Applying for 2 courses at one uni

[FrostAtMinuit]

Will the university be aware of this? DS struggling to decide between MFL and linguistics. At some unis you can study both but for his preferred uni they are separate courses within separate depts. He is thinking of applying for both and deciding down the line which would be better (if he gets offers). He only has a few days until the deadline and is in a bit of a panic.

Former admissions tutor here.

At my university, the lowest level admissions team over both degree programmes is aware of both applications (at least theoretically). Eg if both programmes are in a putative Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Faculty team can access both applications.

Our policy is that usually only one degree programme will make an offer. If you qualify for two offers, Faculty will sometimes ask which one you prefer. If only one programme needs bums on seats, you may get an offer from that programme only.

In theory a similar mechanism applies, overseen by the Uni level admissions team, if the programmes are in different Faculties. I am not aware of examples, however, and I am not sure the Uni team actually monitors for multiple applications.

It may be different elsewhere. We used to be a bit more flexible.

We only see the application to our course.

However, applicants only write one personal statement (although I think that is being phased-out) and schools write only one reference. So applicants will need to think about two courses in one application.

I am not sure whether @ParmaVioletTea is talking about School level. If so, assuming MFL and Linguistics are in different Schools, only one application would be seen by the programme level admissions tutors at my uni, also.

However my School admissions team oversees a number of degree programmes. If you applied to two programmes within our School, the team would know it and proceed as above.

I was thinking about what an academic Admissions tutor in a department would see, or someone like me doing interviews of applicants (we still interview). I was Admissions Tutor about 15 years ago, and we only saw the course codes pertaining to our own programmes.

So if a pupil applied for say, Basketweaving (Single Hons) and Basketweaving & Woodcarving (Joint/Combined Hons) we would see both those codes, as we were the admitting Department in the Joint degree.

But if the two programmes are in different Departments (or Schools) then only the relevant code will be seen.

And none of us ever see the names of all 5 of the programmes applied for (although in my discipline, I can pretty much guess who else they're applying to if they're applying to my department!) . But I don't see anything but the code for the programmes in my Department.

Look, @FrostAtMinuit and other parents, it's not something to be overly concerned about. We are bound by our professionalism & ethics - we want the best students and the best fit for our programmes.

Although as PPs have noted, if one programme is generally over-subscribed, an offer may be made for the less full programme. However, that is generally post A-Level results day, when the applicant hasn't made the offer. They may get an offer for a related but undersubscribed programme.

You can't second guess very much, really. Your DC should make the best possible application for the degrees they really want to do.

My daughter currently has 2 offers for different courses at the same uni. My older son had 2 offers for Newcastle and 2 offers for Sheffield.

So I am admission lead lecturer for the programme I teach on. I look at applications to screen them and make decisions and I routinely only see that they’ve applied to my programme. Nothing flags up to me they’ve applied to another course.

I could if I wanted to put the applicant number into the software at a higher level and then I’d see any other programmes within that university which they’d applied to but I never have done. It must be possible because when I first log on I can see applications for every programme in the uni and then I filter it to my programme. Sometimes from the personal statement I’m pretty sure they’ve applied for another course but it wouldn’t bother me.

Former head of admissions here… a centralised admissions department will see both applications. Unlikely to be seen by academic school staff unless it’s a borderline case or whether to make an offer or not. Depends entirely on how selective the university is as to whether they would issue two offers or just one. Most universities would be mad to only offer one for those subject areas these days though. Both sadly in huge decline. So I would also be looking at the scale of redundancies going on… those separate departments may not be separate forever.

I agree completely that admissions teams are not only professional and ethical, but for the most part genuinely helpful.

As policy likely varies by university, I think on balance the best advice would come directly from the relevant admissions team(s). I cannot imagine anyone holding the query against DS: we are a very high tariff School and to do so would be out of the question here.

Time is of the essence but OTOH if Sem One exams haven’t begun yet academics may not be on campus. This is the rare situation where I suggest that DS try to reach admissions teams for both programmes by whatever means possible, to ask their advice on his situation. That means both email and phone. Gently, I suggest that he gets his message right ahead of time, perhaps with parental input. It should be clear, reasonably brief, and very polite. Also he should be prepared with a good reason for wanting to do this - and there can be many good reasons, including a preference for the university. Best wishes to him

RG Prof here. I’m afraid that what often happens in my institution is that the least popular option makes an offer and the popular subject doesn’t. With this particular application both are likely to be in the same faculty and neither are likely to be overrun with applications so they may get offers from both.

