26 May 2021
Mrs Bodil Chambers, Head of Higher Education & Careers
All university decisions are now in for our Upper Sixth students and there is much to celebrate. They aimed high with their applications – for example, 82% of all UK applications were to Russell Group universities. Almost half of Upper Sixth students received offers from all five of their choices with 80% receiving at least four offers. Despite an increasingly competitive applications landscape, with more 18-year-olds, an increased percentage of year-on-year university applicants, and universities reporting higher levels of actual and predicted grades, we saw increased offer rates from top universities including Durham, Edinburgh (pictured) and St Andrews.
That said, applications to London universities received mixed results this year. Media speculation is that this is due to students applying closer to home as a result of the pandemic. We will watch this trend closely. Medicine was also extremely tough this year for a number of reasons, not least because of the number of 2020 school leavers applying with top grades. In spite of this, two of our students have accepted offers to study medicine at UCL and Southampton respectively, and one student to study veterinary medicine at Liverpool, all highly competitive universities.
Our Upper Sixth has also seen huge success in applications to North America, with offers from MIT, Cornell, University of Toronto, Parsons School of Art amongst others. More Woldingham students applied to international universities this year and, with a great deal of interest among Lower Sixth students, this is a trend likely to continue.
Popular subject choices this year include modern languages, media & communication, computer science, philosophy, biomedical science and accounting & finance. As always, these choices represent beautifully the wide range of talent and interest among our students. The Upper Sixth have until 10 June to make their firm and insurance choices. It is then on to results day when we hope they will see their firm choices turn into places.
Good luck Woldingham Upper Sixth. You have been a wonderful year group to work with in the most challenging of years and you deserve every success!