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University offers by return and personal statements

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2014 8:18 am
by Liz3
I suspect that when a university makes an offer within days of a UCAS submission it hasn't looked at the applicant's personal statement. Thoughts?

Re: University offers by return and personal statements

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2014 8:25 am
by Guest55
Offers are made by departments so they don't have that many UCAS applications to look at at a time; the vast majority will read them.

The system does vary as some unis wait until later to give out offers and some do it as the forms come in. Students apply to five and can only go to one in the end so far more offers are made than places which has caused issues at a few unis this year when they have ended up with too many students and not enough accommodation.

Re: University offers by return and personal statements

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2014 9:34 am
by ToadMum
DS1 is hoping for a place at Southampton for Biochemistry. His application has not gone off yet, so we have no idea how quickly the relevant department will make a decision. However, at the open day we were told that offers were made predominantly on grade predictions, with the PS only receiving close scrutiny if a candidate subsequently dropped a grade.

Re: University offers by return and personal statements

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2014 9:40 am
by hermanmunster
One of DD's friends received an offer 90 minutes after submitting the UCAS form.. presumably some sort of filter set up to automatically offer !

Science seems to get offers rather earlier than humanities - and some Unis wait until after Jan 15th.

Re: University offers by return and personal statements

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2014 11:57 am
by KB
All the departments have their own methods of selection so it is possible that all the work on a PS is wasted but you don't know so it has to be done or risk not getting an offer from somewhere who do consider them.

Some places also do post offer interviews and the results of these, sometimes in combination with PS, can determine whether they offer a place if grades are missed.

Re: University offers by return and personal statements

Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2014 5:35 pm
by Liz3
The UCAS website has lots of lovely statistics, in particular http://www.ucas.com/sites/default/files ... report.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; which shows that offers were issued pretty steadily over the application period. Interestingly last year 30% of applicants got five offers, which is reassuring.

Re: University offers by return and personal statements

Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2014 5:41 pm
by Guest55
With sensible choices everyone, apart from Oxbridge, medics and vets, should get 5 offers.

Re: University offers by return and personal statements

Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2014 5:51 pm
by hermanmunster
Guest55 wrote:With sensible choices everyone, apart from Oxbridge, medics and vets, should get 5 offers.
well it is only 30% who get 5 offers, I know one girl at DD's school who has 5 offers already but she has applied well below her ability for some reason. There are often likely to be rejections when kids are applying to some of the oversubbed unis.

Re: University offers by return and personal statements

Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2014 6:00 pm
by Guest55
Yes I know, so some students are not making sensible choices.

Re: University offers by return and personal statements

Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2014 6:03 pm
by hermanmunster
not sure that is fair - get a kid who is predicted AAA so they apply to 3 uni where that is the offer and 2 unis where the offer is lower as a back up. Some of the AA unis are looking at 12:1 applications to places so chances are that they will get some rejections..