Is it dumb to apply to a course that I don't meet the entry requirements for?

I want to apply to a certain course but I don't meet the entry requirements (I sat my exams this year and my achieved grades are one grade lower than the requirements.) I emailed the university (it is a top uni) and they said they do consider applications that don't meet them but obviously they are less competitive, but they said if I think that the rest of my application is still strong enough, I should still apply.

I was considering retaking my exams for it but 1. there's no guarantee that I would get an offer from there and this is the only course I'm applying to with this high of an entry requirement so if I retook my exams, it would literally only be to get an offer from this one course and so if I didn't get an offer, I would be retaking them for no reason (and there's no guarantee I would get a better grade).

I figured even if I have a lower chance, there's nothing to lose by applying with lower grades than the entry requirements..? but I don't know if I'm being naive in thinking I have any chance even if my personal statement and the other parts of my application are strong



I figured even if I have a lower chance, there's nothing to lose by applying with lower grades than the entry requirements..? but I don't know if I'm being naive in thinking I have any chance even if my personal statement and the other parts of my application are strong

You have 5 ucas choices. If you’ve got your results then you only need 1 offer that you are happy with. You can afford one or 2 riskier choices in the 5 as long as you have a couple of safer options that you’d be happy with

A risk of a rejection is better than a lifetime of “what-ifs”

With achieved grades below the standard requirements, at "top unis" (per your description) unless you are resitting you will not get an offer normally. Students predicted under the standard requirements by one grade are often recommended to apply (with a few exceptions) as unis realise predicted grades may not represent final achievement and making the a conditional offer of the standard to a student predicted under the standard offer is very low risk as if they don't achieve that conditional offer (i.e. achieve their predicted grades or lower) the student won't be accepted unless the uni decides to take them as a near miss applicant - the uni have no obligation to take that student.

For applicants with achieved grades who are not resitting, they are not made conditional offers. They either receive an unconditional offer or an immediate rejection. Thus without resitting, you only have two possibilities and most "top unis" aren't going to take a weaker student with achieved grades when they could make conditional offers to students with stronger predicted grades (or even the same predicted grades, at no risk to themselves).

So there is literally no point unless you are resitting. You don't have a lower chance, you have functionally zero chance unless their standard offer is significantly inflated from the standard of students they expect to be accepting on results day anyway (which one or two unis are known to do...while claiming to be "top" unis).

But as above there is basically no risk to yourself. But don't expect anything other than a rejection in most cases, I would say.

Thank you for your honesty 🙏 I'm not gonna keep my hopes up (at all) but I guess there's no hurt in trying!

Anything happen so far?