My daughter received offer from Kings and St. Andrews in December and LSE and UCL in February. All offers were conditional in the sense that she was required to send in evidence of her self-reported AP or SAT scores.
Hello! I’m new here…have a daughter applying to the UK - she is half British/half American…but at an international American school in Paris. I’m concerned at her grades and application as I see a lot here have very high achievers! She has already AP’s at 5443 (the latter being from Sophomore year) and is taking 4 more this year, but needs two at 5…teachers give their predictions this week, but worried that she won’t get the predictions she needs. Her SAT was good but nowhere near what a couple of her Uni choices need, therefore I’m wondering if she should still apply (one being KCL) I don’t want her to waste her application! She has also done one SAT subject test and got 680 and awaiting another result this week which she hopes to get over 700 in. She is applying for Law so has to do the LNAT for 3 of her choices which is tomorrow…yikes! Any offers of advice is helpful for this worried parent!
Not sure what advice would help! she’ll either meet the requirements or not. If she is classified as international fee paying that could help a bit, but it sounds as if she will be UK/EU fees. Too late to do any more prep for the LNAT.
So, main advice is for her to choose the actual course(s) she applies to carefully: the closer it is to a real fit with her interests and abilities the better her PS will be, and the more her LoR can reflect that (btw, be sure that whoever writes the LoR has read the UCAS post about what they look for in the LoR)- and the more likely she will be to enjoy it if/when she gets there!
@Funniestgirl Best wishes to your daughter today on the LNAT. I’m not familiar with Law programs, but a little research may find a school or two that is OK with both 4’s and 5’s on the AP exams.
Thank you! she will work it out 
The school college counselor has a lot of experience with UK applications, so I know she has it right. She has done several practice tests…not much more she can do now!
UGH…we spent over 4 hours at the test centre and left without doing the test as their system was down. What a way to deflate her confidence.
oh @Funniestgirl that is terrible! Have they said what they will do?
I have to call again tomorrow - hopefully they will fit her in on Friday but that means she will miss 2 days of school this week! Also her predictions were less than stellar (last year she was predicted a 3 in english language and ended up with a 5!) her Eng Lit teacher (same one as last year) predicted her a 4 this year, others a 4 and a 5…really need another 5 though…UGH!
Forgot to mention she will be International not UK applicant - we have not resided in the UK or Europe for more than 3 years prior to applying.
More good news. Unconditional from Durham. Looks like there’s a trip in our future to compare these amazing schools. A Happy Thanksgiving indeed!
Congrats @CuriousInCincy
Durham was actually my favorite campus we visited but ultimately the program wasn’t right for D17. But the colleges are just lovely and the cathedral small city feel- wow.
Super news, @CuriousInCincy!! Durham is great. Y’all are going to have some fun 
Oh my! that’s fantastic…that is my daughter’s No.1 choice…do you mind me asking what her offer was and what her predictions are? My daughters LNAT went well (so she said) but she is very depressed about her predictions but still wants to apply to Durham, she thinks the college counselor will tell her to not apply. I’m praying for a miracle for her!
@Funniestgirl He is American, so we did not have predicted scores. His AP exams are considered equivalent to A-levels, and he took four of them last year. He had three 5’s and one 4, plus a score of 31 on the standardized ACT exam. Those scores exceed the minimum requirements, so his offer was unconditional. He wrote a killer personal statement, too.
just fyi, Americans applying with APs scheduled for the coming year have to provide predicted grades. If your son is taking any APs this year, there would have been (should have been!) predictions on his UCAS form. That he already met the requirements just rendered them superfluous.
In the US GCs don’t tend to worry about the predictions, and are often happy to take the student’s own prediction. To them, the only risk is to the student: a prediction of a ‘5’ can lead to an offer that requires a ‘5’, and if the student doesn’t achieve the mark, they can lose their place.
But in the UK (and other international) schools take predictions very seriously: schools work hard to get and keep a reputation for accuracy. University offers are almost all made on predictions, and the universities really don’t like having to rescind offers when students don’t make their offer. So, if a school has too many students not meet their predictions, it can affect the willingness of universities to make offers to that school’s students. Obviously, the more competitive the school and the university the more this applies.
So, you have teachers, like @Funniestgirl’s daughter’s English teacher who, despite getting it wrong last year (3 predicted, 5 achieved for Lang) has predicted a 4, not a 5 for the same student in Lit. The problem is, that low prediction can keep her from getting an offer. Every year you see a certain number of students whose achieved marks are enough better than their predictions that they take a gap year and apply to better programs.
Thanks for the clarification. He did, indeed, list this year’s AP courses/exams. Glad that what he had already was deemed sufficient!
My daughter applied to 5 UK universities last year and left all her AP and IB predicted scores blank, her g.c just said “we don’t do that”. Only one of the five universities came back and asked for predicted scores. Durham, Edinburgh, St Andrews and York all made either conditional or unconditional offers without predicted scores. Bath got predicted scores and rejected her. We do not lnow what was predicted. She did get a 5 on AP Chem which is her major but I don’t know if her chem teacher predicted a 5.
^^that’s where achieved scores (& possibly international status) makes the difference
“But in the UK (and other international) schools take predictions very seriously: schools work hard to get and keep a reputation for accuracy. University offers are almost all made on predictions, and the universities really don’t like having to rescind offers when students don’t make their offer.”
Actually the’re well used to students not getting their predicted grades. They make more offers than they expect places to offset that; and there’s also a thing which used to be called Clearing and is now Adjustment in the days after UK A level results come out where those who didn’t quite fulfil their offers see where else they can get in at the last minute.