Year 12 - 2024/25 - Support, Discussion and Looking After Each Other (Thread 2)

The mark scheme is helpful but what she wants is a specific mark. Unfortunately we found that chat gpt is not reliable! Marks the same piece of work with two different levels on two separate occasions. She finds revising for this subject (history) the worst and i can see why

@PinkChaires If it is from a past paper there should be a mark scheme online. Also, now that I have belatedly discovered ChatGPT I can tell you that it will generate a mark scheme for any given question, tailored for the relevant exam board.

@PinkChaires dd doesn’t write essays but she does detailed essay plans as revision. Then she checks it herself against the mark scheme. Essay style and content is so specific there’s no way I could help with that.

For those doing essay based subjects, if your dc write a practice essay for example how do you mark it? Im thinking more so over the summer holidays as she really wants to get y12 content down

Fantastic predictions @Countrylife2002 - well done to your DD!

@Wehaditsogood Why dead set against PPE, if you don’t mind my asking? It was my subject and I loved it - perhaps your DH had a less positive experience with it?

DD has got her 3 A star predictions so she’s definitely trying for Oxford 😱. I’m really proud of her as she worked like a demon for her mocks, I don’t know where she got the energy.

We’d only go to new Unis now, plus an offer day if the timing worked. I can’t spend any more money on repeat visits.

It’s all quite stressful as her top 3 are all insanely competitive. But it’s her choice and she knows how tricky they are. Good for her for having the ambition I guess .

@AuntyBulgaria DS needs to do the TMUA for Warwick. Durham no longer requires it.

@JessyCarr DS is thinking about PPE at Oxford partly because he wants to do the tests 🤦‍♀️ I am dead set against PPE and so is DH (who has a PPE).

DH cancelled the trip to Warwick and wants to go in October or offerholders' day. I am not happy. TMUA and lots of rugby is in October.

@TeenLifeMum Reading day sounds great, I think I’ve said before that my nephew is there and loving it.

@MamOfTwo I would only do offer days now if we have already seen somewhere. The only other visits in September time for us will be if new unis are added to his (ever growing) list.

@AuntyBulgaria I think DS may be avoiding the tests now with his latest subject choice. He was going to do the PAT test but now he’s settled on Chemistry I don’t think there is one? If I’m wrong about that please tell me someone!

Reading is local to us and a lovely place. An excellent choice for your DC!

I think that visiting top choices in oct if possible definitely isnt a waste of time, there are so many extraneous variables they may have been influenced by, and a second trip would not hurt to sort these out

@MamOfTwo I’m torn on this. DD wants to go to the open days at her favourites in October because (sweetly) she’s just so excited about it all. I tend to think if you’ve already visited once, generally it’s wiser now to wait for offer-holder days - for a more focused experience and the chance to meet your fellow offer-holders.

But - and it’s a big but - there is always the risk that offers don’t come until after offer-holder days, and then you’re into the exam season and it’s all too late. Having lurked on the Y13 thread this year this was definitely a thing that happened to those waiting for Edinburgh offers, and possibly Durham too.

Then again - UCAS is urging unis to offer earlier in the 2026 cycle (preferably by 31 March) and has brought the January equal-consideration deadline forward by two weeks to help achieve this.

Hmmm. In the end if DD wants to go in October, that’s probably what will happen!

@MamOfTwo I think DS would only go back for an offer holders day. That would depend on if he could get there and back in a day by himself as public transport is tricky from where we live and there’s not a lot of overnight accommodation available for u18’s by themselves.

Once choices have been made, does anyone think they would visit a first-choice uni again in the autumn open days? DD is talking about this as she says she wants to be absolutely sure but I don't know if it would be a bit of a pointless task.

@ComingInByAnsible TSA is quite fun though! Maybe that says more about me…

@AuntyBulgaria DS is trying to avoid courses requiring extra tests. Although PPE at Oxford is still a possible - the prospect of TSA is putting him off though!

@JessyCarr wow, well done to your DD on the PS! I think we’ll be lucky to have a draft in September.

@TeenLifeMum Reading sounds great and congrats to your DD for figuring out the plan!

@Waspie I remember that breath intake in the History talk at Warwick! So funny that we might have passed each other at the PPE lunch too.

