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

DD just missed her offer for Oxford, by one grade for one subject. Her school had already contacted the college - they get the results the day before. She rang them on the day and was accepted. Edit: accepted during that phone call.

1 - she did very badly on one paper, as had everyone else in her set, which brought down her grade for that subject. It was a new paper and there must have been a problem in the teaching. She did well on all the other papers for that subject

2 - she was subsequently told by her tutor that she did very well on her entrance test and in the interview

3 - she has told me several times that in a subsequent year she wouldn’t have been accepted.

Durham, York, UEA

This. Dd missed hers and was rejected despite phone calls and subsequent remarks. When the stats came out her subject was low on the number accepted vs offered so she was clearly not alone. They may look more flexibly on those who meet contextual or inclusivity criteria in such circumstances.

For the most in demand subjects, it is far less likely to happen.

My DD’s friend missed his Cambridge offer last year. Got grades he needed overall - he got Astar AStar A but in wrong subject, he needed the A star in subject he was intending to study and got an A. He’s at his insurance uni.

Dd missed a star on one grade, it was a horribly stressful time. She was so distressed and felt she'd failed even though her grades were still great.

She contacted the college and she was told she had been pooled but they said the original college would take her if she got the grade on remark, not otherwise.

She was rejected by the pool but she got the 1 extra mark she needed and ended up going to the original college.

A friend didn't and went to Imperial and was very happy.

Good luck!

At Cambridge, if you narrowly miss your offer and the College thinks you have potential, they put you in a pool and you may be picked up by another College. I know lots of kids who got into a different College this way-funnily enough at central prestigious Colleges too. Some getting a First even which justified the College’s trust (and shows how flawed A-levels can be). Sadly, I also know of kids that were not pooled or were not picked by another College.

A boy in DS’s year had an Astra Astar A offer, with STEP1 & 2 for maths at Cambridge. (This was 2 years ago).

He got 4 Astars, made the grade in the step2, missed it in the step1 by 1 mark and was refused.

Which seemed very harsh, but there you go. Maybe they had over offered and had more people than predicted making the grades that year.

(He took a year out, reapplied for natsci and got in, so it turned out OK).

Different story here. I know someone one at DC school that missed one grade and got rejected (it wasn’t a near miss). However their insurance was the same grades and they got rejected from there too, ended up in clearing, still RG but much much lower on the rankings. This is the problem when everyone is asking for As and above and you flip and get a B.

My daughter had a friend whose offer from Cambridge for engineering was 4 A stars. She “only” got 3, with an A for further maths.

She was still accepted (by the college which had originally made the offer), but I’m not sure when or how she found out.

I have an oversight of admissions at a non Oxbridge but highly selective uni which also operates a similar "post results near miss" clearing pool where we internally transfer students onto similar programmes (eg: move them onto a BEng instead of the MEng, take them off/put them on "with" programmes etc) as like Oxbridge, we interview a large number of students and have admissions tests. We do not typically enter clearing. The benefit of doing this is as people have pointed out, we know the students outside of their exam results and do a lot of widening participation so understand how/why the school not the student can sometimes be the defining factor.

In terms of Oxbridge, Oxford give some "weaker" applicants open offers which essentially guarantee an offer to the university but not a specific college, as it depends on who misses their offer and if all else fails then the college who made the open offer takes you. Likewise, both Oxford and Cambridge operate a similar internal clearing process as outlined above - most of it can be done pre results (unis get the results several days before, and make a decision as to whether they will admit them regardless of whether it is a firm or insurance which is why some students get unconditional at their insurance and conditional at their firm on results day) but in some cases we need the module marks rather than just the raw subject overall grade and we can't get that from the exam boards pre results release. I've had personal and professional experience of this over the last two decades or so and it does generally work, but yes, if you don't get in then have a Plan B as with most areas of life.

DDs friend didn’t make her offer for Oxford but still got in. History. Not sure how much she missed her offer points by but there were significant tears on results day. I know they immediately rang up and were told there and then she was in.

I imagine it will vary year on year. If they have a lot which didn’t make their offer then they’re going to have to let some in. Unless they’ve over offered and can afford to drop some.

