A level results 2018

[Surferfish]

He missed out by one grade and his insurance offer was the same grade profile so he's missed that one too.

I'm confused. Surely the whole point of an insurance offer is that its a few grades lower than your first choice offer to INSURE against not getting the grades for your first choice.

Having an insurance offer the same as your first choice seems to make no sense as you'd never end up using it in any situation would you?

Apologies if I've misunderstood, we're not at the university application stage yet.

[MrsChubbs]

Yes that is the point of an insurance offer Surferfish. Poor advice maybe? Or possibly symptomatic of whole mindset there, that there was no possibility he was going to miss his grades.

[JaneEyre]

To promise a pension without addressing the gaping deficit in the scheme.

Sad reality!

after getting 12A* at A level."

That makes many A levels!! Do they mean GCSEs?

[Tinkers]

The only reason I can think of, is that the insurance offer had a past reputation for taking students that didn’t quite meet the grade requirements (so there was though to be wiggle room).

Or maybe whilst one required specific grades in specific subjects the other was points based?

Who knows. However yes it does sound like here was a lack of thought.

[MrsChubbs]

I was exaggerating to make the point JaneEyre

[doodles]

Surefish, the problem arises when an applicant only applies to a similar range of universities thus making it quite possible that all of their offers will be very similar if not the same . This makes it hard to have an "insurance" offer, if you miss by a grade or so you will need to hope that one of the two will still accept you or you can get something via clearing.

[Guest55]

The uni I wanted gave me the lowest offer but I was told I had to have an insurance! So my firm was lower than my insurance ...

[kenyancowgirl]

If someone was applying for say, Medicine, it would be very likely that if they actually got 2 (or more) offers, they would be the same. You would then make one firm/one insurance and hope that either would allow a slip in grade or slip in specific subject grade. It is more common nowadays that grade requirements are so high, although advisable to have a lower insurance offer if possible.

[anotherdad]

MrsChubbs and Tinkers are both right. I'm having to withhold a bit of information because otherwise it might be possible to identify the student, but it was a combination of applying to the same sorts of universities with typically similar grade requirements, complacency that the Oxford place was assured (this lad got a lot of A*s at GCSE and was predicted A/A* in all of his A levels) and a peculiarity of the offers. Oxford asked for a set of grades with no conditions on any subject, AAA. His insurance offer (also AAA) has a history of some flexibility, being happy with an "average" grade matching the offer such as A*AB, so seemed a reasonably good bet, with clearing as the ultimate back-up. Unfortunately for the student, he slipped to the B in the subject he was going to study, not something the insurance university would entertain.

[Tinkers]

MrsChubbs and Tinkers are both right.

It happens, (me being right that is).

My sister (secondary school teacher) has already told DD (starting A levels in September) to make sure her course choices are not just aspirational ones but a decent spread of grade offers of places she would actually still want to go to.

A colleague’s DD missed her grade offer for her first choice yesterday. Her second choice would have given her an unconditional offer if she had made it she first choice but otherwise the offer was much the same as the first choice, but she hadn’t. She had missed her first choice by one grade. First choice uni offered for her completely different course, which she wasn’t interested in.

She had to reject the other this one so that the second choice uni course would then give her a place.

She has since found out that she missed the grade by a couple of marks so they have applied for a remark. However she is happy with her second choice so it won’t make a diffrence