Year 12 - 2024/25 - Support, Discussion and Looking After Each Other

Well he passed the theory test - somehow! I may have to buy a lottery ticket as a few good things have happened today so it might be my lucky day 😂

I have also booked the Bristol Open Day in June. DS still seems fairly set on a London university but seeing the great sports facilities at some of the campus universities may change his mind.

Like JessyCarr's daughter DS' work motivation is the hope of a well regarded/high ranked university for his under graduate degree.

That sounds so frustrating @Tebheag - just like nagging them to revise for GCSE's was. Is your son enjoying his subjects? He may be doing some work and revision but just keeping quiet about it. His friends' claims of eight hours a day seems excessive though. Best of luck to him for his Core Maths and mocks. Best of luck to all our DC for their upcoming exams.

Aaaah pulling my hair out DS has not touched a college book never mind actually revising for mocks or Core Maths AS next month. Just told me about mates doing 8 hrs a day !! Been nagging him today to start get OK but never starts. Git day off tomorrow so can nagg non stop till he starts 😂

@Waspie hope he does well DS used the app had to do a few hazard perception tests to get the hang of them, passed first time luckily.
Finally found an old banger took DS out for first time last night he has been out a few times with his dad.

I am another one breathing a sigh of relief that revision seems to be capable of happening without my steering it. DD is very motivated to get high predictions so is not needing to be hauled out of bed and actively separated from her phone.

If she wants help with a particular topic we’ll still sit down and brainstorm it together, but it’s nothing like GCSE where I had to take time off work to hover and chivvy in order to ensure anything got done!

Thanks @BlackBean2023. I have said that if he fails this theory test he will have to pay for the next one. That's motivating him to do mock tests this morning!

Good luck to your daughter too, both for the mocks and her theory test. Four plus EPQ must have been a vast amount of work. I hope she's finding the work load a little easier now that she has dropped the EPQ.

I agree regarding self-motivation. DS revises daily now and is in a good routine. He has a timetable for revision, notes write up, essays as well as his extra curricular activities. I'm quietly impressed as this time last year his GCSE revision was somewhere between chaotic and non-existent! .

It's revision-tastic here too. DS has his mocks in two weeks. Like JessyCarr's daughter they will form the basis of his predicted grades. He also has to have the first draft of his Literature NEA first essay in by the end of May.

He has his driving theory test today so yesterday was spent studying for this. I'm not sure he'll pass given that yesterday was the first time he even opened the app on his phone 🙄

(edited for typo)

DS has got 7 AS level papers to sit over the course of the 2 weeks before half term.

Those grades will go on his UCAS application and form the basis of his predicted A level grades. He’s doing about 6 hours of revision each day but still going to his evening clubs which I’m pleased about.

Yes, it’s revision central here too, @BlackBean2023. Exams in 2 weeks form the basis of predicted grades, and then school wants to see everyone’s draft UCAS forms by late June/early July for review. It’s all looming very large!

For anyone interested Warwick Open days in June are now available to be booked: Undergraduate Open Days at the University of Warwick

I’m going to be a bit controversial and say that I don’t think that UCAS discovery days are at all helpful (other than if you want tonnes of free pens and key rings and notebooks and the like).

All information about university applications is easily found on a university website. The people from Universities who attend UCAS discovery days are marketing people rather than departmental people. However professional and helpful those marketing people are, they don’t give out any departmental information beyond what is on a university’s website.

I'm hoping DS can get this kind of insight from the Discovery Day too. At the moment we have open days pencilled in for LSE and St Andrews (virtual), Exeter, Bristol, Warwick, UCL, KCL, Birmingham, Oxford and Cambridge - basically any university offering his course within a 2 hour train journey! I would like to prune some of these to a more sensible number.

Glad to hear the UCAS discovery days are helpful. Our local one isn't until June, so a bit to wait.
School are doing a mini version at the end of the month with "local" unis (Yorks/Lancs/NE/Central Scotland) and local businesses who provide post 18 apprenticeships (NHS/council/Forces/IT/finance/etc)
I'm hoping this will give DS some focus as to his next steps 🤞

Ah I see - yes, it’s useful that they can get this sort of insight at the UCAS events so that they can be really strategic about which unis to visit.

We’ve not been yet. We got the open day booked but he’s decided that the maths there is not as highly regarded there as at the other options that have overtaken Exeter

What put him off about Exeter, @Muchtoomuchtodo? We had a great visit there.

After attending a UCAS discovery day, DS is less inclined to visit Exeter University. Manchester and Belfast have shot up his list though!

