Is it worth calling Manchester (first choice) if you miss offer by one grade?

[thestudio]

Hello - would be very grateful if anyone can advise. DS has an offer for a joint honours humanities degree at Manchester Uni. If he gets a B instead of an A in one of the subjects, is it worth contacting Manchester directly to (effectively) beg them to reduce their offer?!

Would this only be the case if he has missed the grade by a few marks (and will he be able to tell from his results?)

And if so, which department would he call and who would he be trying to contact?

Thanks v much in advance for anyone who has advice or experience. I know he is anxious so although he might already have this info himself I would rather not prod him too much.

Definitely worth it if he's checked his ucas status and they haven't accepted him, which they might do. He'd need to call the clearing line but they would have academic staff from each department to deal with calls put through to them. At least that's how it worked at my last place of work.

Yes it’s called clearing, I don’t think it’ll matter how many marks (he will see his mark on his results) but call them and it’s still likely he’ll get a place. Long time ago but my offer was BBC and I got BBE and still got a place.

He might still get the place if he misses by one grade. Last year my DS had an offer from Manchester Uni for a maths degree requiring A* A A.
He achieved A* A B and was accepted without having to contact them, he got an email confirming his acceptance on results day. Good Luck to your DS.

Definitely check the ucas status first. Good luck!

Just a hunch, but Manchester may be part of a large group of universities dropping a grade anyway.

Each School or unit of admission typically has Home and Overseas targets. If these are not met with applicants who have fulfilled their offers, applicants who have missed by one grade, then sometimes two, etc, are admitted. All of this work started yesterday.

Schools would much rather accept applicants who have already Firmed them than go into Clearing. As a former Russell Group admissions tutor, I can recall times when we did not meet targets with applicants who met their offers and went through the process above. I cannot recall that we were ever moved by special pleading. Nowadays an Overseas student might get somewhere, because everyone needs the dosh so badly. But mainly this type of phone call (and even email) just gets in the way on a frantically busy day.

In brief, chances are very high that everyone who is one grade off will already have been reviewed individually. If they weren’t, it is because the cohort was already full.

The only exception would be if there were mitigating circumstances for which the school has submitted evidence. It is well recognised that the marks compensations for bereavements, serious illness, etc are very low.

This is broadly true across most of the RG+, excluding the most competitive universities and units of admissions. To MumsNetters who would say, ‘But we called and my DC was admitted’ I would reply that they would have been without the call.

friends son was a grade down and was pushed into accepting a foundation year, don’t do that. It was another expensive year and they did very little. Would have been better off resitting and working for a year and reapplying.

PS I described the decision process a bit crudely. You look for a criterion that will closely match the number of admits you need to pick up. Eg in Humanities if you need 15 more students you might search first for those who dropped a grade on an irrelevant A level. If that gives you too many you might narrow your definition of irrelevant to science. If it gives too few you might widen it. Etc

You always want an objective criterion

Have you looked online to see if the course is already showing in clearing?

Same with my son (different uni) years ago. He was offered AAA, got AAB and had his place confirmed before he got his results.

I very much suspect they will take him with a grade drop. I’ve looked at Clearing and Manchester seem to have a lot on there, they’ve even got straight Economics which is usually a popular course. DDs friend wasn’t given an offer despite having great GCSEs and 3 x ‘A’ prediction 🤔

If he doesn’t get it - and agree if it’s a one grade drop he’d be likely to, then no point phoning up begging - they’ll already (probably already have!) have considered whether to accept him given he dropped the offer. However - if they have declined him and he can see how close he was to the grade boundary, it might be worth phoning and telling them he’s putting in for remark (or whatever they do these days) if his school is supportive. They should then pause his rejection for a week to give the remark process a chance.

If he doesn’t get it - and agree if it’s a one grade drop he’d be likely to, then no point phoning up begging - they’ll already (probably already have!) have considered whether to accept him given he dropped the offer. However - if they have declined him and he can see how close he was to the grade boundary, it might be worth phoning and telling them he’s putting in for remark (or whatever they do these days) if his school is supportive. They should then pause his rejection for a week to give the remark process a chance.

If he doesn’t get it - and agree if it’s a one grade drop he’d be likely to, then no point phoning up begging - they’ll already (probably already have!) have considered whether to accept him given he dropped the offer. However - if they have declined him and he can see how close he was to the grade boundary, it might be worth phoning and telling them he’s putting in for remark (or whatever they do these days) if his school is supportive. They should then pause his rejection for a week to give the remark process a chance.

Don't plan to do anything yet. Check UCAS Track on Thursday morning. Remember the universities already have the grades, and will have made decisions on virtually all their applicants. If there's no decision showing on Thursday morning, it'll be because they're waiting for him to call and talk it through, so he should definitely do that.

Last year (different RG uni) DC dropped 2 grades and still got the place. Course was showing up in Clearing in the run up to results last year but not this. So, if course is currently in clearing and historical grades are lower than the standard offer then there's a good chance he will get the place anyway. You will know this at 8am on results day, possibly even before you know the grades. Otherwise, hope he is happy with his insurance or check now to see other possibilities.

It is also quite possible that the situation with respect to Insurance applicants is not fully clarified early Thursday morning.

@1apenny2apenny can you tell me where you have seen the Clearing courses for Manchester? On their website it says "If we have any vacancies, they'll be live after 5pm on Wednesday, 13 August".

Posted too soon. So applicants with dropped grades may need to wait until the Insurance situation is clarified. Of course, sometimes it is clear that there will be places to fill anyway.

I think application levels are down this year so definitely worth checking

Oh, just realised the Manchester courses referred to may be as listed on the UCAS clearing search. I think the individual Uni pages will give a more accurate picture (even though some are staying tight-lipped currently).

Unlikely. The insurance institution will most likely have made their decision whether to accept or not even if the firm institution hasn't decided - it might not be visible to the applicant, but it'd be very unlikely for neither institution to have made a decision, unless there was something very odd (in which case the applicant would already know about it). So if the firm choice has rejected, Track will show the insurance choice decision and whether the applicant is then going into Clearing or not.

I write as a former admissions tutor. Agreed, we have made a decision. But this is of little practical value until we know whether we have a bum on a seat. That depends on both the Firm Institution and the applicant, as some unis are not guaranteeing accommodation for Insurance admits - a mistake in my view.

This year it’s already been flagged up that lots of unis are going to be accepting lower grades. You may find he is accepted without doing anything- acceptances show on UCAS tracker often before students receive their results. If offer isn’t confirmed then absolutely get student to phone asap.

This could just be anecdotal OP but my first two university options were for Manchester Uni, one for a joint honours degree which I needed ABB for and one for single honours which was AAB.

I really wanted to do the single honours but put joint down too just incase I didn’t get the grades. In the end I didn’t get the grades, I missed an A by also one mark! And ended up with ABB. I emailed the department begging to do the single honours and they replied the same day accepting me! I was so thrilled.

This was 10 years ago but just shows it is definitely worth asking, it was a humanities degree I did too.

Chances are that kiddo is suffering from 'that exam was brutal' syndrome and will get the A anyway. But as said, one grade drop is likely to result in acceptance so check ucas emails first, and then use the clearing phone line if needed. Best of luck.