Totally depends on the University. Even if centralised admissions, they may not recognise the same name appearing twice anyway, it depends how they process the applications, there are lots of different systems. Many don't read the personal statements,,and just offer on predicted grades. Would one staff member remember the name coming up twice?...probably depends on them as an individual.
The University I worked at would be pleased that the candidate wanted to go to them enough to apply for 2 courses.

I agree it is probably worth reaching out (soon!) to the admissions team at the specific university, who may be able to advise. It is unlikely that either course will be massively popular tbh which may work in his favour, as others have noted.

My DD apply a few years ago (so things may be different) was drawn to both class civ and Eng lit. She crafted a PS that covered her interest in both and ended up with offers for both courses (again, perhaps not the most competitive) at two very well-regarded unis. She went to offer days for both unis and decided on Eng Lit. One anecdote only but may show that it's possible. Or was.

Given the 'similarish' nature of the courses, I would say that this isn't unrealistic or unusual.
Sometimes it will be the offer holder day which will provide more of an insight especially into a course which isn't really covered in school.
Don't worry about not having decided yet - I would say that the course leaders would understand.
I say this as someone with a MFL background who started an MFL degree then changed to Linguistics for my 2nd year. (It was the olden days but there was a lot of cross-over in the first year so I hadn't 'missed' any course content).

Does the Linguistics offer an MFL element? My guess would be that the MFL course would have some amount of language specific linguistics, but maybe not as involved.
Great subject choice though 😊

It must depend very much on the uni as to the outcome, but we were told it's very common to apply to more than one at the same uni.

My son currently holds two offers from one university and three at another! He will be firming and insuring at the same place, just with slightly different grade requirements.

I hope all these different experiences give you and your DS confidence @FrostAtMinuit Academic staff genuinely want students to be where they want to be.

This is all incredibly helpful- thank you!

My dd applied for MFL and Linguistics at the same uni and got offers from both courses.

My DS applied for 2 different courses at Imperial and 2 at UCL and got offers for all 4 courses . He firmed and insured both courses at Imperial. We were told central admission for both universities would know he had applied for 2 courses but the faculties wouldn’t as the 2 courses were different. He Managed to incorporate both courses cleverly into the same PS too -I was very impressed!

Given the 'similarish' nature of the courses, I would say that this isn't unrealistic or unusual.
Sometimes it will be the offer holder day which will provide more of an insight especially into a course which isn't really covered in school.
Don't worry about not having decided yet - I would say that the course leaders would understand.
I say this as someone with a MFL background who started an MFL degree then changed to Linguistics for my 2nd year. (It was the olden days but there was a lot of cross-over in the first year so I hadn't 'missed' any course content).

Does the Linguistics offer an MFL element? My guess would be that the MFL course would have some amount of language specific linguistics, but maybe not as involved.
Great subject choice though 😊

My DD applied to Bath for ‘Business & Management’ as well as ‘Business’ after writing and asking if this was okay. She was offered both.

DD is holding two offers at Leeds for very similar courses; one of them has marginally higher grade requirements. The higher course is above her predicted grades, and we'd been told it was an oversubscribed course. She put it down as a punt, and she's still been given an offer. Read into that what you will about how keen the unis are to get bums on seats.

Surely it's in the university's interest not to discriminate if someone has applied to more than one course at their uni, as they may firm and insure there. My DS did (Lancaster).

you should ring the admissions team and ask them. My daughter was interested in liberal arts with a major in sociology at a RG uni - and if she couldn't get into that her second preference was a straight sociology degree at the same uni. Addmissions said it was fine for her to apply for both (she did and got offers for both) but when it came down to choosing firm / insurance we spoke to admissions again about whether it was worth firming one and insuring the other and they said no for internal reasons they explained to us.

Not the question you asked but another point to ponder: how much does your DS know about linguistics? I ask only because in my day it wasn’t something we covered at school at all, so really didn’t know much about it. I did MFL A levels, and a MFL with linguistics degree. Whilst I enjoyed linguistics up to a point, I wouldn’t have enjoyed studying only linguistics (as broad and varied topic as it is). I really did enjoy the mix. I didn’t choose a straight languages degree because I didn’t want to study literature, medieval language, history, politics etc Most languages degrees back then included an element of one or more of those - or linguistics which is what I went for. That was me, and that was then, and your DS will have his own interests and MFL degrees might be different now, but as with any degree, he really does need to understand the content of each degree he is applying for. Apologies if he has done that research but it’s amazing how many don’t and then end up not enjoying their studies. MFL and a straight linguistics degree will be two very different things so with the little time he has left, it would be worth spending a bit more time working out what really wants out of his degree, might help him refine his choices