2026 UCAS - Offers, Rejections and Waiting to Hear

[EducatingRosemary]

For those whose DC have submitted their UCAS application without having yet taken the A-level (or equivalent) exams…

How are your DC getting on with hearing back from the universities?

hi @Cosmoflo my DC got a conditional offer for general engineering mid January from Durham.

Great news for your DC! Congrats!
Was it the standard offer? My DC has 4 other offers just awaiting Durham. Everything crossed! 🤞🏻

Yes is was the standard Astar A A
Hope you hear back soon 🤞🏼

Thank you! 🤞🏻

My DS finally heard from Imperial yesterday..interview invite for next week for Design Engineering. He applied end of November, sat ESAT in October

Congratulations to him on getting an interview. Amazing achievement, good luck 🍀.
My DC is waiting to hear from Imperial for Maths.

Thank you! Best of luck to your DC too..**

Hi new to this thread. My DD has offers from York, Bristol, Bath and Liverpool to study Chemistry with a year abroad. Her first choice is St Andrews, she’s nervously waiting to hear from them. If she doesn’t get offer from St Andrews ,it will probably be York as she really liked York when she went on the open day.

My DD just waiting to hear from St Andrews for Chemistry. She has had all her other offers, York, Bristol, Bath and Liverpool.

My DS has an unconditional for Chemistry at St Andrew's, but we are Scottish. Hopefully you will hear soon.

My DC has just read their email from ICL..over 4700 applicants for Maths 😳

My dc is also waiting for maths at Imperial...do you know if they offer on 4 A levels?

Not sure, 3 A Levels I think. But I believe most, if not all applicants have 4 A Levels.
From the email it sounds like some have already heard but others have to wait until after they have and have analysed the Jan TMUA results.

We got the same email, trying not to read much in to it. We knew there’d be a lot of anpplicants and no info whether the increased applicants are home or International. Just need to wait and see, as stressful as that is!

From my understanding, from what we were told at open days, if you’re taking 3 Alevels they’ll offer on those- standard being 2x a-star, 1 A. But you might get an increased offer of 3 A-star depending on the strength of your application.
If you’re taking 4 alevels your offer will include all 4, and should be 2 A-stars, 2 A

That might have changed with an increase in applicants though- we were told last year they had a large number of applicants so a larger number were given increased offers- if applicant numbers are higher again I suppose the number of increased offers might also be higher

DS still waiting on Imperial for Chemistry. I think it’s a no at this point seeing as they only interview home students up to mid Feb and Chen doesn’t have anywhere near the numbers that maths does.

Well done to your DS @SuzyScience

Just on way back from Loughborough offer holders day. It was good to see a uni when it is full of students - really get a sense of the place but it does mean you can't see inside the accommodation. But we had a wonder around the living areas - proper village feel.

I left DS to go to all the subject stuff and it appears that they were a bit repetitive.

However overall DS liked it and it is currently in line for insurance choice. Though he is still waiting for an offer from Durham and UCL, neither will probably affect the insurance choice. If he gets an offer from either it will be whether they can knock Warwick off the stop spot.

Thank you @JustHereWithMyPopcorn ! We thought his ESAT score may have ruled him out, but I think (hope!) that isn’t such a deciding factor for Design Engineering. I hope your DS hears soon. It is v stressful for them, best of luck 🍀

It’s so stressful. I have been thinking of your DS @JustHereWithMyPopcorn. There is still time to get that interview! 🤞

DS has offers from Exeter and Warwick (which he doesn’t want) and as also Durham (AstarAA) and UCL (AAA), he wants to firm UCL and insure Durham. This doesn’t make sense to me as Durham is a grade higher and unlikely to drop.

Does anyone else’s child want to firm lower than insurance and is there any point?

That doesn’t seem to make any sense @Ventress Is certain he’s going to get at least AAA? If he drops a grade will there be much around in clearing?

My son’s insurance was higher grades than his firm. (All his offers were the same except one grade less for his favourite). You have to put the one you want the most as your firm. After that ideally the insurance would be lower grades but you also should want to go wherever it is. I guess the point of putting a higher grade one is that the insurance university might possibly be more flexible on results day and the other thing that could happen but again very unlikely is that the course you have firmed gets cancelled.

Have you checked the course page on UK for the lowest grades accepted by each of the courses in previous years?

If Durham seems to be definitely less flexible than UCL then I guess it would make more sense to choose one of his other offers for his insurance and reject Durham even if that feels painful. Also check out the guarantees for insurance applicants with accommodation and choose an insurance university who looks after their insurance students in that way.

Having stalked the 2025 student room threads for Edinburgh architecture offers I think we will be waiting till the end of March to hear from Edinburgh. It’s still quite a longshot (about 30% offer rate), but if she does get an offer, then the offer holder a day is at the end of April and she can’t really decide before she’s been to that because we’ve not been to Edinburgh at all. I’m getting twitchy about accommodation at the other universities, but the deadlines are all fine for those time scales and I need to stop worrying!

Yes if you think the insurance may let you drop a grade, that would be better but as you say Durham are unlikely to do that. It is complicated though because of things like accommodation and some places giving priority to those who have firmed. I know that my my dc off one place. Where he ended up allocated accommodation once all offers had been accepted which I think is much fairer.

I know, last year, a lot of my DCs friends firmed the one they liked best and often it meant their insurance had higher grades.

Results day was then a mixed bag, most got in their first choice with a grade drop. However, some were rejected by both their firm and insurance and then went through clearing and got into their real first choice uni which had originally rejected them back in Feb. This was for STEM subjects.

My DS1s insurance was A*AA when his from was AAA thankfully he got his firm! 😂