Why is half of this filmed like the office and the other half like CSI 😂

I'm in uni already, why am I watching this

this man is a rare thing in this world - someone who goes against the bureaucracy and is truly honest.

This is filmed like a mockumentary lool

'University of XXX' ooo I wanna go there ;)

I just graduated from my university in London and have to say, this chap is absolutely right. Don’t base your decision on where to go on just the offer; look at the location, look at how much you like the campus, look at the accommodation, look at the student satisfaction rates with the course you’re applying to. You’re going to be living on your campus for 3, maybe 4 years. And they’ll likely be the best years of your life. So, make sure that you spend them at the place that ticks all of your boxes

I have a huge amount of respect for this man.

Man, I wish I'd seen this before going to university. My firm choice offered ABB, so ended up going there, only to discover later that most people on my course got C's and one student even had DDC. Eleven years later, and I still think it's the biggest mistake I've ever made. I didn't even bother applying for AAA universities because I didn't think I had a chance. That admission officer must've seen me coming a mile off.

A*A*B - a stupefying three years ago... yet the day after my results, I was bawling over missing my offer. How short sighted did sobbing over A-levels seem now? They really don't matter... Completely agree that the feel, quality of living, and teaching of a university matters so much more than pesky letters they want from you!

grade offers doesn't always = quality of course

This is very true, Candidates PAY ATTENTION!. My college did this with me, i wanted to go to my university of choice and they bullied me into putting the higher offer as my firm choice, In the end i decided not to go to university because it was more trouble than its worth (Worst decision i ever made) Dont let them bully you into this. In the end they want their students going to the best universities so they look good. Its your own choice. Make it or regret it.

This man is so good at talking.

Great video. I’ve just finished my post grad in a STEM subject, not at Nottingham, but another top Uni, and I believe this should be publicised much more widely.When I was applying for my undergrad degree Leeds uni asked for BCC entry grades, now they ask A*AA! That’s a massive change and can not be justified until you realise the reasons behind that decision, as exposed in this video.

UCAS : exposed

This video makes a lot of sense. I was encouraged by my college to put my lowest offer as my insurance, but I decided against that and put one of my higher offers in its place. My firm choice is the university I have my heart set on and asked for AAB. Two of my other offers asked for AAA, but their research departments didn't focus on the field I wish to go into. My lowest offer was CCC, the university's Psychology department wasn't very strong and they had much better departments for History. My insurance choice university is asking for BBB and have everything I want in a course. I would rather get into one of my two offers or do re-sits. It is not just about going into university for the sake of getting a degree, it is about going there for the right reasons and achieving what you set out to do. If you don't succeed the first time, there is no shame in trying again. It shows determination, passion and courage.

I made this mistake. I applied in 2011 and had to purposefully flunk one of my exams to get into my insurance (Nottingham) because I decided I would rather go there than my firm. So glad I did!

His brains too fast for his body.

KZfaq why are you suggesting this NOW? I literally just sent mine in today >:(

When the horror film students have to film an interview

Got accepted to my first and only choice last week :D Though paying £9000 a year I think they would take most people..

"If in doubt, leave it out", excellent advice to redo the entrance exams in your own time and manner with a particular University and course intended. It's possibly better than stepping out of one school into another without real world experience. Ask.

Interesting points. Thanks for sharing this insight. I especially liked the logic of the last bit: it's the way either way.

That last point really checkmates the logic behind the UCAS system. This isn't even something that can be debated.

For my physics undergrad at Exeter my offer was A*AA but my friend's was AAB which I was always quite annoyed at. Furthermore, I got A*AB at A-Level but I was still accepted so I've wondered for quite a while why they bothered making my offer so high if they were accepting students with much lower grades anyway.

this is so true i know so many people who have got in unis they didn’t get anywhere near the grades for

Turns out, you need a PhD to figure out how to even APPLY get into university in the first place!

so some unis need A*AA and then there's manchester which wants A*A*A sigh

Man, I really wish I had access to 1st world countries education. Despite the difficulties, you all should be thankful for what you have. *I could listen to this professor for hours*

I did this, I had an AAA offer from the University of Durham for CS, and an ABB for the University of Kent - I put Kent as my Firm choice for various reasons. I'm at Kent and very happy.

