Help with Birmingham Uni offer higher than my predicted grades?

I received a conditional offer from Birmingham today for English, with an A in English, A and B. However, my predicted grades were AAB with a B for English Literature. Does anyone know why I've received an offer higher than my target grade? I'm kind of worried because Birmingham was my favourite out of all my 5 choices and I'm not sure if I can get an A tbh.

Thanks.

They offered you AAB because that is Birmingham's typical offer. If you think about it, why should they lower their grades simply because your predictions aren't up to their standards? (This begs the question about why you applied to an AAB university yet didn't expect to get such an offer.) If you firm Birmingham you might well get in with ABB, though you might not - it will be a numbers game on results day.

I don't expect them to lower their grades for me at all, instead I was asking whether they are flexible when it comes to grades, as I asked other universities about whether they accept students with grades lower than their entry requirements (I didn't get time to ask on the Birmingham open day I visited). I just found it unusual that if that is their typical offer then why was I given an offer when my predicted grade for English is a B and they are asking for an A? I assumed that in this case I may have been rejected. I put Birmingham down as one slightly higher than my target because I enjoyed it so much and thought it was worth at least trying to apply to.

Many universities end up compromising on your grades if you drop slightly, so it may be that they like you, or hope that you can achieve an A come to results day. If it's somewhere that you really want to go, keep it in your sights and push for that A, and hope on results day that you get it or they compromise! If they were going to reject you, they would have done it outright.

Also this may be a factor:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/oct/22/half-a-level-grade-predictions-wrong

Interesting you post that article because initially I wanted an A prediction for English, but my teacher said it would be more realistic that I was predicted a B as I got a C at AS Level, although an A would be really nice!

If I placed Birmingham as my firm choice is it likely they would drop the entry requirements? Again I'm not expecting them to do this and I'm definitely not resting on that happening to get in, I just noticed that on another offer (Lancaster which was AAA-AAB) if I firmed them the entry requirement would drop to ABB, so I was wondering if this was common for unis to do or if it depends on where I apply?

I wouldn't bank on that if they haven't offered it to you. However, it is common for universities to accept lower grades. My sister had her grades dropped for her uni of choice, and ended up failing a whole subject, but they still let her in. It's up to you to take the risk of putting it as your firm

Okay, thanks for your help. Is it worth maybe emailing admissions just to check or not? I really do like Birmingham and I definitely want to work for an A, I guess it will be very tough to achieve, but not impossible. What course did your sister apply for/what uni out of interest?

I received a conditional offer from Birmingham today for English, with an A in English, A and B. However, my predicted grades were AAB with a B for English Literature. Does anyone know why I've received an offer higher than my target grade? I'm kind of worried because Birmingham was my favourite out of all my 5 choices and I'm not sure if I can get an A tbh.

Thanks.

If this is their standard offer then that's totally to be expected - particularly since you want to do a degree in English it makes sense for them to specify that they want an A in A level English Lit. They probably want to make sure that you will be up to the standard required for the degree course by giving you a slightly tougher offer than your predicted grades.

I'd say it's probably unlikely they'll promise to lower their grades if you put them as your firm (Lancaster also sent me an official letter saying that if I firmed them, I'd only need AAB not AAA, but no other universities did this for me nor have I heard of any of my friends getting similar letters from other universities). However, often universities will be flexible on results day if you do happen to miss your offer grade (and this goes for your insurance as well as your firm - so even if Birmingham don't let you in, Lancaster might still do so even though you missed their grades too, particularly since they have already implied that grades higher than ABB aren't really required for the course).

What were your AS grades like? Most students end up with the same or slightly lower grades at A2, with a few who work hard going up a grade - so as long as you had AS grades around ABB you should be able to make your Birmingham offer with a bit of hard work