UCL after results day

I have a question, and it's if UCL are likely to accept rejected applicants if they achieve good enough grades on results day. This is not really clearing, as I'll only be reapplying in a gap year with achieved grades that are good enough. But I just wanted to know if it's at all possible to phone them on the day and ask if they have spaces available. My predicted grades were A*A*A*A in Maths, Physics, Economics and FM respectively, and I'll reapply for the Physics course if I achieve at least A*A*A in Maths, Physics and FM respectively. My logic was that UCL for their Physics course at least, is a university that a lot of people would put as their safety, after firming a course like Imperial's, Durham's, Cambridge's and Manchester's. This is because their required grades are A*AA, compared to the A*A*A minimum that these other courses require. Assuming I get the grades that I want, my course of action would be to plan a likely gap year, and apply with achieved grades, but I just wanted to know if I could phone UCL on the day and see if they have slots available for their Physics course, and what phone number to dial etc... Even if the possibility is extremely small (as UCL is very competitive), I would still like to at least try before planning ahead for my gap year.

Reply 1

BubblesBB

Not likely. UCL doesn't participate in Clearing, and would have over offered to more applicants than number of places, and thus from their pool of applicants to confirm offers (even for those with missed grades).

Reply 2

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

As above, UCL has not historically participated in clearing. They do participate in clearing plus but this is essentially just the uni picking out individuals who are eligible via UCAS - the applicant has no control over it - and I believe it's only been one or two under-subscribed courses that entered in that.

You can't just call them up and beg for a place. Even if they were in clearing, that's not how clearing works. If they're not in clearing there will simply be no possibility of that anyway. It's just a waste of their time and of your time, and you shouldn't spend energy thinking that's an option - it's not.

Universities have pretty good methods to forecast their yield from applicants accounting for those who may not meet their requirements, who will not take up a place, who will have picked them as an insurance rather than firm etc, in order to optimise how many offers they give out. They don't just make offers up to the number of "places" on the course and then stop and hope they are all filled - all unis over-offer because they know there will be attrition.

So they aren't likely to be "caught short" on results day - if even a few years ago when there was a demographic drop due to reduced numbers of births in that year leading to fewer applicants they didn't need to use clearing and were otherwise unaffected, I doubt there would be any concern for a normal application year.

Also worth noting, outside of medicine and dentistry, there are no formal quotas on course places anymore and unis can accept as many students as they like. Limitations will be based on space availability and accommodation etc. So it's not even like there is a set number of "places" on any given course outside of medicine and dentistry typically now.

(edited 2 months ago)

Reply 3

Bagel Lamp

Original post by artful_lounger

As above, UCL has not historically participated in clearing. They do participate in clearing plus but this is essentially just the uni picking out individuals who are eligible via UCAS - the applicant has no control over it - and I believe it's only been one or two under-subscribed courses that entered in that.
You can't just call them up and beg for a place. Even if they were in clearing, that's not how clearing works. If they're not in clearing there will simply be no possibility of that anyway. It's just a waste of their time and of your time, and you shouldn't spend energy thinking that's an option - it's not.
Universities have pretty good methods to forecast their yield from applicants accounting for those who may not meet their requirements, who will not take up a place, who will have picked them as an insurance rather than firm etc, in order to optimise how many offers they give out. They don't just make offers up to the number of "places" on the course and then stop and hope they are all filled - all unis over-offer because they know there will be attrition.
Also worth noting, outside of medicine and dentistry, there are no formal quotas on course places anymore and unis can accept as many students as they like. Limitations will be based on space availability and accommodation etc. So it's not even like there is a set number of "places" on any given course outside of medicine and dentistry typically now.

Thanks for the response, as the likely course is now a gap year (assuming I make the grades I want), do you know how UCL perceives achieved grades over predicted ones? My understanding is that for very competitive courses like CS the odds are low for gap year applicants because they have an admissions test that does a lot of the filtering. I think Physics is a less competitive course, but nonetheless if I do get the A*A*A I want, I need to somehow weigh whether my odds have significantly increased with achieved grades. The required grades were A*AA, and I was rejected with A*A*A*A predicted, so this makes me wary as to whether applying with A*A*A in the relevant subjects would actually be beneficial. Also, I was wondering where you got this information from, regarding how places and such are filled up by universities, as It's hard to find anything online about how the system actually works.

Reply 4

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by Bagel Lamp

I think generally having achieved grades makes things simpler because it's quite clear if you meet the requirements or not.

Regarding how the admissions process works, I think a lot is from years of osmosis reading threads on TSR since there are often admissions staff who post on here :tongue:

Also some common sense - you know at least some applicants will insure vs firm unis (outside of Oxbridge at least), and that at least some may decide not to go to that uni on results day and go through clearing or take a gap year, plus at least some will miss offers etc. If we can think of those factors I'm sure the people whose day to day job is that will have thought of it and planned for it!