The Student Room Group

uni accommodation / firming

Hi so my school hasn’t really told us the whole university application process so if anyone could help me with what to do that would be great. So as of yesterday i’ve received all my offers and i’m confused as to what the next step is. do i have to pick my firm and insurance? and also does my firm have to have a higher grade requirement than my insurance? i’ve booked my offer holder open days so was planning to make my final decision on what to pick by then but i keep seeing people booking their accommodation on social media. do i need to do that now? can i only do that after ive chosen my firm and insurance? as i dont know what to pick im worried that if i leave it too late i wont be able to have much of a choice of accommodation.

sorry theres a lot of questions but if anyone could help explain how this whole process works that would be great :smile:)
Original post
by lollytmi
Hi so my school hasn’t really told us the whole university application process so if anyone could help me with what to do that would be great. So as of yesterday i’ve received all my offers and i’m confused as to what the next step is. do i have to pick my firm and insurance? and also does my firm have to have a higher grade requirement than my insurance? i’ve booked my offer holder open days so was planning to make my final decision on what to pick by then but i keep seeing people booking their accommodation on social media. do i need to do that now? can i only do that after ive chosen my firm and insurance? as i dont know what to pick im worried that if i leave it too late i wont be able to have much of a choice of accommodation.

sorry theres a lot of questions but if anyone could help explain how this whole process works that would be great :smile:)

Yes, you will need to select one uni to be your firm choice and one uni to be your insurance choice. But you don't need to rush into that decision if you're not sure right now. Go to the offer holder days and then decide. The deadline for you making that decision if 5 June 2025.

You can't book your accommodation until you've made your firm/insurance decision. However, note that unis are not allowed to give priority to applicants who make their firm/insurance decision earlier than other students. So they can't offer a "first-come first-server" scheme, or similar. See UCAS Business Rule 9 for confirmation.

You firm doesn't have to have a higher grade requirement that your insurance, but that almost always the most logical approach. Let's say you selected a AAB uni as your firm and an AAA uni as your insurance. If you achieve AAB or above, this meeting your firm's requirements, then they will confirm your place and you insurance offer will "vanish". You can't say, "Actually, I'd rather go to my insurance". If you got ABB and so missed your firm's requirements, then they might opt to confirm your place anyway. If they chose not to, you'd be released to your insurance - who'd see that you'd two grades below what they asked for and so would almost certainly not confirm your place.

Reply 2

My school suggests using the tool on UCAS where you can enter 3 grades and see the percentage of students accepted with these grades. My school has given us two sets of grades - possible and probable - and they've told us to enter our probable grades, which are lower, into all our uni offers and see what percentage of students got accepted with them. For example, my possibles are AAB and I'm going to firm Leeds which needs AAB and my probables are BBC. Leeds accepted 43% with BBC onto my course so I should pick an insurance which has accepted a higher percentage of people with BBC. I hope this makes sense! :smile:

Reply 3

Original post
by isabellekb
My school suggests using the tool on UCAS where you can enter 3 grades and see the percentage of students accepted with these grades. My school has given us two sets of grades - possible and probable - and they've told us to enter our probable grades, which are lower, into all our uni offers and see what percentage of students got accepted with them. For example, my possibles are AAB and I'm going to firm Leeds which needs AAB and my probables are BBC. Leeds accepted 43% with BBC onto my course so I should pick an insurance which has accepted a higher percentage of people with BBC. I hope this makes sense! :smile:

Just remember that these stats do not mean that YOU will be accepted with these grades.

Quick Reply

How The Student Room is moderated

To keep The Student Room safe for everyone, we moderate posts that are added to the site.