Not Getting into your First Choice University: Our UCAS and Results Day Stories

Written by Holly Hoy, Lucy Payne & Alice Spencer

With A-level results day and the start of a new academic year on the horizon, we decided to take a look back at our own personal journeys of applying for university last year. While we are all so grateful to be at Newcastle University now and loving it there, none of us originally chose it as our first choice. We hope that by reading our testimonies, current university students might be able to resonate with our stories and future students can find comfort in them if they experience the same thing. Our key takeaway from this is that you should look for the positives in your experience and it will always work out.

Each section in this article is written by either Alice, Holly or Lucy on their own personal experience.

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Not Getting The Offers You Wanted

Having been to many open days and doing lots of research, like most other students I applied to five universities with a variety of a level requirements. When I applied however, as much as I liked all of my university choices, I had a very definitive ranking in my head of which I genuinely wanted to go to and others which I was unsure about. Unfortunately, I didn't get offers from my top three choices meaning I was left with two offers for universities I was really unsure about.

Two of my applications I didn't expect offers from as the requirements were above my predictions so it didn't upset me too much when I got the email to check my UCAS and I didn't get in. Undeniably it didn't feel good experiencing a rejection when I never really had before, however it didn't knock me too much as I knew I didn't meet the requirements so I couldn't expect anything more. My rejection from my top choice however significantly affected me and I got into a very self-critical mindset thinking I wasn't good enough and hadn't worked hard enough.

At the time, all I could think about were the rejections I received and I didn't appreciate the fact I had got offers for the course I wanted to do from very reputable universities. As gutted as I was, I promised myself I would keep my options open by firming one of my offers as I still didn't want to take a gap year and I figured my opinion of the university could change over the summer. Looking back on this now, I am so grateful that I did this as when it came to results day I didn't do as well as I anticipated and so was very thankful to still be offered a place at my firm choice for the course I wanted to do. Despite all my hesitation and concerns about going, I am now loving it and don't know why I thought I didn't want to go! I think it is genuinely true what they say about it doesn't matter where you go to uni, you will love it no matter what and I couldn't be more grateful for the experiences I've had and the friends I've made over first year.

Looking back on the whole experience now, some advice I would give to myself or others going through the same thing would be:

• It will all work out ok - at the time you get the email saying you haven't got in to the university you want to, it can be absolutely devasting, however there are so many options available to you, there will always be a solution, whether that be to take a gap year, go through clearing or readjustment, or find another path into your chosen career such as an apprenticeship.

• Be open minded - sometimes you have to throw yourself in the deep end and do something you're slightly unsure about because you never know what will happen. Not getting those offers was probably a great thing for me as if I had then I wouldn't have made all the amazing friends and memories I have, and this blog would never have started!

• Focus on the achievements not the rejections - university is becoming increasingly competitive so you should be proud of any offers you get, I was so closed-minded on going to the one university I had my heart set on I didn't appreciate the other offers I got and what an achievement that was. Furthermore, don't be disheartened if you don't have any offers, as I said universities are so competitive now that it may simply be they don't have the space to accommodate one extra person and you could just be unlucky. Use this process as a learning curve to improve for the next round of applications or any other applications you make generally, for example contact the universities to question why you didn't get in and use this to improve for next time.

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Not Getting Into Your Firm Choice

If I could travel back in time to any day and speak with my younger self, I would travel back to A-level Results Day 2019 and tell myself that everything was going to work out just fine, even if it wasn't how I had strictly planned it out in my head or if it wasn't what others expected of me.

In terms of the universities I applied to, my sixth form college saw my GCSEs as high-achieving and encouraged me to apply to Oxbridge for Law. I was very uncertain about whether Oxbridge was truly for me, so when my application was rejected post-interview, I wasn't too disheartened as I hadn't had my heart set on it. However, the university I did have my heart set on had very high entry grades, and after a mix-up with one of my exams which resulted in a faculty-wide investigation and many students returning far lower grades than predicted, I failed to meet the grades to get into this university.

Going from being predicted very high grades and deemed a high-achiever to getting a set of grades lower than I had received in any set of mock exams was certainly a shock to the system. Furthermore, I was now going to a university that no-one, including myself, believed I'd end up at; I had hardly examined the accommodation choices I'd blindly made for Newcastle months before, and now I was potentially going to live there for the next three years.