We’re thinking about the Edinburgh open days (June and October dates). We may wait until October as the extent of Edinburgh’s cutbacks may be clearer by then. I am hoping DD doesn’t get too invested in the idea of applying there, only to find that her somewhat niche course is being discontinued.

We've booked the open day at Bath. DD starting to get excited about looking and is thinking about what she wants from a university. Bath is quite a distance from us but her Godmother (old university friend of mine) lives there so we're going to stay with her the night before. Quite looking forward to it. 😀

dd has suddenly got in to researching unis.
So we have 6 open days lined up between June and October.
Unfortunately her favourite is the last. (we are busy on their June open day unfortunately)

Dd is autistic and it has been interesting to see the things that she is looking at, apart from the subject itself.
Things like the option to stay in halls for all 3 years, the option to do a PGCE at the same uni, and so on.

But all her options want quite a high entrance (AAB) which I think is a bit of a stretch, especially for the third subject. She has ONE which has a contextual offers around ABB or BBC, so I am hoping she keeps that one in the mix.

Thanks @Waspie, days are flying by and I am more anxious than my daughter.
She still has not decided on subjects or uni. School has exams two/three per week and when she get a free day/weekend, she just don’t want to look into anything else :( Is this only mine, or do you all think they have so much on their plate rn
And very loosely mentioned options are Aerospace Engg/Maths/Physics combo of some sort. I feel like we are the only ones who have no “real list”.
Thanks so much for all the WE/seminar links that’s posted here, she got into one of Cambridge STEM residential for Easter holidays for Physics and two days later, got invited for Engg programme for a day but same time as Phy one. So now decided to go for residential, I wouldn’t have find any of these without this group, thank you all! @JessyCarr, I was struggling not to panic, and feeling guilty, but I didn’t know anything about the application process or the WE needed outside of school. Your posts helped me a lot.
@bluefineliner Hope your daughter feels better soon.
@Waspie that’s good he will get a taster of law firm, that would definitely help.Good Luck
Those who have a list already, well done! School is taking them for UCAS event end of April, hopefully that will help

For those interested in Exeter university their open day booking for 30th and 31st May are now available: Open Days and visiting | Undergraduate Study | University of Exeter

I hope your daughter feels better soon @bluefineliner

We are also experiencing doubts and changes with DS' choice of UG degree. I think it's very difficult for our young people to be thinking about making such enormous decisions only two terms into their A Levels. I think/hope that DS will gain some clarity from the university open days this summer. Perhaps your daughter will too? Missing the Oxford day is annoying but hopefully she will be fit and well to attend the open day in July.

A back up is certainly necessary for medicine as there are so few places available. A friend's daughter s at UCL doing medical science as, despite 4 A stars, she didn't get offered a place for medicine at any of the universities she applied to. She is now planning to reapply for medicine after her UG degree finishes.

DS' school have also said that they will be taking year 12's to the UCAS Discovery Day event as a group which should be beneficial.

DS was looking at Law and I was trying to gently steer him towards something less restrictive than an LLB, perhaps PPL or similar. He has now decided that he is really getting interested in politics and would like to look at Politics and History (or IR and History or PPL). He still has his work experience in the legal department of a large IT company in June so could still change back if he decides he loves contract law!

I would really urge her to look into the reality of being a GP/ medicine in the UK. From what ive heard, GP is one of the worst specialties in medicine as its being taken over by PAs. Medicine in the UK overall is something that not many would advise. Applicants really need to be sure that its for them and have iron level self esteem

Hi all,

Sounds like a lot of DC are getting very well prepared which is great. I feel my DD is moving backwards slightly in motivation for uni and seems to be going around in circles on what she wants to do. I think this is complicated by having a new bf and over thinking her future.

DD also has tonsilitis but it got so bad she is constantly vomiting and had to have new antibiotics prescribed when took her to ooh GP yesterday. She is so run down and can't seem to fight this off quickly so is missing the school trip to oxford uni today which is a shame.

After talking about biomed for ages she now says she is thinking about being a GP because she loves the patient interaction side of the role as well as her love of biology/chem/physiology etc. She can't see herself doing research or mainly lab work as a job and is such a people person, but also academic.

Urgh... My initial concern is she hasn't had any work experience which is vital for med school. Anyway we are looking into this now (there is also next year if she is too late) as I work in healthcare I am hoping to help. I think the main reason she has kept away from medicine is because she thought it was all orthopaedic surgery and Greys Anatomy drama in the theatres, as well as having to sit UCAT.

My advice to her was to secure some work experience which will show her what the job is like, then if she changes her mind it would still be useful for a biomed course anyway for some insight into healthcare.

I was hoping this might be more straightforward than it is! Good luck to anyone else with an indecisive DC.