Just got rejected, here’s my question (with a small rant on the side, sorry)

i dont for a moment believe you have been rejected because of a disability. The likelyhood is you have been rejected because you didnt have the required grade at GCSE Maths. When universities state a GCSE stipulation they stick to it. If you dont meet the grade you dont get in. The other possibility is that there were better applicants. Having the entry requirements for any university doesnt guarantee you a place. Top universities are often oversubscribed and have to make decisions on who to reject. Your best option would be to contact Bath and ask for feedback as to why you were rejected although from your rant I believe it is the failure to have the required Maths GCSE grade. Knowing you did not have that grade you were foolish to apply.

No, the OP is saying that they may have dropped a grade or two at GCSE because their autism was not diagnosed at the time so they were not receiving any relevant support.

@ghostiecat You can’t reapply whilst holding a deferred offer. But there’s no harm in deferring the Surrey offer until you have decided whether to reapply to other Uni’s. You’ll need to check with them whether you can a) defer and b) whether it would still be an unconditional offer. If you want to reapply you need to contact them and ask to be released from the offer. There’s nothing stopping you from including them in your new applications either. Just consider that there’s no guarantee that you’d definitely receive another offer though.

Finally, have you completed any mitigating circumstances forms for anywhere you have applied to? Undiagnosed health issues which affected your studies are exactly the kind of thing you should be declaring. If you reapply, I would definitely do this. Although they likely won’t lower their requirements, if you miss an offer it could make the difference in being accepted as a near miss or not.

hi, hope you guys are having a good evening

just got rejected from Bath Uni (about 5 minutes ago)

I’m hoping someone can confirm to me my new plan is possible, as I don’t fully understand how this whole uni thing works

I have an unconditional from Surrey, my safe option, as well as conditionals from 3 other good unis but can’t pretend I’m actually interested in them

So can I choose Surrey as my firm to get the unconditional, defer for a gap year then reapply to Bath during that year if I get better grades than I’m expecting? Or to do that, would I have to reject the Surrey offer and reapply to both during the gap year, if that makes sense? Basically to reapply, do I have to reject my current offers first

I feel a little angry about it, because I have a horrible feeling the thing that caused me to not get in is my disability (I’m autistic, is the short version), as I got diagnosed very late and even then have received no support from my school despite asking, and so in turn that messed up a few things with GCSEs etc., maybe small things (like the difference of one grade), but small things count

Just hurts knowing I got predicted the grades they wanted (A*AA) and achieved all the GCSE grades they want except one (they want maths lvl 7, I got 6 BUT do biology now, which is mathsy, I think) and despite all that I wasn’t good enough. I’ll never know if I just had the guts to demand support for my disability rather than ask, maybe that would’ve tipped the scales... like, dudes, I told you how I created an online support page where I LITERALLY saved people from suicide at age 14, what more do you want, for me to have popped out the womb citing Zimbardo (met him btw, seems pretty cool)!? anyway, that’s why I want another chance

I don’t know

Doesn’t matter now, anyway, apologies for ranting

Can anyone help with my question?

hi, hope you guys are having a good evening

just got rejected from Bath Uni (about 5 minutes ago)

I’m hoping someone can confirm to me my new plan is possible, as I don’t fully understand how this whole uni thing works

I have an unconditional from Surrey, my safe option, as well as conditionals from 3 other good unis but can’t pretend I’m actually interested in them

So can I choose Surrey as my firm to get the unconditional, defer for a gap year then reapply to Bath during that year if I get better grades than I’m expecting? Or to do that, would I have to reject the Surrey offer and reapply to both during the gap year, if that makes sense? Basically to reapply, do I have to reject my current offers first

I feel a little angry about it, because I have a horrible feeling the thing that caused me to not get in is my disability (I’m autistic, is the short version), as I got diagnosed very late and even then have received no support from my school despite asking, and so in turn that messed up a few things with GCSEs etc., maybe small things (like the difference of one grade), but small things count

Just hurts knowing I got predicted the grades they wanted (A*AA) and achieved all the GCSE grades they want except one (they want maths lvl 7, I got 6 BUT do biology now, which is mathsy, I think) and despite all that I wasn’t good enough. I’ll never know if I just had the guts to demand support for my disability rather than ask, maybe that would’ve tipped the scales... like, dudes, I told you how I created an online support page where I LITERALLY saved people from suicide at age 14, what more do you want, for me to have popped out the womb citing Zimbardo (met him btw, seems pretty cool)!? anyway, that’s why I want another chance

I don’t know

Doesn’t matter now, anyway, apologies for ranting

Can anyone help with my question?