If I could go back to the 15th August 2019, wipe away the (many) tears I shed that day, and give myself some words of advice, it would be the following:

• Your firm choice isn't necessarily the best choice - selecting your firm choice based on prestige and league table position works well for some, but this prioritises the after-effect of your degree and ignores the fact that you have to spend three years at your chosen uni. Of the nine universities I visited, I selected Newcastle as my insurance choice because it was the open day I enjoyed the most; I felt welcomed and at-home in Newcastle, but aspirations of a university ranking higher in the tables put it in second place. In reality, Newcastle could not have been a better fit for me, and in hindsight, for so many reasons, I wish I had placed it first all along.

• Missing out on your firm choice is nothing to be ashamed of - of my large friendship group at home, I was one of only two people to miss out on their firm choice university, with many of my friends getting unbelievable grades and going to the top universities across the country. Whilst this did make me feel inadequate and ashamed, when I arrived at uni and shared my experience with others, it turned out so many had been through the same thing. It is so easy to paint the expectation in your head to get X grades and go to Y university without any hiccups, and for some people this is what happens, but the reality is that most people do get one unexpected grade or two and miss out on the university they were planning on attending.

• Wherever you end up, you will have the time of your life - linking to the following section, everything truly does happen for a reason. University is an amazing experience if you open yourself up to it; had I ended up at my firm choice university, I would not have met the people who I regard as some of the most special in my life, and I certainly would not have been the person I am today - so embrace opportunity, wherever you end up!

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Moving Away from Home Unexpectedly

Image: http://www.foundationyear.sg/

I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, and I feel like my personal university journey perfectly reflects that.

To cut a long story short, during my UCAS application I applied for my home city university as my first choice and put Newcastle University as my second choice. In all honestly, Newcastle was my absolute favourite of all the universities I had visited; I fell in love with the city, the campus and just the overall feel of the university. However, it felt impractical for me to move away when I had such a well regarded university in the city I lived in, meaning I could live at home and save money on accommodation.

Fast forward to results day, and I was gutted. I had not achieved the grades I needed to get into my first choice university, and I was convinced that there was no way Newcastle would accept me either. I was offered a revised offer by my first choice to study philosophy instead of law, however I knew that this was not what I wanted to do and I would be doing myself an injustice if I decided to take the offer. As a result, I rejected the offer, only to then be accepted by Newcastle to study law a few minutes later.

It was then that it dawned on both myself and my family that I would have less than a month to prepare for moving to a completely new city. Given that I was expecting to live at home, there were so many steps that I had to take, including changing my student loan and finding accommodation. In recognition of this, here is some advice I would give to those in a similar position to myself:

• Don't panic about changing your student loan - Student Finance are prepared that there will be many students whose situations have changed after receiving their results. Apply to change your application as soon as you can, but be patient waiting for confirmation that your loan has been changed.

• Make sure you do your research on both students halls and private accommodation - I originally applied to live in university run student halls at Newcastle, and listed my top three options of which accommodation I would like to live in. Unfortunately, I did not receive any of my three options and was given accommodation that I personally could not see myself living in. Because of this, I decided to live in private student halls, however we had not done enough research in advance and so it was a massive panic trying to find somewhere before they all became booked up. I would therefore advise anyone that, even if you don't mind which student halls you live in, it doesn't hurt to research private accommodation just in case and to make sure you're thoroughly knowledgeable on all the accommodation there is on offer.

• Try and get in contact with other people on your course or in your accommodation before you move - Before I left for university, I was added to group chats for both my course and my accommodation. These chats or social media pages are there to help you find and connect with other people, so use them! Remember that everyone else will be feeling the same as you, so try and get to know others to help you feel more comfortable and ready to meet people when you finally move to uni.

• Make sure you like the place you are moving to - This might seem fairly obvious, but it's amazing the amount of people I have met at Newcastle that moved to the city with no prior knowledge of the city or university. This doesn't mean that you have to necessarily visit the place (however I do highly recommend this), but just make sure you've done your research. Get in touch with current students, research the culture and history of the place and make a definitive decision on whether this is the place for you. Remember that you will spend at least the next three years of your life there, and so it should be somewhere you're sure you will like!

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All three of us had very different UCAS experiences and as mentioned, none of us got into the universities we wanted to, however we all love it up in Newcastle and wouldn't dream of being anywhere else! Furthermore, although none of us got the a level grades we hoped for and were really disappointed, we have all done amazingly in first year of uni getting five 1:1s and seven 2:1s between us across our 4 modules.