English universities and unconditional offers

[YouBelongWithMe]

My daughter is in her final year in a Scottish secondary school but using most of her UCAS application to English universities.

If she was applying to Scottish unis, we'd be very very confident she'd be getting unconditional offers (she has six Highers, all A grade. One was self-studied as schools can only timetable students for five in a year).

But she's got her heart set on Leeds. She'll also be putting in an application to Salford and York.

She has 198 UCAS points already, and will puck up more this year.

Does anyone know how likely it is that these unis will offer unconditional places based on existing UCAS points?

Wow, that's really interesting (and frightening!). Also, congratulations to your daughter!! What a set of grades, an amazing achievement!

Our eldest has just gone to Portsmouth with an unconditional offer. She didn’t have anything in hand either.

she didn’t end up meeting the entry requirements. But she’s at uni due to her unconditional offer.

We're planning to apply and then defer. She is turning 18 in Sept, so if she was starting 2027/28 she'd only be 17 for freshers essentially, but she's hoping to defer and be nearly 19 when she goes.

She's planning to work and save all the cash for uni.

We live in Edinburgh, so she's pretty used to navigating a decent-sized city as it is. But an extra year will surely only benefit her.

.

Ah, now I was reading the requirements as needing a B at AH, plus either 5 Highers, at least 3A, 2B, or if you were offering 6 Highers, you only needed two to be at A as long as the rest were B - but still requiring the AH to go with them, rather than the extra Higher being a substitute for an AH.

Also interested in this thread, DC may be in a similar position though only in s5.

They have to select their s6 subjects provisionally by Easter I think.

Am I right in thinking that going by the above, if they meet the requirements for highers in s5, they’re best NOT doing any advanced highers in tricky subjects in case they get a conditional offer based on the adv higher results, but rather pick a few more highers and some modules for s6 (as seems to be fairly standard, not everyone does advanced highers from what I can tell).

This makes little sense to me.

Surely AAABB plus B advanced higher
is harder than

AA BBBB at higher - presumably with the extra highers done in s6 (I know some schools it’s the norm to maybe only do 4 highers in s5?)

Scottish students must be much in the minority except for specialist (like OP) or prestigious courses!

This is a great question.

Sometimes applicants are made two offers and need to satisfy only one of them. In England, a top tier example involving A levels is that Imperial College (which offers some of the best STEM programmes in the UK and indeed the world) will often make applicants taking four A Levels a conditional offer that can be satisfied by either three A stars (as long as the fourth A Level is sat) or two A stars and two As.

As OP has described the Leeds requirements, her DD has already met them and technically should get an Unconditional offer. But this isn’t baked into the English culture as other PP and I have described. As no one is ever obliged to make an offer, the power lies with the universities.

I think the answer to your question is ‘it depends’. If DC has an idea of particular degree programmes they may be interested in, their best is to email the admissions teams early in the new year and describe the qualifications they anticipate attaining after S5. They can ask whether these align well with the admissions requirements and ask for advice about good choices for S6. Admissions tutors like to help, and this is a very good question so they should have no reservations about it. Best wishes to them.

Thank you @poetryandwine that's really very helpful. DC does intend to write directly to admissions tutors for s6 advice, it’s how much explaining is needed of the Scottish system without being patronising is another consideration!

DC will also look to defer as they won’t be 18.

(and like the OP, would be so much easier if there were equivalent courses at Scottish Unis)

Pleasure, @FlightSim . I don’t think much explanation of the Scottish system us needed for the Russell Group+ universities. But there are some excellent programmes at post-1992 universities, and these may be less familiar with the Scottish system. Still, I would (personally) err on the side of perhaps weaving a bit of detail into the initial email and letting the respondent ask questions as necessary.

They all know how to Google.

I went to university a very long time ago (90s). I got offers from 4 English universities, 1 was unconditional. I got AAAAB at Higher. The conditional offers back then weren't hugely demanding, I think the highest was BB out of my 3 CSYS subjects.

Whilst things do change, DS is now at university in England and all the universities where we attended open days said that they rarely make unconditional offers - only one of DS's classmates got one (English Literature at Brighton, I believe).

It's not the fact of doing AH that triggers a conditional offer, it's the uni wanting "more" but at a higher level than just accumulating more at the same level. There's also the aspect that if an applicant finds AH challenging, how are they going to fare with a step up again in 1st year at uni but direct from Higher, especially in the shorter, more pressurised English 3 year degree and without the support structures of school.

An important point!

She sounds brilliant and like she has her head screwed on. Maybe Leeds will benefit from her being there!