Year 13s: have you had responses to your uni application?

Calling all Year 13s!

Uni application season is upon us, and the anticipation is real!

So, we want to know - have you heard back from any universities yet? Share your progress and how you're feeling below, whether it's a thumbs up or a waiting game, we're here for it.

Happy posting!

Calling all Year 13s!

Uni application season is upon us, and the anticipation is real!

So, we want to know - have you heard back from any universities yet? Share your progress and how you're feeling below, whether it's a thumbs up or a waiting game, we're here for it.

Happy posting!

I applied all the way in Oct and still have heard back from only 3 unis ☹️ my unis are ignoring me
Then again, I don't care anymore, because I have gotten the two offers I most cared about and thus have my firm and insurance ready in mind.

Oxford - offer (firm)
KCL - offer (insurance and a contextual at that)
Bristol - offer (contextual)
Edinburgh - waiting
LSE - waiting

Also what is it about my course that makes my decisions that slow? I applied for HisPol and apart from Oxford, the other two offers are from unis whose summer school programmes I was a part of (and upon whose successful completion back in the summer I was essentially guaranteed a place). In the unis that I did not attend a summer school for (LSE and Edinburgh) the decisions have been taking forever, while I know so many people who have offers from these unis for different courses (especially Edinburgh)

you gonna be waiting a while for LSE. They came out in April/May last year at our school (said person applied for History and Economics and got the only offer from LSE, breaking an 8 year curse at our school despite many capable applicants, with Oxbridge offers in some cases, being rejected. However, they missed their A level Maths requirement by 1 mark. They needed an A* in Maths but got an A). As for Edinburgh, History is really good there from what I hear so you may have to wait a while there as well.

I mean, you have the Oxford offer so you don't really need much more lol. I'm guessing it's AAA or A*AA? Good luck for your remaining decisions and congrats on the Oxford offer. Which college?

Thanks
I mean I really don't need these offers, although I was considering LSE as an insurance choice. That being said my KCL offer is a better choice simply because it is lower. The Edinburgh one was just very bizarre, but it makes sense if History is one of their strengths. I wasn't aware.
Very tough that it took 8 years for your school to get someone into LSE. I imagine that at least with Oxbridge the additional admissions criteria like interviews and admissions exams make it easier for tutors to choose applicants, rather than having to rely on just predicted grades, references and a PS.
My offer is AAA (pretty chill tbh) from Balliol.
Congrats to you too! What uni are you likely to choose? Imperial is definitely looking amazing tbh.

Wow, Balliol! Nice going!

Yeah, I'm firming Imperial. I really liked the town in Cambridge and the buildings and stuff but course-wise, I feel that the Imperial course suits my strengths more (since I like hands-on learning more than theory and the Imperial course offers both theory and practical modules, it would definitely suit me more, not to mention the rep in STEM is probably equivalent to that of Oxbridge. I also want to enter the industry so Imperial would offer better opportunities in terms of internships etc.).

Now I'm still waiting on Durham, so if I get the offer, I would probably insure Durham but if I don't, I'll insure Edinburgh.

wow that's great! Definitely Imperial rivals Cambridge for STEM and sounds like you find it a better fit. In terms of cities, you're definitely having a big city vs small city thing going (personally I'm not sure I could ever pick a city like Cambridge or Durham, bc it felt really dead when I visited, but that is different for everyone) - definitely worth considering as well.

Yeah I'm feeling the same. I prefer bigger cities for sure but my school has better success with Cambridge than Oxford so I chose Cambridge in the end. Between the two, I love Oxford, so I would probably go there for postgrad but Cambridge has the higher offer rate between the two (1 in 13 at Cambridge but 1 in 18+ at Oxford because the CS department splits into Joint Honours Degrees as well. Maths + CS, CS + Philosophy etc.).

Calling all Year 13s!

Uni application season is upon us, and the anticipation is real!

So, we want to know - have you heard back from any universities yet? Share your progress and how you're feeling below, whether it's a thumbs up or a waiting game, we're here for it.

Happy posting!

Yeah that's fair to be honest. The CS competition at both, but particularly Ox is very tough.
For me, my school has only gotten one student into Oxbridge (Camb Law) in the past like 5 or 6 years, so my choice made no difference in that regard. The acceptance rate is higher at Camb than Ox for my course, but that wasn't enough to make me choose Camb over Ox. I really love Oxford as a city and the vibes just felt right.
Then again, I was very stubborn in the admissions process. Everyone was telling me to pick History straight over HisPol because it has double the acceptance rate, but I was dead set on HisPol. If I didn't get an offer from Ox I was seriously considering taking a gap year 😕 but it worked out in the end so I guess that's that

Nice man! I mean, when I was applying, I didn't think that I would get into Imperial or Cambridge so I guess I'm happy. I was debating taking a gap year and reapplying considering what happened to me during my admissions test.