At my Cambridge college but back in the 80s LOADS of people missed offers and still got in ... they rang up and blagged it. I remember being annoyed I'd worked so hard to meet my high offer and wishing I hadn't bothered! At dc's old school someone missed an Oxford offer a couple of years ago and got AAB but still got in. Worried for my own dc who's now waiting and convinced they blew it.

Not Oxbridge but dds cohort last year most that dropped grades still got into their RG universities - it was clear the grade requirements of the universities were far too high as that was the first year there was no covid allowance made the pupils just didn’t reach the ridiculous standards set. They wouldn’t have had any students! Even my old university Cardiff was demanding all As for quite an ordinary course. Dds friends dropped a grade in two a levels and still got in

For Oxford, there are meetings at the colleges for near misses soon after they receive the results ahead of the students, and students will know through both UCAS and an email on the morning of results day if the college still wants them. This is significantly more likely if they've scored well in any aptitude test and the interview.

In recent years I've known several students in this position, of whom only one claimed mitigating circumstances (and was accepted to the college of choice, having initially been rejected through UCAS). In the case of a second, the student had to wait for a whole cohort re-mark of course work but the whole cohort was uplifted and the student was accepted (again having initially been rejected), although they ended up at a different college from the original one purely because of pressure of numbers at the original college. The third student found out early on results day through UCAS that the place was confirmed and was surprised to find out later in the day that they'd missed a grade (high achieving school, no mitigating circumstances). That student has graduated with a First, so again, Oxford clearly knew what it was doing.

A friend of my DS was accepted at Cambridge with missed grades. Because they had interviewed him, the College had already decided they wanted him. He had a telephone conversation on results day with the College Professor and she authorised the place.

A friends Dd missed the grades for an Oxford college and didn’t get in went somewhere else. Surely oxbridge have so many applicants they can replace you 10 times over with those that have the grades?

Also if you drop the grades they may worry you’re not up to it. A family member works in pastoral at an Oxford college and every year a few drop out as they can’t handle it. It’s not just getting in it’s then keeping up.

In theory, yes, if the system was set up that way. But Oxford does not have any "reserves" or offer places in clearing. Individual Oxford Colleges use their "open offer" candidates as reserves, but those candidates are guaranteed a place somewhere in the University, so are not reserves from the point of view of the University. The University over offers slightly to allow for this.

Cambridge has recently introduced such a system, but only for access candidates, I believe.

Really? At Oxford we are not allowed to communicate directly with candidates. All communication needs to be redirected to the admissions office. He/she may have spoken to the tutor for admissions, rather than the subject tutor.

Definitely subject teacher

That may well have been true in the 1990s. These days all Oxford Colleges should follow the same centralised guidance on when it is appropriate to accept someone who has missed the offer, though obviously in borderline cases reasonable people can still make different judgements. I think Cambridge Colleges still have a bit more of a tendency to do their own thing!

Oxbridge don’t/won't enter clearing so inevitably they have to accept students with dropped grades to fill all their places.

I was surprised when someone posted the link on here to clearing places this year to see all the other top universities offering places in clearing including for typically oversubscribed courses eg Engineering at Imperial, some Economics courses at Warwick. (It didn’t say how many places though.) Those universities will also be looking to grab students who have done better than expected in their A levels and want to “trade up” university, some of which they may have initially rejected; Oxbridge don’t do this so have to stick with the pool of those they offered to, which sometimes means accepting lower grades.

A little out of date, but in 2019 my DC missed the A grade for Oxford due to the (insanely) high boundaries required then for Eng Lit - how is 88.4% not an A!! - the colleg held the offer while there was a remark but when it didn’t move up it was time for the insurance. Their comprehensive school didn’t help and I still can’t help wondering if a better connected school might have intervened helpfully… but will never know. Went to insurance and is now a teacher - well positioned to impart that Oxbridge isn’t the be-all and end-all!

At Oxford they start taking from their reserve lists first. Then, if there are still places, you might still be allowed I (depending on how much you missed it by).

Though they don’t call it a reserve list.