Someone give this man a cookie!

This guy is absolutely right. You can model the UCAS admission rule in game theory and the logical behavior of the student should be as he reasoned - that which is called the Nash equilibrium.

The last point you made really helped me in my decision. The course I really wanted to do gave me a lowered offer due to the subjects I studied so it was my lowest offer anyway (BBC). My teacher took the head clean off me because my insurance was higher (AAB) but it didn’t matter that I didn’t have it the other way around cause if I didn’t get the grades BBC I wouldn’t qualify for any of the other courses I applied for.

I wasn’t expecting Brady’s voice at the end

My Nottingham physics offer is AAA which I'm pretty confident for, but it's always good to know they'll accept slightly lower. Kind of takes the pressure off a little that they'll probably take you with a B anyway.

5:45 I had exactly that, three years ago. I'm glad I put a low offer that I really wanted a a backup 'prestigious' university. (Despite what my careers counselor kept telling me: why is your high offer below!?)

Why is this filmed like a parody??

I close my eyes and listen to your voice and think of Dufrais from Facejacker

Why is this in my recommended things don’t work like this anymore

Speaking anecdotally. I applied for Computer Science to 5 universities and got 5 offers. Firm conditional: University of Bristol with A*AA offer. Firm insurance: University of Southampton with A*AA offer. I achieved grades AAA. Bristol rejected me and Southampton took me on. I think whether the University plays "the game" or not depends on how oversubscribed the course is - so don't gamble on it being the case.

particularly hard to do ucas when the servers are timing out every time i want to save.

I don't really have anything to add to the conversation, but I really want to thank the faculty of the University of Nottingham (Michael Merrifield and James Hamilton in particular) for engaging in discussion. You guys are adding enormous value to these channels by your participation. Thank you!

Gosh he is amazing! Exactly what a pre-med needs to hear :')

Here we do have two main nationwide tests, the SAT and the ACT. Each is divided into several parts (math, science, reading comprehension, writing, etc. ) We also have the SAT 2, which is more subject specific. You usually take these fall of your senior (last) year of high school, get the results in early winter, and mail them out with the rest of your application. You can get in a lot of places if you score decently, but many universities offer extra scholarships if you scored higher.

All very well, but Nottingham has been handing out unconditional offers (in some subjects) if you put them as your first choice, for at least the last 3 years.

Bear in mind accommodation. Usually if the university that you put down as a firm choice will more or less guarantee you a roof over your head usually in Halls of Residence. But with the tuition fees the price that they are and maintenance money that will be spent on university resources both for academic (Printing, Books) and pleasure (Alcohol and Haribo) It is still worth the university looking for private accommodation for their students. Going to your Insurance choice university. If you are quick you can swipe the accommodation that was assigned to a student who then failed to meet the grade conditions of their offer. If not you are kind of on your own in terms of arranging it and the help that offered in arranging accommodation for insurance choice applicants varies widely between universities. Some will operate their own internal letting agency with approved landlords. Some will just have a hastily updated websites of letting agencies within the city and outskirts and say youre classes start in September deal with it. (Maybe not the deal with it part exactly)

Just checked, Nottingham now makes A*AA offers for physics BSc.

You don't have to know. You can apply to up to 5 universities, so if grades are your issue, you can put down universities with a range of average offers. Or, if you don't know what you want to do subject-wise, many universities offer general arts/science degrees; Glasgow comes to mind. The vast majority of universities offer things like Natural Science to cover a wide range of topics. I'm sure others offer general degrees where you choose modules, much like america.

My high school was called UCAS (Utah County Academy of Science). Its an early collage high school that put me 2 years ahead when I went to collage. So I thought of something completely different from the title.

Next year I shall be starting the whole UCAS rollercoaster: this is an extremely comforting video.

sorry, I definitely lost it at the start when Mike lowered his head to the radio mike (my fault) but after that I thought it was okay?

Wish I knew this before I applied! Luckily I’ve got a place exactly where I want to go, but I would’ve been much less stressed out if I knew this earlier.

I truly admire your honesty sir.

