Do we need to 'over-meet' the requirement of the conditional offer?

So I found this pdf. file (http://www.ed.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.135305!/fileManager/Final%202013%20for%20web.pdf) showing the number of offers given out and the number of acceptances the university makes,

and it seems that the number of acceptances seem ridiculously small compared to the number of offers they make.


I heard that if there's a fixed number of places and the number of people who meet the requirement exceeds the number of places universities can reject those who just meet the requirements.

So I'm wondering if this means that I need to 'over-score' in my exams (e.g. offer: AAB so I will have to score A*AA to win the competition? kinda).

I know that there are people declining/insurancing the offer or those who fail to meet the offer but this worries me a little bit (if you look at maths, 531 offers were made but only 118 people got accepted in the end)..

Any thoughts?

No. If you meet the offer, you are in.

Thanks for the very quick reply!

I know a guy who got rejected from Oxford after meeting the offer though, does this kinda rejection only apply to oxbridge?

No, it doesn't apply to Oxford either. There will be more to that story than you are aware of, I suspect.

When you put a uni as firm or insurance, you sign a contract between you and the uni so if you meet the grades, you're definitely in! However this should make you worry about 'not meeting the conditions' because the high number of places given mean that they wouldn't be flexible with people not meeting the conditions. With less subscribed unis, many people miss their conditions but still get in. If you miss the conditions, it's a gamble pretty much, some unis would still accept you but some wouldn't. At the end of the day, it depends on your luck and how many people met the conditions.