from 2 out of 5 as they are portfolio based applications, so February dates as well as the main uccas deadline.
Stressful times!