Is applying ambitiously and relying on clearing reasonable in DC’s situation?

[Bufftailed]

Thanks anyone who can advise.

DC is heading for a bit of an unpredictable set of A level results. 2 seem fairly secure, one is not although teacher thinks he will go up a lot. He wants to do Economics.

So having scrutinized clearing grades & UCAS pages am thinking: he goes for a pretty ambitious set of 5 and sees what offers he gets. The elite are out, but some stretches which took lower grades in clearing/ show they take high % of applicants/ have slightly lower ‘most common grades’.

The unis he would go to if his grades drop are all in clearing, eg Reading, UEA, Sussex with much lower grades, so clearing is the back up. Quite a few guarantee accommodation. If he had to take a year off he is also open to that.

Is this strategy ok? Wondering what the downsides are.

Thanks for all yoir advice @Thedogatemine

DS is not going for top tier unis, as I said.

My son has friends who received offers at ABB uni's where their predicted grades were BBB.

The offer was at the standard offer grade but the universities had been in clearing at CCC in previous years so I suspect knew they were likely to accept offers around the suggested predicted grades.

Southampton was in clearing for economics at BBC or might of been BCC in the end. There were a few others ranked in the top 25 similar this year

Some like Loughborough only lasted a few hours for Economics though and my son knows at least one person who was accepted below the clearing grade of BBB who had it as their insurance.

Super helpful! L’bro, S’ton both on the long list for those reasons!

UCAS extra is for those without offers from their original 5 choices. Some universities will ignore predicted grades as they are so often wrong and give offers to most applicants.5 rejections would be tough so would put a couple of realistic places in as well as the aspirational.

If you’ve firmed a ‘normal’ as in what’s on the website offer, and achieve lower, the firm would take you if you’d achieved the grades they were prepared to accept in clearing. They wouldn’t reject a firm with BCC only to take the same from a clearing applicant!

Most will do that. Esp the tier OP’s ds is looking at.

No I’d do as recommended: one or two aspirational, two at predicted, one or two below in case he doesn’t get the grades. Clearing is not fun and you can’t rely on one year to predict the next. Unless well known to take a dropped grade or two (in which case it’s not that ambitious to apply there). I presume he has if will visit these unis and have a preference? It’s not just pulling names out that he meets the grades for, there a lot more to university than that.

The fall back options (as in first post) are consistently in clearing. So they are less ambitious obviously…

I don't think that's a hard and fast rule, @titchy it will be at the discretion of the admissions people on results week. If the majority of applicants get the required grades and only a few drop down a grade or two, those few may not be accepted and there's no guarantee there are going to be places in clearing, ever.

Most will do that. Esp the tier OP’s ds is looking at.

Good to know. DC got rejected even with predictions exceeding normal offer grades for a popular degree subject.

What kind of ranking was that?

You misunderstood my point. Poppleton offers AAB. Applicant accepts AAB as firm. Applicant archives BBB. Poppleton is in clearing and will accept clearing applicants at BBB. There is no scenario where they decline their firm offer holders who achieve BBB whilst accepting random clearing applicants with BBB.

Sorry @titchy I did understand that point, 100%. I just made a different point.

True, however, the issue IMO isn’t the initial 5, it’s the final 2. My DC isn’t happy to put their reserve choice as their firm or insurance, so they’ll be thrown into clearing anyway.

According to historical offer data on UCAS, my DC’s course choices (sounds like in a similar boat to OP’s DC tier-wise) are 55%, 79%, 79%, 95%, 97%. DC is leaving their pear-shaped results day option (6th choice) off of the application. (Caveat: this is all contingent on mock results this autumn.)

@Bufftailed Similar ranking and standard offer to their current University. Not Economics.

I’ve realised you csn actually put grades into ucas tool to see what % were made an offer with those grades. This included contextual, but gives an idea. If it says zero think again!

DC’s current top 5 have an offer rate of 86,85,91,97 and 100 %. Two RG in there

Sorry what I am getting as is it is a top uni?

Depends on the ranking you look at but high not top.

There is a gulf in what happens in top 15 ish and what happens below that. Ucas data shows the drop in offer rates.

That’s why I think the approach can be different.

Have you been to any open days for these places, OP? We were looking at a different faculty, but I remember a couple of places talking about Clearing in Q&A's. With one, I think their standard offer was ABB, pretty high anyway, but the head of dept more or less said "just ring us if the results aren't what you want". Now it could have been that they would have suggested a Foundation year, which is probably worth thinking about, rather than risk getting thrown out for failing yr1 exams (and the associated mess that creates if you'd planned to house share for year 2 etc), but I was left with the impression that BBC or CCC would be considered.

Anyway, we took the view that the "just phone us" Unis would be in clearing so didn't apply.

Thanks. DC has been to two. One is in a town he knows. Well prob get to another this term. Then I think see what offers come in and attend offer holder days.

Yes seems good to be open to offers; knowing where you would happily go is good. If there’s a city with a trad uni and newer one then it can make sense to focus on their courses. It’s good to be prepared before results day - you can see the day before what courses may be in clearing and be ready to call up first thing.

Economics is very competitive my friends DS missed his grade and didn't get an offer from his firm or insurance, he ended up in clearing and even then with 3 B's couldn't get onto an Economics course.

Lancaster was in CCC Surrey BCC S’ton BCC , QMUL & L’bro BBB - were they v specific where they wanted to go??

He wanted to be in the Northern city ideally but I don't have all the details just that it was a very stressful day and then an anxious wait to see if he could get accommodation that wasn't really expensive.