There were like 7 other admissions tests taking place in the same room and the end timings were put in a table format at the front of the room. I was at the back of the room and I saw the wrong end timing (I thought I had 15 minutes more than I actually did and didn't clock this because I assumed it was correct without paying too much attention). I worked through the first few questions on the first paper extremely quickly and thought that I could then pace myself a bit more since I had done them so quickly with working out. When I had about 18 minutes (3 minutes before the actual end of the test), I began to very slowly fill in my answer sheet after finishing the entire paper in the question paper (we get separate answer sheets and question papers and they mark the answer sheets, not the question paper because the test is multiple choice) because I didn't want to run out of time. 3 minutes later, I had the shock of my life when I got told that the test is over and to put my pencil down. I only managed to fill in about half of my answer sheet for the first paper and in practice, the first paper has always been the paper that I perform better on and so it was at that point I knew that I was going to get rejected. In practice, I was scoring around 7.5 on the TMUA, which according to some FOI data I found from someone's request is very much in offer territory but in the actual thing, I scored 4.5 and got rejected pre-interview. The annoying thing is I know a few people who had similar scores and yet still secured an interview. I knew I was going to be rejected even if I did get the interview but I would have been happy that I at least secured an interview.

Well done in proving your doubters wrong. My year group broke a lot of records and curses this year. We have 21 oxbridge offers, which is the highest it's ever been!

Omg that sounds horrible...and also the kind of thing my mind would come up with the night before the exam.Completely mortifying. Maybe you should've entered your answers as you went along. Then again, I guess it was just fate. Maybe you're meant to be at Imperial or wherever you prefer
Also, 21 offers for your school is impressive wow. As far as I know only me and one other person have offers at my school, which is already a record by the looks of it.

I was honestly really lucky with my admissions test, as other people this year had severe technical issues. I know people who had constant interruptions and could not finish their test (because the HAT was done via an online portal which just exacerbated things). My own test was delayed by 2 hours, so I ended up sitting for 2 hours in independent study, freaking out lol. Doing the actual exam was extremely annoying as well because I hate typing. Even though I practised a lot of typing in exam conditions, I still think I would've done much better on paper. In the end I ended up handing in an essay that I did not fully proof read, which was full of typos (judging by the two paragraphs I did manage to proof read).

I'm really glad I got to shove this offer in people's faces though (or like one or two specific people). Very satisfying indeed!

Yeah but since I thought I was managing time well, I thought I would check my answers one last time before shading the lozenges. Also, if it turns out that I've made a mistake on my answer sheet (like if I've circled the wrong answer), I'd have to rub out the answer sheet really thoroughly because the machine which reads the answers is really sensitive. If it detects two potential answers, I'd get marked down for the question so I didn't want to take the risk. Also, I didn't anticipate that I would run out of time (since I've never ran out of time in practice).

yeah I heard loads of people had problems with the Oxford tests. I'm sure they understood the typos were down to the tech issues so I'm sure they would have given you some leeway. I would have loved in my test was typed (I'm a fast typer + CS applicant) but it would hard to type Maths 😂😂.

Yeah, there are loads of students and teachers that doubt us getting in. While I appreciate their concern about applying for a course that I'm probably not going to get in for, there isn't a certainty for anyone and no one really applies thinking that they're going to get in (except perhaps a few exceptional individuals). That's why we apply - on the off chance that we get an offer.

For instance, there was someone applying to Balliol for Econ and Management and they have the best grades they can possibly get (11 grade 9s at GCSE and 5 A* predictions at A level in Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Economics and Japanese). The teachers all told him that the chances of him getting in are next to 0 and that if he's going to apply, he should apply to a less competitive college. He said that if he didn't get in, he doesn't mind but he'll do his best to get the offer. They spent a lot of the time before he applied trying to convince him to apply for a less competitive Economics course like PPE (and a different university in some cases), which is still popular but comparatively less so to E&M.

Now he's got the offer at A*AA and he's rubbing it in the face of all of the teachers in school who doubted him and rightly so. I don't think that I've seen anyone that hard working.

Makes sense why you'd leave entering the answers until the end now that you've explained. Sucks what happened, but it is what it is.

I can't blame teachers and others for wanting us to be realistic, but to have no faith in us to this extent is just worse. Hearing the whole "there's other unis out there" speech before I've gotten rejected really ****ed me off. At the end of the day why should I apply for something I don't want just to increase my chances? For me, I can never bring the same passion into history, the way I can for politics. Even worse to tell someone who wants to do E&M to do PPE. Forcing someone to sit through 2 other subjects they don't seem to have an interest for (even if you can drop one after 1st year you still have to sit through the interviews for all 3 and get admitted on the basis of not just your Econ abilities but also Politics and Philosophy) is very stupid imo.

Also 5 A* predictions is impressive tbh, is this person on the offer holders gc? We'd love to have them over 😉

Na they ain't on TSR so they don't know about the offer holders gc.