Took your advice! The school had a field day. I did it, then told them after - no regrets as of yet (y)

In terms of education and academia I tend to believe The UK and Europe is leaps and bounds ahead of America. This is one aspect that baffles me though. Why not allow high school students just apply to as many universities as they see fit?

It's interesting to see how different the systems are in other countries. Here there's no gaming as you are accepted (or rejected) after you get your grades. No conditional "offers". I as a student check all the things I want in an ordered list and wait until I am accepted. I then confirm and that's final but I can still get a higher choice if enough people do not confirm (not confirming is the same as rejecting). If I'm still not in when the semester has started I can still get in if enough people did not show up/register by the first day.

Well, I'm not too sure about this, but from what I remember there's a certain amount of Students, that gets picked because they have the best grades (Its about 20%, I think), another 20% are chosen based on the time they have been "waiting" for the university place. The other 60% are chosen by the universitys own process. One reason for this process may be, that grades alone don't neccesarily tell much about a student, so the universitys may also consider things like the students interest etc.

Not convinced by the logic here XD There may be a 3rd university who is a perfectly good uni to put as your insurance that gave you a lower offer than the first two

Sorry this is more one for our UK viewers - but interested to hear from others!

It is a long time since I went to uni, but you don't HAVE to go to any uni. I didn't get my first choice first time and turned down my second choice. I took a year off, did 1 re-take and re-applied. Due to the vagaries of the system at the time I got a confirmed offer before I even did my re-take and then went to where I wanted to go in the first place. Don't go somewhere you don't want to go, ever. I am very glad I went to the place I wanted to.

This is really good advice. As a physics applicant this year, I've definitely had experience of this offer game.

Wow... Interesting, I hadn't considered this competitive aspect to conditional offers...

Don’t worry lads my firm offer was ABB and I got BCE and still got in. You’ll all be fine.

This video screams Uni of Manchester. A*A*A, the same as Oxbridge.

This is too confusing to think about. In the US you have up until the last two months of senior year to decide which offer to accept. You’d have to do exceptionally bad in your last semester to have an offer rescinded.

I'm a second Computer Science student in the UK and I'm still watching this

I said they were quite common when I went through UCAS, nothing about the time before that.

Wow thanks for that information, i didn't know that. honesty like this is what we need more often.

In Brazil you either have to take a test to enter universities (the grade you have to get on it and, at times, the contents of the test itself depends on your course of choice - the test is different for each instituition, it's made by the university itself) or take what we call ENEM (Portuguese for "National High School Exam") and, if your grade on it is good enough, use it to enter your university of choice.

I must thank you guys for making this video. It really is a public service to inform us of the behind the scenes politics that take place. So thank you.

I run a small cleaning company in London,why am I being inundated with graduates from major universities with STEM degrees for very menial jobs?Why are they not out earning mega bucks with their fancy degrees?

This happened when I went to university in the early 90s, and the result was that my department admitted students for whom the course was simply too difficult. Result: high dropout rate in first year.

I made the mistake of going for the better offer... In the US we have "in-state" and "out of state" tuition, depending on the location of the school and your state of residency. I had a four year offer of tuition, room and board, books, and meals at an in state school. I also got accepted to another school but would have had to pay a large amount of tuition. My guidance counselor and parents talked me into going for the free school. It made sense at the time.

I appreciate that and obviously you have been an example who in high school just didn't show your full potential, so in this case the gamble paid off. Most of the time though, it wouldn't. Taking students at lower grades usually means you get less intelligent/dedicated students. With you that wasn't the case but, with limited places available, it's still sensible to offer the places to the candidates with the best grades, because it's at least an indication that they are suited to further study.

Awesome, hope you enjoy it. I'm yet to go through the process myself actually but I've seen friends of mine get straight rejections, which is a little intimidating.

The system for specialist universities in the UK (or England, at least) is even worse. There are generally so few places for degrees such as medicine and because international students pay significantly higher fees, it's the norm that the university will accept almost exclusively international students. National students are very unlikely to get a place in their own country, and usually do degrees such as biomedical on empty promises of identical first years and reapplying next year.

I accepted Sheffield for AAA over Bristol for A*AA. Although I most likely will get the grades for both, I just preferred sheffield.

