More Rejections than Offers? Advice and Support *Here*

I'm sorry to hear about your rejections, I'm sure your an excellent candidate, dont worry about the UCAS track, I felt rubbish in comparison to all my friends who have all got 5 offers from UWIC and the like, but History is so competitive its really luck of the draw. Good luck with your re-application if you do so, which london Uni's do you think youl go for? x

There isn't one. "Unsuccessful" is what appears on Track; "Rejection" is what it means.





I'm glad you both found the post helpful - funnily enough I'm on TSR through having watched someone else go through being rejected across the board for history, because the school had not realised just how competitive it was and got their advice completely wrong. The so-called insurance choice was the first to post a rejection. 'Nuff said, really.

You might find TSR Wiki: History Degree of interest...

This is definitely the best post I've come across, I find the pages full of offers demoralising, whereas this actually contains helpful information.

Still waiting to hear from Bristol and Edinburgh, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to re-apply. I always wanted a gap year, and I don't think I really thought about the universities I chose before applying. I think I'm going to reapply to London universities. Just waiting on the decisions from the remaining two!

Remember that TSR isn't exactly representative of the general university applicant population.... the people with offers are far more likely to be sat discussing it on the internet than the people with rejections. This doesn't mean that everyone else has been successful and you're on your own, its more that these are the only people who are openly talking about it. Also, remember, this is the internet - people can lie about their applications and no one will ever know.



Wait and see what happens. Have you visited Edinburgh and Bristol? it could be worth doing before you made any decisions, unless you know 100% that you do not want to go there and shouldn't have applied in the first place. If you certainly don't want to go to them, you can withdraw your application if there are any interesting options in Extra. QMUL and Goldsmiths are both in Extra for history, along with history and war studies at KCL. Is this anything you'd consider?

I'd never really thought about it like that!!! And I guess for places like UCL there are going to be 10 times more people with rejections than offers.

I love edinburgh as a city, but I haven't seen the university. If I got an offer from there I probably would accept it. Bristol also sounds good, but I've heard some worrying things about the department, such as that it's always closed and it's impossible to get hold of the professors But I would definitely consider it if i got an offer, I'm not exactly in a position to be overly picky.

If everywhere rejects me I would definitely consider the options in extra! Am I right in thinking that you can go into extra if you receive 5 rejections?

But I do kind of want a gap year now. But I don't think it would be wise to take a gap year before considering all my options, especially in light of the increased tuition fees for 2012 entry.

Exactly. The admissions statistics for the likes of UCL etc are probably something like 10% of people get an offer.... way more people get a rejection than get accepted and they could accept far more highly qualified candidates than they have places for, but the people who get accepted are the ones you'll find on the internet discussing it as they've got something to talk about!


My degree is from Edinburgh. The university is basically in the city. There isn't really a campus, you just live in the city centre and the university buildings are dotted around the place. All of the arts/humanities subjects are located about 5 minutes walk from the Royal Mile... there is a central university bit in that the core is a square, but everything sort of stems out from there and is just encompassed within the city. It isn't like other universities where you have a specific campus.

With the things about Bristol, it may be true but again, remember that people are more likely to be seen complaining about things than they are to be being positive. For every person who had a horrible experience there are probably 99 more who had no issues, but they aren't the ones moaning online. Obviously, if you know people studying there then that's different, but its something to bare in mind.



You need to have no outstanding applications. This means you have either been rejected from everywhere, or withdrawn your applications from universities before getting a reply from them or you've declined any offers you were given. The "best" choices are available now as Extra has only just started, with the universities taking themselves out of Extra once they've got what they were wanting.



I'd advise you to keep your application status open, even if you don't use Extra. Then, on results day you will be eligible for clearing and you never know what might come up. If you were to get very high grades you could then approach universities and ask about places (which may not be advertised) although how successful you'd be is another matter. The other option is to accept an offer with lower grades than you're expecting, then register for adjustment.... but how successful people are here is another matter. UCAS released statistics saying a couple of hundred people found places last year, but we have no idea how many registered for adjustment or what tier universities these were either. If you completely cancel your application, clearing will not be open to you.

