New Batch of Year 13 parents this way!

Oh no Catslife, that must be frustrating, and worrying. Hope you can get it sorted and still manage to get away.
DD today is on homework and Oxford essay writing so hopefully she can get the bulk of it done and out the way and then spend some time relaxing this week (in between shifts at work and her driving test!)
Hope everyone else in half term this week has a good one, especially those who’ve managed to get away.

Posting as this thread has disappeared from TIO and also has moved down the Further Ed board.
It's half term here now and we are a bit frustrated. We were due to be going away but are still at home as our car (supposed to be very reliable) has broken down and (possibly) been broken into while parked outside our house!
Although it's encouraging to hear that some of your dcs have uni offers already, I don't think it's anything to worry about if they haven't heard yet given that there are so many different options.

Congratulations Shanghai.

Thanks for the clarification. It seems that everyone DD knows who has sent their UCAS form in early is getting offers already. As she is applying for medicine she won't hear anything for ages, might not even get invited for interviews, and hasn't heard from her fifth choice. I feel sad for her that she will probably have to wait until clearing before she knows where she is going, and all her friends will already know.

The form is in. Just waiting in reference now. Her first choice said they start replying ASAP so fx.

Apologies for confusion, Ds is taking the IB so all his offers are in terms of points. He received a standard offer of 36, a level equivalent is AAA.

shanghai congratulations on the offer.
mrsdragon thanks for the info about references. It is very helpful.

Dd has had feedback on her PS which was mostly fine with a few tweaks needed. She has until after half term to get it done and then her tutor will complete the reference and send it off. So it should go in at the beginning of November.
That seems late compared to many of you but Ds's didn't go off until the middle of December a couple of years ago so I am not too concerned.

Thanks Kitten

Sorry for sounding thick, but what does 36 points represent. Doesn't Bath ask for grades?

Lost you all.
Congrats on the offers.
Dd1 is putting in her application tonight. Hoping for offers without interviews as it’s not so easy to trek around the country now I’m working.

Congratulations Shanghai, it's a long drawn out process for the early starters but at least you get to see something happening.

MsAwesomeDragon Thank you for the other view of writing the reference. DS said his tutor said that she's done it. To him that means job done, to me that means it's passed along the chain. His tutor is new in September so if it was a solo production she would struggle. They don't know about his work experience, voluntary work, stuff he does outside college but that's why he put it in his PS.

Ds has his second offer - 36 points from Bath.

Only one reference from school is sent through to UCAS. What most schools do is get each subject teacher to write something (I've written 250 words about each pupil I taught in y12), then the form tutor/head of sixth form/whoever is actually responsible puts those together into one coherent reference of the right length. The official reference from my school generally consists of a paragraph about the general aptitude of the young person for the course they are applying for, then a paragraph about each subject (the most relevant subjects have the longest paragraphs), finished off by a paragraph about relevant work experience/voluntary work and a different aspect of why they would do well in the subject they are applying for.

I know that of the many words I've written, only a couple of sentences will actually make it into each reference. That's because a) none of them are applying for mathsy subjects and b) the other maths teacher they had is much better at writing references than I am, so they'll use his sentences rather than mine. It all seemed a bit pointless as I was writing them, but I do know they are useful really.

At ds's school each teacher wrote a reference and then the student counsellor combined them into one reference which was submitted on the form. Ds also not allowed to see reference so not sure how well this worked.

I’m pretty sure there’s a subject reference from each teacher plus a general one from form tutor/head of year.
DD hasn’t seen any of hers, but there were very comprehensive comments for each teacher on her end of year 12 report so I’m guessing they were used as the basis of subject ones.
Her form teacher asked DD for a list of things to include in her reference - basically all the extra curricular stuff that dd couldn’t fit on her PS.
So we have a pretty good idea of what they all looked like.

All of DD's subject teachers wrote a reference.

As far as I know the school only did one for ds1. He had others from work experience placements that he had to ask for as well though but they were uni specific.

DD has seen her references. They were all really positive.

DD's school not only let them see their reference but one form tutor let the DC make any changes they wanted too!

I haven't seen DDs though. I would very much like to, but can't decide how or when to approach asking!

help.ucas.com/contract13/index.html

Right at the bottom, apply to UCAS, costs £10. It would be easier to ask college to show what they wrote seeing as the student can get to see it anyway.