Good luck to everyone waiting for PG and with the next open days. We have KCL this Saturday but might drop into UCL too as just discovered an interesting course there. For some reason, DS is very firmly anti-LSE, he doesn’t seem to be able to articulate why.

@AuntyBulgaria ds will be sitting the MAT for definite and I think he wants to do the TMUA as well. They had someone into school this week to talk about the MAT which he found reassuring.

He’s so busy at the moment - a special guitar session with professional musicians, university research, head boy application and interviews, open days, driving theory test, driving lessons, trying to train for his sport…. All while trying to maintain a very busy social life (now is not the best time to have his first girlfriend!). He’s not started on his UCAS form yet but will need to start thinking about it soon as he wants to apply to Oxford.

UCL has been knocked off the list of open days now in favour of LSE.

Evening everyone! Have previously posted under a different user name (sunblock sue) - but I have been unable to use it for some reason.

Just wondering whether anyone's child is having to do these extra tests. I'm unclear as to which ones you're supposed to have. But I think TMUA seems the most appropriate - maths or linked degree and not Oxford or Cambridge.

DS is doing work experience this week and he is worn out from having to be polite all week! I think he feels he has broken up for summer already but he is back at school next week.

That’s wonderful @TeenLifeMum - sounds like the Reading visit was genuinely inspiring!

Best of luck to miniWaspie and everyone else awaiting PGs.

Just catching up - busy weekend for everyone! Did anyone go to Reading or was that just us? Dd loved the biology dept their and the course is broader than others, natural history museum is moving its bug collection to Reading in 2027 so dd is beyond excited and decision made. Exeter is a close second but Reading really won her over. She’s then gone into school and mentioned it to one of her biology teachers and he did part of his PhD research there and loves a Reading uni so backed up her feelings.

We don’t have predicted grades yet but expecting minimum of AAB and Reading wants ABB so should be safe in that sense.

Overall, dd is excited and has a bit of a career plan which she’s never had before. We were going to Cardiff this weekend but dd doesn’t want to anymore. I’m grateful for the weekend off (although likely to be working, but won’t be driving).

DS told his year 2 teacher that he would be studying history at university @JessyCarr and he hasn’t even started his UCAS form, so I still think your daughter is very organised! One less thing for her to have to think about over the summer too.

Still waiting on the final two predicted grades here…

Thanks for all the wise perspectives on Economics.

We have a UCAS form! First draft complete and submitted to Head of 6th Form. Not sure if feedback will be forthcoming before the end of term, but DD feeling pleased to have that well on the way to its final form. I must say, it reads very well.

NB some of you have kindly observed that DD is very organised. She isn’t really - and can procrastinate with the best of them - but knowing what she wanted to do at university by Y10 has just meant she’s had plenty of time to refine her ideas. No advantage I think to being ready early, other than that she can now turn her focus back to nailing that exam technique😀

@Newlease sorry, it was the Aerospace Engineering at Manchester I was thinking of (also offered and highly rated at Sheffield).

Has she considered Loughborough for Aeronautical?

Thanks so much @Waspie , It definitely seems very high but I guess in reality there are many people who has 4Astars and 5 A stars. And then there is ESATs to consider as well. We were thinking of dropping the 4th A Level, but looking at this, we may as well keep it, I also read that they would be looked at based on the school cohort, which wouldn’t help DD as it’s a super selective G @Lalux Thanks for the link, will share with DD, that would definitely help come up with realistic list to go on UCAS
I think my first worry was predicted grades ( even though FM is not in), I am wondering how realistic this gets converted to real results. I am an overthinker so that doesn’t help but what ifs :(

Well done to your dd @JessyCarr and great grades @MiniMidiMaxi.

@temperedolivehopefully there will be offer holder days you can go to next year if any of the weekends visits turn into offers or even a trip to the city with your dcs showing you what they’ve seen.

@Newleaseif you search the course on UCAS it will give you historic data - most common grades on the course and also lowest grades accepted but you do have to take into account that the lowest grades might include contextual offers if you are not within any of those categories.

It's not really what you asked for and I'm really not sure how accurate the UCAS historical entry grade data is @Newlease but it says that for aero eng at Imperial the most common entry grades were three A stars, lowest (contextual?) was three As. A student with 3 A stars has a 95% chance of receiving an offer., which seems very high to me. Here:
Aeronautical Engineering at Imperial College London - UCAS