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University / Scholarship Application not random?
AlHollandiyah
Posts: 1,121 Member
I have made a sim which I want to enroll in to university, and she got accepted in to certain distinguished majors which didn't include the one I was after. Now I could have worked on a skill and then try again, but A] I didn't want to loose a week of her YA life and B] I was curious what happened if I tried again. So I went back to a previous save, applied again, and got exactly the same results. Then I went back even further, to a save where she hadn't even moved in to town, and again the exact same results.
A day later I tried again and got a different result, but still not the one I wanted, and by now I wanted to see what it took to get a different one, so I tried again. Same result. Old save from yesterday, same result as the other tries today. Relaunching the game didn't make a difference. On top of that all of the sudden she got a Nope for the residency scholarship all of the sudden. So I tried re-applying for that by loading an old save and, again, same results.
So I am wondering if there is some kind of mechanism where the actual date/time are involved in whether or not your sim is accepted in certain majors or scholarships. Does anybody know?
A day later I tried again and got a different result, but still not the one I wanted, and by now I wanted to see what it took to get a different one, so I tried again. Same result. Old save from yesterday, same result as the other tries today. Relaunching the game didn't make a difference. On top of that all of the sudden she got a Nope for the residency scholarship all of the sudden. So I tried re-applying for that by loading an old save and, again, same results.
So I am wondering if there is some kind of mechanism where the actual date/time are involved in whether or not your sim is accepted in certain majors or scholarships. Does anybody know?
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For example, I had a sim who lvled up programming, handiness, and robotics to lvl 3 before applying to uni and when she enrolled she was able to enroll into Foxbury's computer science distinguished degree program.
As for schloarships, i think there random i've had sims in same conditions apply and some got scholarships and some didn't
I don't think it has anything to do with date or time but i could be wrong.
That's just my basic understanding of the process, of course and it's counter-intuitive, but not unusual. A recent example would be FE: Three Houses rolling examination results the week BEFORE the exams, so no amount of loading the exam day will change anything about the results.
I think you are probably right, it is the only feasible explanation for running the exact same result each time you go back to the fresh and unplayed save. If there wasn't a static random number involved there would have to be at least a little variation in the results.
After running into the infamous "term paper doesn't count" bug I had another couple of tries to get back in to university with a new save, and to my surprise I kept rolling a complete undistinguished application time and again. Then I was thinking about it, and in the previous time I spent the (looooooong, yawn) day waiting for my results grinding the Research & Debate skill as much as I could to make her be able to do her homework faster. And this time I wanted to pick a Major that included R&D and level it during classes.
So that lead me to the conclusion that apparently skills gained AFTER application still count towards said application, which means that getting some skills before applying is NOT necessary to make them count!
It would be interesting to find out up to when or at what moment the actual skills are counted in, but right now I am more interested in getting my sim to retry the lost term, so if other people have tried this out please share it here as well!
Skills figure in far too much in my opinion anyway. It shouldn't be possible for a sim to miss a lecture and the finals, but still get an A+ in that class, yet one of mine pulled that off. And with a mere skill rating of six. One of these days I should enroll a high-skilled sim and simply do nothing uni-related at all just to see what happens.
I like to start my potential University Sims as teens. That gives them time to gain skills to qualify for scholarships.
I usually apply for the Location-Based scholarship first and see if my Sim is accepted then go for other ones.
You might be interested in reading more about degrees here:
The Sims 4 Discover University
Degrees, Scholarships List and Applying for College
https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/expansionpacks/discoveruniversity/degrees.php
EQ
Does anyone know if your traits boost your chances at all?
The residency scholarship though, that's got to be totally random. My Sims who live in the same house don't all get that one.
That was skill building done AFTER application, because I had her apply in the first minute of gameplay and therefore she had 0 skills at the time. This means you don't have to waste time skilling, then applying and then waiting, but can apply and build the skills while waiting. I think thats a huge benefit, as I hate to waste sim time twiddling my thumbs for nothing.
@nerdfashion My game is very glitchy, so it could be a bug for me, but I think there is a rare chance. I checked the save that has these two students and one is in the distinguished degree for Art History. She's studying without a single skill in painting or anything remotely related lol. She has 2 cooking skill points and a few 1 point skills which came after she was waiting. She was mostly just sleeping and eating while waiting. I have no idea how she got into that program, but it makes me laugh. Actually, I found three low skilled Sims in distinguished degrees. My other two Sim are in Communications and Psychology, but one of them bribed his way in I just can't remember which one.
The reason I don't think it's a glitch is that if I level up to 5 points, I got multiple distinguished degree options, whereas these Sims just had only the one distinguished degree option.
The Carl Sims website seems to say that you start out with a small chance, 5/20 chance, for a distinguished degree and then your chances get multiplied or reduced, based on various things like high school grades, skill levels, fame etc.. So if you have a C or an F in high school, the multiplier drops below zero and drags your chances down a lot or if you fail at an action to improve your chance. If you level to 3+ points on a skill, your chances for the related degree double, which make sense why you then get a few options for related degrees.
Here's the chart if anyone is interested, the multiplier bonus is the same for all the degrees, but the skills are different per degree:
When I am talking about a high level Research I actually mean anywhere between 7 or 10. It is interesting to try out what skill unlocks what, but I am currently running a lot of tests for another bug. If soneone has more data on this please share them with us.
Also you said that the wait is 3 days. I find that odd. I've had a lot of retries trying to kickstart my actual game and I've found that after exactly 24h of either the application or the scholarship form the computer will be able to tell you the result. The mail nearly always arrives at the first chance after that.
It's only 24 hours? Why does it feel like a few days to me lol, but I don't check the computer actually, I just wait for the letters. I didn't know you could check on the computer! I learn something every time I read this topic lol.
Maybe it's like the triplets? Have you ever had them? I have never got them even with adding all the lot and fertility traits, fertility massages, watching the kids channels etc, I followed all the rules but have never got them, but I've read elsewhere that it depends how many times you make Sims pregnant with twins, then the chances go up. So if you send off a lot of unskilled Sims to Uni, maybe then you see a few with the chance for a Distinguished degree? I don't know, but I hope it isn't a bug, it was a fun surprise to see the one distinguished degree option.
Then at around 10ish or so the mail arrives. I waited for the mail a couple of times and only once it skipped a second day. The other times I just enrolled straight after checking at the laptop.
Offtopic, I did have triplets a number of times in my 100 baby challenge. I don't know what makes the scale tip though, there weren't even lot traits back then. You're bound to get them eventually. In TS3 it helps if you give the father the fertility trait too, but I don't know if the same goes for TS4.
I tried, I applied in the morning, but I didn't get the result until the 3rd day and for another Sim until after two days. I don't know maybe I should apply earlier in the morning, I'm not sure when the mail time cutoff is, but it doesn't matter really, 2 or 3 days is okay since I can work on the skills anyway. offtopic sorry, but I will try to add the fertility trait to the father too, I didn't think of that, thank you!!