Edinburgh applicants chat thread and FAQ *read the first post*

Preference is given to certain groups of people, such as locals, Scots and Northerners, those whose parents have no formal education beyond what were then O-Levels, those from schools that send few people to university, and some other criteria.


EDVB

Yeahhhh, I got an unconditional with my highers, without having even sat my AHs. I couldn't believe when I got to Oxford and got told so many of my friends got rejected with all As at A-levels. Obviously it's because of the difference in the system - if they insisted on Advanced Highers (for subjects other than medicine and similar subjects), they'd be ruling out a big chunk of Scots whose schools don't make good provisions for them, so Highers have to be treated with more weight - but it still seemed so bizarre to discover.

Does anyone know how much emphasis Edinburgh puts on the personal statement?

Because of the large number of straight A applicants Edinburgh gets I believe it is an important factor.

Ok thanks.

I'm not early entry so I've got plenty of time to improve it.

http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/undergraduate/finder/degree.php?id=0,18,L200

Unless I'm mistaken it says that the typical entry requirement and offer will be AAA this year unless you meet a load of extra criteria. Thus, less people will meet the requirement so more offers will be given out as more people will miss out on results day. Plus I would think that they will be more likely to give an offer to someone who has achieved AAA already, than someone who is predicted to achieve below the typical entry requirements because they thought that it was still BBB. Plus I'm not counting chickens, but rather simply saying that I think I have a slightly higher chance of getting an offer than under the previous system of BBB for all. It's still insanely competitive at the end of the day.

And it sounds like with yoru grades you definitely should apply. The prospectus says 3Bs; they'll probably offer you what they think you can achieve. If someone who's predicted AAA applies, they'll probably get something like an AAA or an AAB offer. If you think you'll be getting AABB, they'll probably give you an ABB or a BBB offer.

Just to make the BBB offer clear, it's the university's standard offer to those they deem worthy of a place to be earned in one sitting. What that means is that you must be capable of at least BBB, because that's the minimum prediction needed to be considered for a place, but once you're being considered you have to be able to hold your own against people with predictions of AAAAA and fantastic GCSE results. In a way a BBB offer is misleading, because they are expecting many well-qualified applicants, of whom they pick the best, and for most courses at Edinburgh predictions of less than AAA are not conducive to success in any significant measure. Preference is given to certain groups of people, such as locals, Scots and Northerners, those whose parents have no formal education beyond what were then O-Levels, those from schools that send few people to university, and some other criteria.

Essentially, the battle is won or lost at the offer stage, because BBB is supposed to be attainable by anyone and everyone deemed worthy of Edinburgh. In that way it's pretty fair because many things can go wrong with an exam that give pretty unrepresentative pictures of academic ability, but grade predictions are often more representative of general ability some would argue.

In short, I don't know whether you should. If you tick some of the boxes I mentioned about preference in the admissions process, by all means apply (though I don't think they apply to foreigners), because they would compensate for your less than AAAAA grades. Don't forget Edinburgh is the 4th best research university in the UK, so it should really have Oxbridge style AAA offers as standard: if it did, would you still be thinking about applying? That's the question you have to answer for yourself because really that's what Edinburgh look for, they just don't make it concrete because there are ways to lower their expectations slightly.

EDVB

I'm applying for Scandinavian Studies; and then Scottish Ethnology. They will be taking up seperate spaces on the UCAS form though - not a dual degree.

also, do you know whether they teach scottish or english law?

Ah, welcome to the Edinburgh forum. Like I'm sure I've said over in the UCL subforum, if you've any questions regarding Edinburgh's Scandinavian course feel free to ask me

ANYWAY, I just went on timetab to work out my theoretical timetable (for fun) and is it right that Norwegian 1A is at 5 every day? And is that the only course I'll be doing in the Scandinavian Studies course? It's just that all the others seem to have several. Is the Norwegian 1A worth 40 units?

And just so you know, I desperately want to go to Edinburgh now. Do you think the fact that I don't live in Scotland or The North will be a big factor or a minor one?

And it's just that it says on the prospectus that they do give 'special consideration' and preference to those 'from' (and here they mean 'living in') Scotland and The North. I think now that I've decided I really want to go to Edinburgh, I'm suddenly afraid I won't get in! But hopefully I will.