Firm and insurance choices

TSR Wiki > University > Applying to University > Firm and Insurance Choices

Once you have applied to university, you will (we hope) have received some offers. Since you can apply to up to 5 universities, you can receive up to 5 offers, and once all your choices have replied you need to narrow down these choices. You can choose 2 final universities, a Firm and an Insurance.

General Points

It is essential to make sure you understand exactly what your offers mean: if in doubt email the university concerned to confirm the details. You don't want to find yourself in the position of not being able to meet your offer no matter what you do, through having overlooked some important detail (eg module grade requirements, or a GCSE grade).

Once you have made your choice and confirmed it, it can be difficult if not impossible to change, so it is wise to check everything that's important to you before hitting those buttons. If in August you have met the conditions of your offer, you are expected to go to your Firm, or to your Insurance if you missed the conditions of your Firm offer. It is possible to get out of this, and go to another uni in the same year, but it can be a stressful business and is much better avoided. If you can't persuade a university that has unconditionally accepted you to release you, the only way out is to withdraw from UCAS for that year and start all over again next year.

While you do have 7 days* after making your choices to change your mind, it appears that this only applies to choices where offers have been received. If you have cancelled any choices before a decision was made, so that you could select your firm/insurance, or you had unused choices, the official UCAS line is that you will not be able to reinstate these if you change your mind, even within the 7 days.

• Note that the 'cooling off' period has been reduced by UCAS from 14 days to 7 for 2012.

When do I have to decide?

No-one has to make their choices until early May of each cycle. The deadline you have depends on when all your decisions have come through. If this is after 31 March, your deadline will be June or even July. Check your Track to make sure you know what your deadline is; it may not be the same as the date your friends have. Do not 'forget' to reply either...

Even if you think you are *sure* about your choices, you would be well-advised to leave actually replying to your offers on Track until April or May. Every year TSR sees 100s of threads from people stressing about having changed their minds (or their minds being changed for them by new circumstances) and wanting to know how to deal with it. You won't miss out, and your offer can't be withdrawn, just because you reply later (as long as it's within the deadline).

It is very tempting to make your firm and insurance choices as soon as all your decisions are in, but in most cases it is a temptation to be firmly resisted, especially if this happens before February/March. Check out the linked threads at the bottom of this article, and you'll see why.

If you miss your deadline for replying to your offers, UCAS will decline them automatically for you. If this has happened and you didn't mean it to, ring the UCAS Helpline at once; they have been known to be able to retrieve the declined offers and let you make your choices. Don't count on this though - more than a couple of days out and you may find that 'gone is gone'.

What is a Firm choice?

When you have all your offers in, you choose for your Firm the university you most want to go to. If you have an unconditional offer for your preferred university (usually because you are applying with your grades already known) then you can only choose a Firm. If you have a conditional offer, and you have more than one offer, it is usual to pick an insurance choice as well, but you don't have to. On Results Day, if you meet the grades for your Firm choice then that is where you will be going.

Choosing your Firm

Do not be tempted to choose your Firm without visiting the university and department concerned first. If you went on an open day before you applied, consider going again when there is an open day for people holding offers. Most unis will invite you to one of these, and it is essential to make the effort to go. If distance and expense is a problem, ask the uni if they can help; they have been known to.

Make sure you have given the course itself a thorough going-over. Try and find the current undergraduate handbook for your course on the uni website and see what you think. Do you like the style and tone of it? Is there enough choice of modules to cover the possibility that a favourite may not be available for your year? Check out the Students Union and Accommodation sections of the website too - it's all part of the picture. Ask your parents or teachers for their thoughts. [Yes, really. They generally have your best interests at heart and probably understand you better than you give them credit for. You don't have to take their advice if you really don't want to.]

