Oxbridge - what happens if you don't quite meet the offer?

[quiltofstars]

I've noticed on the website for both Oxford and Cambridge there's information for what happens on results day that suggests that if students don't quite meet the grades, there's a process where the college will make a final decision based on how 'close' the results were.

Does anyone know how this works in practice? For example, if your offer was Astar, Astar, A, but you got Astar A, A...are you still in with a chance?

Not sure I've ever head of anyone actually getting there without meeting the offer grades exactly! Thanks in advance x

Well, they either take you or they don’t!!
So you have your plan B

You usually find out on UCAS before the A level grades a released

@littlemissprosseco - thanks, I guess I was wondering if there was anyone with experience of this.... Do you mean on results day that UCAS often updates before they get their results through?

The Cambridge website suggests there may be some delays before the decisions are made, so I'm not sure UCAS would update in that instance -

If you don’t quite meet the offer
In these circumstances, we'll need to know exactly how close you were to meeting your offer.
Where results are received directly via UCAS, they only provides us with your examination grades. Please send the relevant College details of your performance as soon as possible. This should be in the form of a scanned copy of your statement of results for each examination.
There may be a few spaces available at the College you applied to or at another College, depending on the number of students who have met their offers.
Please be patient. Your College will contact you as soon as possible and you can check the status of your application on your UCAS hub.

Yes, all three of mine, knew where they were going before they actually got their A level results!!

They do offer to people who have missed their grades. I know at least a couple at my college on my course who got in with lower grades.
In both cases they came from schools who don't usually have Oxbridge offers but were also very motivated and articulate people who would have come across well in interviews. Both ended up with 2.1s so the college was right to back them.
However I guess they still need to have a place to offer

Unis will be making their decisions days before results day
Then students usually have a number of devices, one set up for ucas, one for results. For all three of mine ucas came in well before. For my third child, a first choice offer!! When the grades came in she was 2 grades down!!

@littlemissprosseco - interesting! The same day, though, right?!

@LostMySocks - thanks. That's good to know that it can happen if a candidate is slightly off their grades...it's so competitive in the first place that I'm surprised you might still be in with a chance!

Oh yes, all on results day, but ucas has on one occasion been a couple of hour’s earlier than the results. We are talking around 8 am!! Then school released results at 10 am

@littlemissprosseco - that's great it all worked out for your DC. Years ago I actually got my first choice offer and was a grade short...it wasn't Oxbridge though 😅

Years ago I was also a grade short! I had to resit the year!!!

One of DDs friends had an offer from Cambridge that included one A*. She got three As. I think either the next day or maybe on the Monday she got an offer from a different Cambridge college and has just finished her first year there.

Fingers crossed for you and your dc. Don’t stress, it will all be ok in the end.
My fourth dc, has point blank refused to follow his siblings to uni…. They’re all different

The process is the same for all unis. They’ll consider near misses (or if they’re desperate not-so-near misses…) and may accept the applicant onto the course they applied for anyway. They may offer an alternative course (or in the case of Ox and Cam ‘pool’ the applicant so other colleges can make an offer if they wish), or they’ll reject and the applicant is released for consideration by their insurance uni who go through the same decision making process.

All this happens in the preceding five days before results are out so on results day UCAS will be up to date. And yes often applicants find out if they’re in or not from their UCAS portal before their school or college has updated their results.

@titchy - thanks! Bit confused though - the Cambridge info I posted suggests there might be a slight wait AFTER the results update on UCAS and that candidates should contact their offering college directly with exact results....which is what @MirandaWest says happened to their DD's friend. But are you saying that those decisions might be made earlier than that?

Sorry for the questions!

I know a couple of people who didn’t get their grades for Oxford and Cambridge.

oxford student missed by one AAB. They held the place until a remark came back. He went up a grade AAA and got his place.

another student didn’t get the grade in their subject and didn’t get in - went to second choice instead.

The universities typically get the grade results on the Tuesday before the candidates get them on the Thursday so many decisions can be made by universities before results day and entered into the UCAS system. These are released by UCAS on results day and this can be earlier on the day than the students get the results from their A Level boards.