No, the OP is saying that they may have dropped a grade or two at GCSE because their autism was not diagnosed at the time so they were not receiving any relevant support.

@ghostiecat You can’t reapply whilst holding a deferred offer. But there’s no harm in deferring the Surrey offer until you have decided whether to reapply to other Uni’s. You’ll need to check with them whether you can a) defer and b) whether it would still be an unconditional offer. If you want to reapply you need to contact them and ask to be released from the offer. There’s nothing stopping you from including them in your new applications either. Just consider that there’s no guarantee that you’d definitely receive another offer though.

Finally, have you completed any mitigating circumstances forms for anywhere you have applied to? Undiagnosed health issues which affected your studies are exactly the kind of thing you should be declaring. If you reapply, I would definitely do this. Although they likely won’t lower their requirements, if you miss an offer it could make the difference in being accepted as a near miss or not.

I have heard Bath isn't great at supporting autistic students anyway in spite of their high profile summer school. Why Bath? Don't take my word for it. If you really want to go there research the drop out rates for SEN pupils on their Access student policy and ask serious questions on open day. You don't want to drop out due to lack of support and waste tuition fees. I resat my GCSE Maths BTW as knew I didn't have grade required for some courses at uni. I have now. I do feel for you. It's such a minefield. Even with the grades students don't get what they want. Good luck.

OP, I found your little rant very entertaining at the end - thank you (I need to google Zimbardo tho).

Sorry to hear you got rejected from Bath - it does seem hard with your predicted grades but they are one of the most rigid Unis over things like GCSEs, so that was probably the reason.

I can't tell if you are actually keen on Surrey at all or if you are just feeling drawn to them because of the unconditional offer. I don't think that you should Firm them just for that reason (or defer them just for that reason) because you are capable of getting offers from lots of excellent Unis and should pick the one that would be best for you. You should take some time to process what has happened (there's no hurry at all to respond to Surrey) maybe go to some Applicant Days and think calmly about whether you would actually want to attend any of your current Unis. At the moment, you don't seem excited about any of them, so maybe you could take a look at which other Unis are advertising vacancies in Extra (in February) - maybe you could swith to a "better" Uni then? (as long as you haven't already accepted any of your current offers)

If you decide to take a gap year, there is even less reason for Firming Surrey. In order to reapply to Bath (and apply to other new Unis) next year, you would need to decline all your current offers and make a fresh UCAS application. As you would already have your A level grades, all your new offers would be unconditional, including Surrey if you applied to them again. However, you could take the opportunity to apply to different Unis that appealed to you more, if you wanted to.

Hope you feel a bit calmer today

OP could haveretaken GCSE Maths year 12 but didnt and could have been resitting it year 13 but isnt. This isnt anything to do with illness. OP chose to apply for a course they didnt meet the entry criteria and got rejected. If they apply next year there is every likelyhood they will br rejected unless gcse Maths grade 7 is achieved or pending.

I was unable to retake my maths GCSE, despite wanting to. I was very ill at the time I was allowed. Even then, I doubt my school would have allowed it, they hate people retaking. My friend failed her English language due to her handwriting - it was 100% her handwriting or a system error, as she randomly got 0 on one paper and high marks in all the others - and despite begging she was not allowed to retake. Although I definitely am going to consider retaking it I’m able now that I’m healthier, I’ll be looking at all my options
I appreciate maybe I didn’t fully explain, but this situation is heavily tied to illness (unfortunately)... I was achieving high in maths, A*s in every test without fail since I joined my school. I only went down to a 6/B when they changed the maths GCSE. My school didn’t prepare us well for that change, not showing us the new type of paper until the last minute, but in particular they did not prepare autistic kids well at all. Autism causes issues with change, the slightest change can cause a student to struggle to process what is happening, which is exactly the issue I had. Still could do the maths, just not the change. On top of this, due to not being treated with the medicine I needed, I almost fell unconscious in all 3 of my maths exams, so... to say I had an unfair disadvantage is an understatement, my teachers and doctors were shocked I stayed in the room.
I appreciate you calling me out though, even if incorrect - some people would use illness as an excuse for something they aren’t good at, I’m just not one of them

Hi, I am feeling a lot calmer today, thank you haha ^-^”
Your analysis of the situation is pretty correct to be honest, Surrey is alright but I only really like them because they are not too far + got the unconditional. My teacher compared unconditionals to the idea of a sale, you aren’t saving money unless you actually wanted to buy it in the first place. Issue is, I’m a sucker for a sale. Definitely hoping to defer a year and reevaluate my uni choices now