Applying to universities with mitigating circumstances

Hi I'm autistic too, I was diagnosed at 13 after struggling for quite a while while it wasnt obvious to anyone that my performance was affected as I got good grades especially compared to my peers when your not neurotypical but academically a high achiever it's really hard. I would 100% get your teachers to right to your unis, ask to see the refrence they wrote for you too. If you have the time I would contact either admissons services or disability services at the unis yourself as well especially the ones where interviews are a part of the admissons process. You have done incredibly allow them to see how much further you could go with the correct support. I hope the helps, what college at oxford and course are you applying for?

Hi, thank you so much for replying. The issue is I've not been diagnosed yet so I'm not sure what I would say to universities myself - in that case, is it best to just rely on my school, or would it be fine to explain my complicated situation to via email?
I'm applying to study PPE at New College.
Thanks again

Hi I'm autistic too, I was diagnosed at 13 after struggling for quite a while while it wasnt obvious to anyone that my performance was affected as I got good grades especially compared to my peers when your not neurotypical but academically a high achiever it's really hard. I would 100% get your teachers to right to your unis, ask to see the refrence they wrote for you too. I

References are supposed to be confidential ....

They’re not. UCAS will disclose them to the applicant on request.

okay gotcha, im applying to magdalen for maths and i recently got this in an email acknowledging my application. "If you have a disability that you have not already disclosed on your UCAS application, please let us know. Whether you have disclosed your disability on UCAS or not, please let us know if there are any special arrangements or support that would help you, so that we can make any appropriate reasonable arrangements for you in good time if you are invited to interview. Mentioning your disability or Specific Learning Difficulty will not affect your application, as admissions decisions are made solely on the grounds of academic merit. Information provided may be shared with colleagues in the College (and the University more widely) who would be involved with making any required arrangements. Please refer to www.ox.ac.uk/swd for further information on sources of support for students with disabilities." so i would contact new college and just explain your situation and any adjustments you may find helpful in the case of you getting an interview. i would try to keep its fairly brief and clear. its unlikely that any adjustments will be made for your grades in my opinon but emailing them will allow you to start the process of reciving more support in university, also its likely when you get a offer it will only apply for 3 subjects so not having to worry about the 4th subject may help you? hope this has helped at all.

Sorry, for some reason this reply created a separate thread so I'll copy it back here:

Yep, I got a very similar email from New College. I'm not too worried about grades for Oxford in all honesty since it's just AAA which is easily achievable, but I was considering it as a possibility for other universitiy choices that had higher grade requirements.
As per your advice, I'm going to concisely fill out the "Declaring a Disability" Form to explain adjustments for possible interviews.
Your support has been of incredible help; I'm extremely grateful.
Good luck with your application to Magdalen College! I've heard that it's beautiful. How did you find the MAT by the way?

of course! im so glad i could help, i would contact the other universitys your applying to disability services also. magdalen is so pretty but trying not to get my hopes up about getting an interview as the MAT was quite hard i reckon i got between 45-60 just depending on how method marks are given, i imagine the lower threshold for reciving an interview will probably be in 50-60s so will just have to wait and see i was very lucky i didnt run into any technical difficulties. afterall rejection is just redirection so if oxford doesnt end up being for me so be it. did you have to do an enterance test for PPE? the course looks incredibly intresting, even to myself who has never done any aspect of PPE.

I will contact other universities as well likely after I receive offers from them (with Oxford, it's different due to potential interviews). Thanks again.
Admissions tests are really unpredictable honestly, and I think I heard from one of my friends that the MAT was difficult this year.
And that's true - I really need to get into the "rejection is redirection" mindset so I'm not disillusioned later on.
For PPE, I had to sit the TSA which wasn't too bad, but it's really hard to tell how well I did.

yeah its hard to get into the mindset, and no one really knows how admissons test went to be fair, just also a note youre not anonmus just in case you meant to be

Yes I know that but you have to ask UCAS not your school.

If it's disclosed to the applicant it's not confidential. In any case loads of refs give a copy of the reference document to applicants.

Many schools don't choose to show the reference - there shouldn't be any surprises in a reference anyway. I worry about students who feel they 'need' to see a refernce ...

It's relevant to their application and after the fact in most cases so I don't begrudge them from wanting to see it.

Some schools won't even disclose predictions!

If it's disclosed to the applicant it's not confidential. In any case loads of refs give a copy of the reference document to applicants.

My sixth form gave us paper copies of ours back in the early 00s!