Have we misunderstood how UCAS choices and offers work?

[PeeringOvertheparapet]

DS wants to study M Eng in aerospace. He narrowed down his five options, and has offers from all five. Now here’s the thing I think we misunderstood when he filled in the UCAS form: as per general advice he put down three aspirational choices, then one he should make, and one insurance. He is predicted 3xAs (and an A in an AS). I stupidly thought he would get offers based on his predicted grades, but largely he has got offers based on achieving the required grades. For the M Eng these are mostly A star AA. The likelihood of him achieving an A Star is remote unless he really pulls a finger out. So what is the point of making him an offer then, if he is not predicted to get their required grades? If this is the case, surely students could apply and get offers from anywhere, irrespective of their predicted grades (but then have no realistic chance of offers on results day)?

Given this, it seems a hugely risky strategy to select one of those three as his first option, although one of them is his favourite.

The insurance choice is sorted, so that’s fine. I had wondered if he might receive a slightly different offer based on the AS level he is also taking. One of the unis has given a reduced offer based on this, the others have not.

He is now not sure which uni to firm, given the likelihood it will be challenging enough to meet his predicted grades, never mind that elusive A Star. Any advice would be appreciated.

Universities will always offer their required grades. They may well take a dropped grade.

If you post the possible “firms” then there may be experience on the board as to which unis might be flexible in this subject.

It is also sometimes possible to join the BEng stream and transfer to the MEng stream by doing well.

We had a long discussion about this on the 2025 uni starters thread. It seems that universities will now take some dropped grades happily from firm choice candidates, as filling spaces is tricker than it used to be. Some universities were rumoured to accept some significant drops too.
If you can find out if the courses went into clearing last year, and what those offers where, you can get a better picture of what they actually accept, rather than the advertised tariff. There were some big differences last year.

Is there a risk kids apply to unis and get offers they will never realistically achieve - yes. Many find themselves in this position. Hence why insurance exists.

Not sure why you thought they’d offer his predicted as opposed to their standard offer which would be on their website.

Aiming aspirational (I’d have said 2 aspirational was better than 3) can be useful given they tend to get predicted grades at the end of yr12, but don’t have to make any decisions till early summer/late spring when they should have a much better idea of how they’re doing / they also tend to work much harder in yr13.

If the Astar unis generally don’t drop a grade come clearing, and the Astar is a stretch too far, decline those three.

Aerospace is popular so may also be on the higher end of offered grades. He may want to research general/mechanical engineering courses with aerospace modules, in advance of clearing, to give an extra “layer” of possibles if things don’t go well

That's what DS has done - he's doing aerospace engineering too. Usually the BEng offer is slightly lower.

what are his choices?

it's not unusual to get a stretch offer, especially for courses that are very competitive (and aerospace is!) Unis use more than just the predicted grades to make an offer.

What are the grades you think he “should” make and what are the insurance grades?

My son had a place to do a MEng if he got three As. He got AAB, his first choice still took him but said he could only do the BEng. At the end of his first year he got a First so he was switched over to the MEng.

My DS was told to put down 1 aspirational, 3 expected and one insurance. 3 aspirational seems very odd advice to be given by his school, as they probably all thought they were his aspirational choice. Maybe just put down his favourite. As he has applied, they may accept him even if he just misses. ( happened to a friend of my DS last year, where they gave her an offer anyway despite her missing the grades). I think this will depend on how in demand the course is and whether they have managed to fill the course with students who have hit their required grades.

That’s not quite our experience. Dd has been offered BBB when usually they offer ABB (her predictions are ABB but she’s doing two sciences so maybe that’s why although there was no suggestion they’d drop their offer).

we’re expecting Bristol’s offer to be unrealistic so she’ll rule that out if it needs A* as she went get that. Reading allows a grade drop if you put them as first choice. It’s very uni dependent.

Unfortunately the predicted grades/published grades/required grades ecosystem is far less legible and reliable than it once was. Lots of universities seem to publish required grades or typical offers well in excess of what many accepted students achieve in their A-levels. This is presumably a PR tactic to make university courses look more selective than they truly are.

This. My DS is taking Civil Engineering and all the offers for the masters course were A*AA. Anyone who got lower was moved to the B.Eng. but could move back if they proved good enough in years 1&2.

What he could do is email the three with Astar offers and ask if he achieved AAA whether they would automatically accept him to the BEng. (In fact he could ask the same of the other two.)

I think it’s probably best advice for him to firm offer his preferred university, it’s always a high offer course. Make sure he’s checked out the course content, the university and the city first. Dd dropped a grade in her offer and still got into a similar course

Lots of universities give their standard offer to most students who apply as predicted grades are unreliable and they don't bother reading the personal statement.