Both my firm and insurance ask for A*A*A (though my insurance only require A in math while my firm require A*)

Yes you can. That's what I did as Nottingham gave me a surprisingly low offer and it was the place I really wanted to go.

This is a bit I found confusing - I would be put off by high offers. I'm didn't apply to places with much higher offers than my predicted grades because I thought there's no point in accepting an offer I'm not going to get the conditions of and end up in clearing, and my friends thought the same. Surely they're going to lose applications this way by making their offers seem unattainable.

I've got an offer at Nottingham, looking forward to going!

I agree completely. In my case, though, the "better offer" didn't actually have the program of study I wanted. They had enough of a program so that it looked good to a casual observer, but for someone who researched the matter heavily, there was no comparison. (but I made it through without borrowing... so there's that.)

I'm not sure I would agree entirely with this. Definitely don't choose your first choice on the offer they give you, choose it on the place you would most like to go to. But then I would look at the offers you have with lower grades than your firm and decide which, if any, you would want to go to instead. That way you will always end up at a Uni you like. But never confirm a conditional offer unless you actually would like to study there.

I genuinely believe if your an optimistic person and are willing to make the best of uni you will find wherever you go just happens to be the best uni in the country I know I'm at the best uni in the country and when I put it on my form I didn't expect to firm it.

I went to Uni in 1999 and in all these years the UCAS situation is still a complete farse if, like me, you were a straight B student.

I actually did something like when I applied for uni where my insurance choice had the higher offer.

Around here we have the weighted average of the lowest grade of the last student to get in a course in the last year as a guideline. Basically, the students select several course choices based on that, and the universities accept their candidatures by ordering them in weighted averages of the grades (instead of letters we have 0 to 20), filling the available vacancies of the courses. The more students apply or the scarcer the number of vacancies, the higher the averages will get.

True but IIRC if you get the grades for your first choice you can either take it or not but you can't then choose your insurance uni - you would have to re-apply.

I think Dr. Merrifield makes one really solid piece of advice. Decide where you want to go to college first..

university of ZZZ doesnt sound too exciting

You apply to 5 and choose later when they give you the offers (still not a large number but better than 2)

thats a weird system. in Germany different universities can decide to use their own process. so some require you to send in a 2-page letter explaining why you want to study that specific subject at that specific university, then they grade the letter and that gets a weight of 1/3, your other grades get a weight of 2/3. and if you end up among the "near misses", you get called in to get quizzed by the department for half an hour.

ha ha - always good to hear how things work elsewhere!

I think that not only this helps students with making their choice in universities, but it is also a bit of an advertisement for the university of Nottingham (the videos in general being the advertisement), because though I don't live in the UK, I would like to go to the university of Nottingham, and I felt this way even before I saw this video, because I got the impression that the university was a very interesting place where a lot of amazing work is being done.

i knew this already tbh, is just common sense. look around your school and see that no one is really getting those grades but still getting into their firm

The advise about always putting a higher grade offer first was advice I certainly got, in the long run it hasn't mattered at all but it is a flaw

I've already graduated and now doing a phd in chemistry but I wish I had these videos when I did my a levels.

Just because something doesn't lead directly into a career, doesn't make it pointless (yes I know you said mostly). Studying for studying's sake is a valid thing to do and not necessarily a waste of time but uni is not for everyone and you should not be pushed into attending just because 'everyone' does. You should definitely consider other options as well.

In Sweden you just go to a website, put the educations you want to apply to (max 15, if I recall correctly (in order)) and eventually you'll get an e-mail letting you know if you got into any or not. There are 2 rounds of selections, first the primary and then the secondary (if people choose not to go in the primary, you get 1 higher spot/chance in the secondary). If this fails, there's also last minute applications, if people choose not to go last minute. Good luck finding apartment then tho...

I cannot like this enough. I love my current university, but I could have gone to several places that I'd have preferred to go to. Unfortunately, my careers person refused to allow me to apply to them because my predicted grades were not high enough.

In Ontario you rank your choices before you get offers and you never have to narrow it down and you aren't even bound to your higher choices. I just applied to a bunch, got accepted to a bunch and picked the one I wanted at the end. A lot simpler than the UK, though we don't have the complication of standardized tests (other than optional AP exams)