Do university unconditional offers kill ambition?

It’s A-level year here in Woods Towers and, yes, every bit the barrel of laughs our bruised and bloody friends assured us it would be. Panic, lethargy and denial. Heroic quantifies of popping candy-flavoured Dairy Milk. Weepiness. Shouting. And that’s just me.

My 17-year-old seems far more together – but then she’s holed up in her bedroom 23 hours a day.

My husband occasionally expresses concern that she’s lying in bed watching Netflix, but I reassure him she’s really very busy. Why, every time she emerges for a meal or to slam a door, she’s got a lovely new hairstyle and different make-up.

My daughter and I have visited cities across the country, checking out the library facilities and the boys.

Her university application will be submitted shortly and, as I got Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo to knuckle down and write her personal statement, I have high hopes.

So it was with genuine dismay that I learnt unconditional offers – every teen’s top fantasy – are not all they’re cracked up to be.

At present, a quarter of A-level students receive at least one firm offer of a place, regardless of their results, although it’s been proven that these lead to lower grades.

Of course they do. There isn’t a teenager who wouldn’t opt for leisurely, feet-up cruise control, rather than Herculean effort and all-nighters.

But it gets worse. This new data shows that the firm offer of a university place leads to an increased rate of attrition among those students, who are 10 per cent more likely to drop out than their peers.

That’s terrible. Isn’t that terrible? But not so terrible I don’t want my daughter to get at least one unconditional offer. Preferably an entire fistful.

For my benefit, rather than hers. I don’t know about her, but I’d love to kick back and stop stressing. As long as she stays in her room, that is, and I don’t have to share my chocolate.