University / Scholarship Application not random?

I know there's certain skills involved for the degree especially the distinguished degree's i think if you have lvl 3-4 in different skills you'll be accepted to certain degree's.

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.

Yes I know that, but the point is that when I return to an old save point my sim still has 0 skill points, but all the application results are EXACTLY the same as the previous times I tried. If the results of getting accepted in to certain distinguished majors are truly random, going back to a save from before your application and applying again should yield a different result, or at least a slightly different one.

They are if your sim has any, but if your sim has 0 they still have a 5/20 chance of rolling in to any distinguished major. 10/20 if they had an A grade as teens. So that means my sim has a 50/50 for any of them, and therefore should roll random ones on different tries!

Strange. When my sims apply, the distinguished degrees they get accepted to depend on their skills. I have all new non-story sims get into none of the distinguished degrees...

My sim does have a High School A grade, that doubles her chances from 5/20 to 10/20 according to all of the guides I could find. Regardless of my attempts she was accepted at generally 5 to 6 of the 13 distinguished degrees. I still wonder why a new application from an old save rolls the exact same options on both degrees/scholarships though.

I didn't think there was anything random about it lol

From what you describe the numbers seem to get rolled even before the sim applies for uni the first time, probably upon loading the game for the first time after installing DU. Only after this set of numbers gets used during the first uni application does the rng list refreshed.
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.

"EnkiSchmidt;c-17383722" wrote:
From what you describe the numbers seem to get rolled even before the sim applies for uni the first time, probably upon loading the game for the first time after installing DU. Only after this set of numbers gets used during the first uni application does the rng list refreshed.

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!

"AlHollandiyah;c-17389283" wrote:
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!

That is something I definitely need to keep in mind for the future. I often do playthroughs where I want my sims not to excel, but produce varied results, so I need to remind myself to keep them from skilling even after they've sent their appliccation.

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.

@AlHollandiyah
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