One of the factors to take into account when making your choice is how likely you think it is that you will make the conditions of your offer. If you have been asked for AAB and you don't think you will achieve it, it's worth asking around to see whether the uni/department concerned is known for being very strict or - at least for some subjects - being more lenient, letting people in even if they have missed their offer by a grade or two. Bear in mind, though, that over the last two or three years, unis have generally tended to show less flexibiity than they used to. You may be lucky, but it is more common than it was for people who miss their offer by a few UMS to be unlucky. On the other hand, don't assume that you won't achieve your predictions unless you have good reason to. If you think it's a long shot, but you have an insurance (see later) you are happy with, and wouldn't rather go the insurance uni anyway, then why not?

What is an insurance choice?

Your Insurance choice is your "back-up". Usually, but not always, the offer requirements are less demanding than your Firm. You can hold an unconditional offer as your Insurance if your Firm is a conditional offer. (If you are holding an unconditional Firm, by definition you can't have an Insurance.) People who have applied through Extra do not get an Insurance choice.

Choosing your Insurance

Your Insurance must be somewhere that you would be happy to go to if you don't make your Firm. There is no point in choosing as an Insurance a uni/course you don't like and have no intention of going to. This just wastes everyone's time. So, just as for your Firm, go visit. Check it out.

If you only have one offer that you really think you'd be happy going to then don't feel pressured into picking an Insurance - it's optional. You can select just a Firm and decline all your other choices. This is much better than picking an Insurance that you then have to persuade to release you on Results Day, when time is of the essence, when you knew from the start you didn't want to go there.

It is not necessarily as mad as it seems to pick an insurance with a higher offer requirement (see below). Your Firm may have specified module or subject grades, but your Insurance hasn't, or a subject is excluded by your Firm but not by your Insurance. Some unis/courses are more lenient than others about missed offer conditions. It is important to ask around though because you don't want to find out too late that there is no flexibility and as a result you end up in Clearing. One way to get a rough idea about how lenient a university/subject may be is to look at the "Entry Qualifications" information in the league tables or on the unistats website. This only tells you how a department has behaved in previous years and so there are no guarantees, but the difference between average UCAS tariff achieved by those actually accepted by two universities with the same standard offer can be large.

If you have more than one potential Insurance offer then have a look at the accommodation guarantees available for Insurance students. Some universities will guarantee accommodation, others will guarantee accommodation within a month (with a month sharing or in temporary accommodation), some universities won't offer accommodation at all to Insurance students. Missing your Firm on Results Day is disappointing - then having to spend a month frantically searching for somewhere to live can be a nightmare.

Do I need a Firm and an Insurance?

No. Some people may have only one offer anyway - if they decide to accept it, that's their Firm. If you have more than one offer, but really only want to go to one of the unis concerned, then you don't have to choose an Insurance. If you are really sure about this, it makes life easier to not have an Insurance, so that in the event of you not making your Firm you go straight into Clearing on Results Day, rather than having to go through the process of persuading a uni to release you.

Can I have an Insurance that is higher than my Firm? Surely this doesn't make sense!

You can, and sometimes this does make sense. For example: Edinburgh's typical offer for many courses is BBB - but they exclude General Studies and they won't accept AAC instead - you have to get a minimum of a B in all your subjects. Another uni might have asked you for ABB - but will accept General Studies as one of those, and/or would still take you with ABC - where Edinburgh would not. The more specific the 'lower' offer is - in terms of required module grades, excluded subjects, or 'first sitting' requirements - the more a 'higher' offer that doesn't carry those restrictions is a reasonable option for your Insurance choice. As noted above, it is also the case that some unis/courses are more lenient and likely to let you in if you miss a grade than others - though experience in recent years suggests that this is changing, particularly at the higher-ranked unis, as competition for places becomes tougher.

Firm and Insurance FAQ

The FAQ Thread from the 2007-08 round is here.

The FAQ Thread from the 2008-09 round is here.

The FAQ Thread from the 2009-10 round is here.

The FAQ Thread from the 2010-11 round is here.

See also:

Changing your Mind