Advice on UCAS please

[MIlesdavis]

Hi everyone: My daughter has applied through UCAS, joining September 2022. She was just accepted for a year-long internship with IBM and has to figure out what to do with her UCAS form. Her grades will be better than her predicted grades we think, and she wants to apply to different universities in 2023 with her actual (hopefully better) grades and the IBM internship.

She is confused as to what to do with UCAS at this stage. Does she decline all her offers and start again fresh in September? Or defer entry to 2023 with some of the universities (and add others if her grades are better) - she's not sure how to do this on the UCAS form or if it's even allowed. If she completely starts a new form, how are her references from her sixth form included? She's spoken to her tutor and the Careers office at school and the advice is confusing to be honest. Can anyone point us in the right direction? Very grateful for your help.

Does she have offers now? Are they from very competitive places? I only ask that because if she's a very top grade student with say AAA offers and likely to meet/exceed them, then she might be better to see if those offers can be deferred given that next year is likely to be more competitive at the very top due to the reduction in high grades awarded next summer.

Middle of the road offers from less competitive places - no problem declining and reapplying next year as long as she is certain she wants to do that.

If she deferred she wouldn't be able to add more places - her offer would be firmed on results day and she'd have to withdraw.

She can ask the preferred unis if they would defer the offer until 2023 entry, some might some will not. If they agree and she is still happy with their offer she can firm/insure as usual. Otherwise she can withdraw, even on results day, and reapply with grades in hand in September.

Thanks so much, titchy. :-) She didn't have great predicted grades (Lower than her GCSEs) but her grades since Christmas (after she applied via UCAS) have all been As. She applied to middle of the road universities and was accepted, but the one she most wanted to go to (University of Southampton) rejected her as her predicted grades were too far below their AAB requirement. Her teachers think she'll be getting As and Bs, and she'd like to try for Southampton (and maybe others depending on her grades). Does she just decline this year's UCAS and reapply again?

Thanks so much, LIZS :-). So she essentially withdraws and starts from scratch with her real grades in hand? How are her references from her school included?

Speak to the school but dds were very happy to help her with resubmitting a UCAS application after she had left. If your dd really wants Southampton but has no offer currently that is probably the best route.

Thanks very much, LIZS!

Although not meant for differred places your daughter could keep her current application and then on results day use the UCAS 'decline my place' process and try applying for a deferred place at a better university then.

Basically you wait for results day, get your offer, decline it then go into clearing and see what the Unis say. You might not find a Uni who want to offer a deferred place but it wouldn't do any harm to try.

The option to 'decline my place' is meant to replace the old 'adjustment' so I'm not sure how it will work in practice. I knew a couple of people who got a deferred place via the adjustment process even though it wasn't really meant for deferred places. They were both for competitive places but not super competitive. (One was for an AAA course but one that still accepted students who missed
a grade)
I'm not quite sure of my facts with this but maybe it's something to explore.

This is easiest and gives her the best options. Decline the places this year (can wait until after results if she likes, or now, no difference) and then reapply, including info about her internship and the better grades. Ask the school: some ask ex-students to reapply in the same way, through their centre, some ask them to apply as an independent applicant but put them as a reference. There's virtually no difference in the two UCAS forms though.

Thank you Justcannot and everyone. I sincerely appreciate the guidance.

My personal advice would be to wait till results day, or at least till she's sat the exams. There's a lot riding on an assessment of 'she is going to do much better than predicted'. You don't know that yet. She could bomb them, find she still has an offer and not want to risk losing that if she reapplies in a more competitive year.

Our school has told us that they are happy to write recommendations and help with the ucas process in the future should a student decide not to apply til after results or, like my daughter, will be doing an art foundation course which is outside the UCAS system but will be applying through it during her foundation year.