What does this say about the reputation of a University?

On my UCAS application, I applied to a university with a kind of mediocre reputation as a backup choice (to do film). A couple of weeks ago I received an email from said university telling me that they would like to invite me to a one to one interview in which I was to bring my portfolio for them to review. However as I had already had an offer from a different Uni that I planned to accept, I emailed back telling them that I would not be attending their interview and asked them to confirm that they had received my email (which they didn't do).
Now here's the weird part. I had intended to withdraw from the course on UCAS track, but for whatever reason I forgot to do so. Yet despite me not going to the interview and submitting a portfolio, I have just received an unconditional offer from them. Is this the sign of a bad university?

(Note that at the moment, I'm not going to say which university it was as I don't want to discourage anyone from going considering the fact that some of the more popular courses have relatively high satisfaction rates amongst students)

On my UCAS application, I applied to a university with a kind of mediocre reputation as a backup choice (to do film). A couple of weeks ago I received an email from said university telling me that they would like to invite me to a one to one interview in which I was to bring my portfolio for them to review. However as I had already had an offer from a different Uni that I planned to accept, I emailed back telling them that I would not be attending their interview and asked them to confirm that they had received my email (which they didn't do).
Now here's the weird part. I had intended to withdraw from the course on UCAS track, but for whatever reason I forgot to do so. Yet despite me not going to the interview and submitting a portfolio, I have just received an unconditional offer from them. Is this the sign of a bad university?

(Note that at the moment, I'm not going to say which university it was as I don't want to discourage anyone from going considering the fact that some of the more popular courses have relatively high satisfaction rates amongst students)

It sounds pretty weird to demand a portfolio and interview from you and then you refuse yet you still get an unconditional offer which is the best offer you could get! I would have thought they would have rejected you for not meeting their requirements. The good thing is that offer is set in stone and they can't change it now. I don't think it means the university has a bad reputation. It could mean a number of things really. It could be that they didn't have many applicants for the film course so wanted to secure you by giving you an unconditional. It could mean that they were just busy and didn't realise that you didn't say you wasn't going to come for the interview and give them your portfolio. I can't really give you a more solid answer because I don't know what university you applied for but you mentioned you wouldn't say so it doesn't matter but yeh it could mean many other things than the university having a bad reputation. I emailed my university and on the second time I didn't get a response from them. However it is still quite a good uni and very high on the league tables. I don't think it means they have a bad reputation though.


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Stirling university?

Nope!

wolverhampton

Yeah, I had considered the possibility that they were just running low on people for that course. I read somewhere that this year, universities are trying to dish out as many offers as possible, so that could also be the cause. It was just quite a bizarre thing to happen . I can PM you the name of the uni and course if you like.

Haha, this thread is turning into "Guess the Uni 2015"!

Incorrect guess though.

napier,University of the West of Scotland, the University of Edinburgh or the RCS?

It sounds like they were going to use the interview as a conversion tool, i.e. to persuade you to go there. Lots of unis do this, largely because
- people think that if they've had to jump through an extra hoop it must be more competitive
- the extra effort makes people more emotionally invested in the uni
- they get a day to market the uni to you

It certainly doesn't sound like they're flush with applicants, though that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad course or a bad uni.

It sounds like they were going to use the interview as a conversion tool, i.e. to persuade you to go there. Lots of unis do this, largely because
- people think that if they've had to jump through an extra hoop it must be more competitive
- the extra effort makes people more emotionally invested in the uni
- they get a day to market the uni to you

It certainly doesn't sound like they're flush with applicants, though that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad course or a bad uni.