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.

Thanks all for your advice on this thread, especially @WombatChocolate and @poetryandwine. Relieved to say that my DD had her offer for economics at Manchester confirmed so we didn't need to go into clearing. I plan to email the school when things aren't so chaotic and suggest that for next year they aim to have a system by which students can access grades at 8am rather than 9am. As @WombatChocolate said, it seems such a shame when a school that is so supportive and encouraging of its pupils (many of whom are from deprived areas and first in family to consider uni) that they could be inadvertently disadvantaging them by releasing results an hour later than other schools. Having said that, I do of course understand that teachers are undoubtedly into support students in what should be their holidays so I remain very grateful to the school.
Hope others whose children were hoping for Manchester secured their places.

Great news that the Clearing lists weren’t needed. Congrats to you all.

Congratulations to your DD, OP. I hope others are also getting good news this morning

Good news!

Great news @Limeandsoda2023 !

Just wanted to point out that courses at Exeter which were in Clearing at 8am were gone by 9am today. Durham had a number listed before results day but by 10.30 had a big sign in its website saying ‘all courses full and closed to Clearing for Home students’
Various threads mention other individual courses that were closed to Clearing as they filled their places by mid-morning.

Students can tell from UCAS if they e been offered their Firm, Insurance or Clearing but not their grades. Some will have met their Firm but out-performed and could access a more competitive course which has limited places available…..if they knew they’d exceeded their offer and grades they’d got. But if their college or school only released results at 9 or later, that opportunity might be lost to them as the sought after places could be gone.

Most places make results available in person or online at 8am when the embargo lifts. All places need to do this if their students aren’t to be disadvantaged in having access to the full range of what is available at the start of Clearing.

Hi again. Appreciate scenario is no longer relevant for my DD (and v relieved) but what is to stop the system showing actual results on UCAS as well as decision? I’m just trying to get my head around whether there is any improvement possible. Surely if exam boards advise uni of grade then ucas could display it with decision?

The system doesn't work like that, the grades go to the universities not through UCAS and the unis know they aren't allowed to show grades as does UCAS, it will only ever show a decision on acceptance or rejection

So sorry not to update! DS did not get his offer grades - but got on the same course via Clearing.

Thanks so much to everyone who helped me understand the nuance of all this and particularly the necessity of speed - it helped me give him good advice.

Strong agree - DS could have been massively disadvantaged by the fact that his school sent out his results at 9.15. Because of the advice given here, DS was already in the university's own clearing queue when the email came through - I told him to ignore the fact that you were supposed to have your results before calling, and thank god it worked out.

I'm constantly astonished by the obvious, massive and easily correctable flaws in systems generally.

If they offered it to him in clearing I'm surprised they didn't just let him on the course with those grades in the first place. Unless I've misunderstood

Great news though

Well you'd think, right? But there are other complicating factors which are a bit outing, but which might have contributed to this weirdness.