Thanks Congratulations on your offers by the way!
Umm I'm not entirely sure. It all depends on my grades I guess . I'm predicted 3A* (never going to get), but If I get an A* I'll probably re-apply to UCL, then maybe King's, Queen Mary, SOAS.
Ugh I know how you feel, I had a friend who got all 5 offers within about a month of applying. AND she complained to me that one of them hadn't given her an offer quickly enough. I was like, seriously? You're saying this to me? But I guess we just have to remember that History is a really competitive course. I'm just hoping that we were just unlucky. It must be so hard to distinguish between candidates.

if you recieve an unsuccessful offer due to low predicted grades but in august you receive much higher than what was expected of you. Can unis consider you. I have recieved 2 unsuccessful offers and i feel that was due to my predicted grades which i thought were low and I did talk to my teacher before submitting my application but i am unsure whther he did change them. I am terrified of calling the unis, terrified of what they may say. I really wanted to go to one of them which was my third best. Thank u

I'm pretty sure you can use it to apply to places that initially rejected you. No doubt someone will correct me if that's not the case.

I've been rejected by Durham, Bristol and Oxford for French and Russian, but have received an offer from Nottingham for the latter course and an offer from UCL for Russian Studies. I am by no way stupid but my AS's didn't go too well, ABBC.
Getting a C in French, which no one had expected.
Hence my A2 predictions were AABB, the Bs in fr and sp.
My P.S was good and my GCSEs were 6As 6A*s so I guess my downfall were my AS grades.
I had a gut feeling OXford would reject me but I wanted to take a bet.
Durham are snobby and have high standards so I was 50:50.
I thought I had a chance with Bristol, but so many people apply. I sent for an inquiry on the subject of my ap. and I got an unsuccessful reply.
Hoping that the department will reconsider me for just russian.
it's a shame as I had a lovely day before receiving the dreaded email. =/

Firstly, well done on the offers you have - you clearly must have had a strong personal statement given your grades, which unfortunately will have been a huge part in the universities decisions and you made a very high risk application with your choices where most candidates would have AAA or higher predictions.

The main issue here is do you want to study single honours Russian? Or do you want to continue with French too? This is certainly something to consider as it plays a massive part in where you go from here.

The ones that I applied to excluding oxford required a b in French A level so i thought...hmmm, risk Ox, try Durham and maybe get Bristol. =/

Are you insinuating that if I had a weak P.S, i probably wouldn't have any offers, I will not be offended if your reply is yes.

I do not mind studying single honours Russian, but I wonder if Bristol will re-consider me, without asking me to re-apply next year. My passion lies in Fr but unfortunately I f***** up last year. I am not awful as I'm participating in a Fr national debate this month. If only i knew I was, when I applied for UCAS!
If I must just do Russia, I'd do a fr. module.

Hi have no despair!

I think I am the perfect example of somebody who has gone through a very turbulent UCAS cycle haha!

Alright so I originally I applied for four med schools and Oxford for Human Sciences. I worked my butt off last year and I was predicted one off full marks for the IB. I got my interview at Oxford and I was rejected. I also messed up my UKCAT big time for Med school so I was instantly rejected by two of the Universities. Come January I had lost all hope and I knew that from the start, Medicine was not my wish but my parents'. I retracted two of my choices for Medicine (as I knew I wasn't going to get them anyway) and just waited until Extra came around.

Let me just say, the past week has been one of the happiest weeks of my life! I looked through Extra on February 28th and I was thrilled to see that I could apply to Durham as an international student. I selected Natural Sciences which I think I'm REALLY going to love and I emailed the department asking if I could apply with a new PS. So on March 1st I sent in my application and sent my personal statement. Two days later I had an offer.

Don't worry about the situation you're in because no matter what, it'll all work out! I definitely hadn't expected my University plans to end up like this but I'm happier than ever. Just wait and see how the other two offers hold because if you get accepted by the both of them, you at least have a firm and a reinsurance, whereas in Extra you can only have one choice.

Good luck!

These will be the minimum entry requirements and unfortunately you're competing against people who will have all As as their predictions.



Potentially - as you applied to some very high risk courses/universities and its impressive that you managed to get offers for single honours courses as well as joint honours, as writing a PS like that can be very hard to do so you must have done it well. That isn't meant as an insult to you at all, its the opposite



They would still look at your A level grades though, the fact you were doing the national debate would be more like an added bonus. I had issues with AS French too back in the day, the grade I got was certainly not reflective of my ability in the language... but such is life I suppose.

You need to contact Bristol directly to ask to be reconsidered and send them a PS which is just about Russian. If the course is available in Extra you might get lucky.

hey there!
i think u made the right decision, my parents want me to study med as well, but i kind of shattered their illusions and went for IR haha
are u asian too?:P