However the universities don't get the full information early ( eg any standardised scores) so they will know that someone got an A instead of A* but not how much they missed the mark by.

There's obviously a big difference between someone at the top of a grade band who only missed their offer grade by a few marks compared with someone at the bottom of that grade.

Some universities might want the information about how near a "miss" the grade was before they decide whether to accept the student or not. As this information isn't available until results day itself, they may take a few days after results day to let a student know their decision.

Hi OP, my kid's been told to contact Cambridge directly with exact marks if she doesn't hit the grades. They said they consider students with slightly lower marks.

It depends on the subject and the college. Different colleges will have different views on how to do this.

I did maths there in the 90s. The college I applied to had a “one offer one place” rule for maths. Basically they cared about the interview and offered to those they wanted. The implication was that once offered then we were going even if we slipped slightly. (Untested though - all of us in my year met the offer.)

Other colleges had much higher ratios.

Making a decision after results day is pretty naughty - all decisions should be made well in advance. So what happened to mirandawests friend shouldn’t have - at least not with that timeline. If they’d decided not to offer that would have put the insurance institution at a disadvantage as they wouldn’t know if they had secured them or not, and it’s not fair on the applicant if they do end up being rejected.

So, just so add, once the student has their standardised scores they could phone the college and speak to the admissions tutor, tell them their standardised scores and see if they are close enough to the grade to be accepted.

Admissions tutors will be dealing with a huge number of enquiries and you may not get a decision or even be able to speak to the tutor on results day itself, but you can try!

My husband went through this process at Cambridge (it was 10+ years ago now - but assume it’s not changed much!!).

His offer was AAA and he missed one of the A*s. On results day his UCAS hadn’t updated with anything - essentially still said ‘conditional offer’. He had to ring the college and talk through his grades. They offered to put him in the ‘pool’ of other students for the whole university (essentially that specific college weren’t willing to let him in anyway with his lower grades, but another college may have been willing to take him). He ended up just asking them to formally reject him as the pool process can take up to 2 weeks, and his insurance uni needed to know whether he was going to accept his space there.

Bit of a convoluted process and very specific to Oxbridge - I don’t know any other unis that do it.

Me, actually, but it was twenty years ago so many things may have changed since. I was a grade off my offer for a smaller Cambridge college, so we (either me or my sixth form head, I can't remember) rang the college and explained, probably with the marks - I'd just totally bombed the last maths module. They said it happens and they'd consider it over the weekend and let me know on Monday, and eventually said yes!

I'd recommend contacting them straight away once you have the results- I think the college structure gives them a bit more flexibility, especially as they'll have formed their own impressions from the interview too. Also, if they do want to consider over the weekend, plan something fun to take your/ their mind off it - don't just sit in a hole worrying. It does happen sometimes!

Its case by case if you go down and varies by subject and you background / if special circumstances. If special circumstances apply you are to notify university in advance of results.

Ones I know who went down on grades:
2 grades down - Oxford rejected, state comp, no special circumstances, offer originally given not from college applied to.
1 grade down and special circumstances - Oxford let in. Offer from 1st choice college. Humanities.
Cambridge Maths - missed STEP papers - rejected and went to St Andrews. Offer originally not from first choice college.

I thought normally UCAS is out first then grades later.

I went down years ago offer was AAB with A in Economics (when A was highest grade) and I got a B in Economics. Had also done STEP Economics and got pass with Merit and A in 3 others but one they didn't count. There was no news from them. Had made LSE offer.

Staff called them to find out what was going on and they said of course I was accepted as STEP was above A levels. 🤔Then they added some of their best candidates go down in A levels as they are too intelligent for them and my STEP paper showed that and I was end first year level from that. 😂Very nice of them to say but reality was I hadn't been that well prepared for the A level paper.

Thanks so much for the valuable insight everyone. I guess we'll just have to see how everything plays out on results day...all pretty nerve-wracking! Though hoping that DC just meets the offer in the first place of course.

Good luck to all those with DC in a similar position! x