Have a look at UCAS to see which of his universities still have vacancies and the range of grades held by accepted students. That should give an idea which if his choices are realistic e.g. Bristol has vacancies but most common grades were 3Astar so unlikely that they would accept 3As instead.

If I were him I'd do the BEng and then move onto the MEng. Every single BEng student I know did just that, even those with grades technically too low for the MEng. The uni was very flexible, UCAS is not.

There is a difference between a university’s published entry requirements and what they really accept (as they need to hit targets).

UCAS recently created a helpful tool that shows what universities historically really accepted (often lower than requested). This will give you a steer on the likely flexibility or not of universities.

link is: https://www.ucas.com/applying/before-you-apply/what-and-where-to-study/entry-requirements/understanding-historical-entry

If he has no chance of gaining the A star, then he could firm the offer with his PGs and insure the lower one. Is he happy to go the insurance? Can you say where these are as MNers may know if there is a notorious issue with accommodation (which is often a factor with insurance places – some unis promise it but others do not)? And yy we also may know where typically has a bit of offer flex and where does not. Good advice on this thread from PPs re MEng/BEng as well.

I agree with PPs, three aspirational is not the advice I have heard; I have always heard 1/2 aspirational, 1/2 at PGs and 1/2 insurance (depending how low you go - so could be 1-2-2 or 2-2-1. Or even 1-3-1). But anyway that's water under the bridge for your DS and not really an issue as he got offers.

The idea is, if your PGs are AAA and the offer from somewhere you really want is Astar AA, then you may be spurred on to try got the A star. Or yes, the uni may flex on your offer.

But of course if students apply without any regard for the offer/PGs, they may get no offers. Pal of DS's applied for sports science to Lboro, he longed to go there but they ask Astar AA; his PGs were IIRC ABC. He didn't get an offer. He wasn't surprised and was philosophical about it (and in fact went somewhere great and did really well).

There is a possibility they would still accept him if he dropped a grade from the offer, especially if he has relevant cocurricular experience. So he should firm his favourite and insure one where he is comfortable he would achieve the grades and enjoy the course as back up.

My son left his choice of firming / insuring until the very last day. At this point he’d started his a level exams so he had a better idea of how he was doing and ended up putting his insurance as his firm because he was adamant he’d not finished his business papers and he would be getting a C if he was lucky. He ended up with an A - it’s really hard to tell what the kids will get.
the prob with insurance is most unis won’t commit to onsite accomodation for insurance choices.
if there is a uni he wants to go to than he should put that as his firm as you’ll never know with what the uni is prepared to accept on the day

The info we missed during application stage is once a child has firmed their firm and insurance the other three offers become irrelevant as they are withdrawn at that point.

I think people do misunderstand this and I blame online resources such as Unifrog a bit. Aspirational in this context means the best within reach - not something above what you have never achieved or are likely to achieve.

So, as a worked example :

Child is predicted (UCAS predictions are usually aspirational anyway) AAB by teachers in summer year 12.

His non UCAS predictions/progress to date suggest AAB is the most optimistic and ABB is more likely. He could slip to BBB .

His aspirational choice (s) should be at AAB (maybe AAA but that is a risk) , his others all around ABB to BBB. Depending on variables that student might choose to firm the highest and use the ABB as an insurance or the BBB.

The most common thing I see as a teacher is people firming wildly optimistic unis , several grades above what they have ever done and then putting something well below as an insurance. There really does not need to be that big a gap. Sometimes this works (as it did last year when Bristol,for example, took student on significantly dropped grades) but often students are left with an insurance they think is beneath them.

It does differ from course to course : there are a lot fewer unis asking for the very very highest grades for English, history etc these days so bright students often have all their choices very tightly packed. They actually are then able to choose more on course, location etc I have noticed.

I said “usually” not “exclusively” or “without exception”

Glad your DD is happy with her offers.

Aspirational isn't always about grades, it can be about offer rate. Eg DS's predicted grades exceed all the courses that he is interested in. Most have high offer rates and he has 3 of these in the bag. He has gone for 2 aspirational choices with about 30% offer rate, still waiting for those. So in that scenario, it is probably ok to have 3 aspirational, if you have 2 very safe options. I think otherwise the guidance is going for max 1 option above PGs, 1 safely below PGs, and the rest at or below PGs.
That being said, it doesnt sound like your DS has gone for v competitive courses so there is a good chance he will be fine. Eg Southampton asks for Astar AA and has a 85% offer rate. On UCAS it says that 100% of offer holders who got 3xAs were accepted, so I would be pretty confident for that uni that your ds would be fine to put down as a firm. And as others say, switching to a B eng is a great way to provide more leeway.

There is time! Get him some tutoring. If he works like the clappers he should be able to bring an A up to an A*, but depends how motivated he is and how strongly he prefers the top uni over the second best offer.