UCL offer - dd health problems

[ByGreatOliveHam]

Hello I posted this already but was told I would get more responses on this thread. Any advice would be much appreciated thank you

. DD has been having a lot of health issues since last year and struggling with mental health . She has an offer from UCL for start in 2026 but we’ve decided she is going to take 2 A levels this year and one next year due to her health and not being able to manage all in one go . She is very hard working and worried about losing her offer . Does anyone know if uni would allow this and still agree to keep her offer if we email them explaining the situation or agree to give an offer next ucas cycle. She dosent want to reapply and this would cause lots of distress.

They were a minor several weeks into term?

And if the student they have a contract with is unhappy being allocated a traditional halls, what then?

The child was a minor at the point at which a decision on hall of residence had to be taken. And tbh it is crazy to suggest that a minor should be knowingly put at risk by both parents and university because of their imagined preferences. This is precisely an example of a situation where universities listen hard in order to mitigate potential risks to students.

So she was an adult at the point of moving accommodation several weeks into term and the point at which her parents expected the university to secretly take direction on where to place their adult child rather than from the person from whom they actually held a contract? Risk is an entirely separate point to that the idea that you think it reasonable that the university should secretly take direction from someone they have no relationship with over an adult with whom they have a contract.

It is the responsibility of parents of a minor to mitigate for their child's future risk and it is the responsibility of universities to take reasonable precautions to avoid risk for their students. Had the parents, in full knowledge of that risk, not taken steps to mitigate it and had the university not responded, they would both have been at fault.

But as you have stated this was several weeks into term when she was not a minor.

No - the accommodation decision was made when the student was in Y13 and a minor.

Didn’t the student fill in her own accommodation preference form?

”classic” halls of residence are a common type, she might well have got such a room regardless of additional input from parents

Most students need their parents' credit cards to finalize accommodation so it tends to be a family matter ;)

Indeed, there is a discussion (I have a child at uni) and if classic halls were cheaper and that’s the reason for a preference, then so be it. We put en suite rooms further down the preference list for this reason.

But it seems quite a stretch to decide that both uni and parents would have been “at fault” because of a bad experience of a completely different child, and to consider this warrants sharply worded emails behind the back of the student in question.