does anyone know anything about Engineering admissions

[catwoo]

I and DS know absolutely nothing about all this. He is going into Y13 and fancies doing engineering.
He is at a selective and got 2A*, 5As,3Bs at GCSE
at AS A maths (20 UMS above grade boundary) A chemistry (25 UMS above grade boundary) Physics B ( 1 ums below grade boundary for an A - one disasterous module which teacher has said he should retake)
Predicted A2 grades A* A A
Don't suppose his PS will be anything amazing. He has done 2 lots of engineering type work experience and interested in aerodynamics but struggling to think what else to put
What would be a realistic range of Unis to apply to?
Any advice very gratefully received

Thanks

What type of engineering does he want to do? It is usually easy to get a place but more tricky to get a place at a decent uni. As long as his maths is good he should be ok. Engineering degrees are about half maths so check he is happy with this.

Hi, both my DS are into engineering too.
DS1 started at Southampton last year studying a 4 year MEng Aerospace course. He really loves it, but it is very hard work.

Has your DS been to many open days yet? With his predicted grades he could look at just about anywhere I should think. Where has he liked?

We found the Times University Guide a good starting point, but there are lots of other tables out there too. From them, DS went onto the websites to see what each covered, then chose 3 in the top 10 and 3 lower down the table, he visited them all and made his choices based on that. TBH there were only 3 that he was really interested in, and he had done residential engineering courses at 2 of them so already knew what they were like.

But please tell your son, do not under-estimate the workload from the top Unis. The Southampton website gives a good breakdown of the work required, each semester they are expected to put in up to 1200 hours work, between lectures and personal study, in his halls, his workload was only comparable to those studying medicine.

I have an Honours and a Masters in Engineering, you have to be good at Maths and willing to work. It is a while (couple of decades) since I finished so don't know if they still do this but I did a sandwich degree and I felt this really help get my first job.

Have a look at what institution accreditation the courses have (eg with the IMechE, ICE etc). This can make a difference to being chartered later.

Also have a look and see whether the courses are specialised from day 1 or whether you can do a general engineering bit before choosing. The different disciplines aren't really like anything he will have done at school.

Would he be interested in spending some time abroad? At some universities you can do Erasmus without having a language, and that can look good on a CV later.

Have a look at how practical vs theoretical courses are and what, if any, links with industry they have.

It might be worth having a look at the graduate recruitment sites for some of the big engineering companies (who run schemes to get you chartered quickly) and see which universities they recruit from- they will probably list which recruitment fairs they attend.

Those are good grades, so think of where he would like to go and see what they list as their usual requirements.

And yes, it is a lot of work. I did 9-5 every day, with regular course work on top, for 4 years to get a straight through masters degree (so just MEng, no BEng first). Compared with friends reading English who had 2 hours of non compulsory lectures (we had registers!) and 1 tutorial a week, with 1 or 2 essays a term!

Thankyou very much for your very helpful answers.DS is quite interested in southampton .
two further questions.On another thread people are saying that for RG universities GCSE results are important?
Alsao have been looking at the 'unistats' website.Do you know whether the totl UCAS points listed include things like general studies and music exams? I hope so! some courses are saying the average score is 600!!!

From looking at uni requirements this year with DS2, I have not found any uni stating they require more than 5 A-C inc English for engineering courses requiring AAA to AAB at A2, although I am sure there must be some out there.

Having said that, like all competitive courses they will be massively over subscribed and I don't know whether any will use GCSE grades as a first cut. My current thinking is to get DS to contact the unis direct and ask.

By the way, southampton has an open day tomorrow (Tuesday) if your DS is interested. DS1 is taking DS2 to visit.

If the university makes offers based on points, you really need to look at the fine print.

General Studies and Critical Thinking is usually excluded.

Many courses will specify the points all have to come from A2s.

If he is predicted to get A*-B in his A2s, I think it is better to go for one of the traditional engineering disciplines - Electrical, Mechanical, Civil or Chemical. A university with a common first year provides an excellent grounding, before settling on your specialism in the second year. Engineers have to work in multi-functional teams so having a basic education in each discipline is a real advantage. He can pick up aeronautical as a graduate.

Unistats is a good site.

A quote of 600 points does not mean that's the offer. Universities in this league offer on A2 grades, not points.

It might happen that a student like your son will have 380 points of his predictions pan out. He might end up with another 60 for an AS, 75 for each grade 8 distinction, etc, but these will not factor in the offer.

It's not really possible, in practicality, to get 600 points for A2, and the highest offer I have seen quoted is AAA, which is only 400 points. A student in this league may have another 120 points from AS, 60 from ABRSM exams and a few more from an extended project, which might, with a following wind, add up to 600 points. IB students can offer up to 720 points.

DS1 is at Brunel University doing Aeronautical Engineering with Pilot Studies. It's a 5 year sandwich course.

It's a lot of hard work, but he is loving it.

One more thing - his personal statement has to be amazing. Don't worry about extra-curricular stuff and hobbies. He needs to communicate his passion for engineering. He needs to talk about why he wants to be an engineer, what has inspired him, and why he thinks he will be a good engineer.

If he wants to bring in music, he needs to say what transferable skills this shows, such as perseverance, attention to detail, working in a team, reliability, communicating and adapting etc.

I dont know much about university admissions at the moment (all changed since I went!) but I wanted to second the poster above who said to do a more general engineering degree and specialise later as a graduate. This is what I did, and I actually ended up switching what area I specialised in as after lots of study I realised that I preferred a different area :) a more general degree will be much more useful in the long run.

Engineering is a great degree and although it's hard work, it'll make him very employable. Plus it's very interesting :)

He needs a good personal statement - focus on his interest in engineering but also what he will get out of university life - music, sports etc.