Any parents of Y12 DCs up for a support thread?

Thanks backtogood. Is that Bournemouth University, or Arts University Bournemouth? My daughter looked at AUB.

Her course is unusual in that, being Arts and impossibly competitive for real work, the students expect to need a huge amount of time working on lecture material in their own time. What matters with art is the access to equipment, industry links, opportunities, access to tutors for questions, tutorials - possibly very different than an academic degree.

Having chosen BTEC not A levels the self study is already embedded - during assignments, she usually spends 25+ hours a week on self study and practical work in addition to the 15 hours of her course.

The problem I am finding is, if they talk the talk - what happens if they are just good salesmen and those promises don't actually come to fruition?

Interesting point Cardibach. I think you are right. In some schools they seem to take a half way approach at A level, encouraging self study and research but others continue to spoon feed a la GCSE and that would leave them ill equipped for undergrad study.

DS was going to look at Bath but his friend went last week and hated it so he seems to have struck that off the list. That would have been an overnight trip as it's 4/5 hours each way. All of our DCs seem to be looking to go a long way from home. I think it may not be coincidence .

Kez I was talking to someone last week who is at the end of her first year at Bournemouth. Absolutely loves the town and the student life there, as well, of course as the fact it's at the seaside but she's really disappointed (and her parents are horrified) at the poor quality of the course. Don't know how subject dependent it is, but she's only had 5 - 6 hours of lectures / contact time a week, and that's been in big lectures of 200ish students, with the lecturers just reading their powerpoint slides. Even more stunningly bad - IMO - is that she hasn't had a single lecture since March. She had exams at the end of the first year, and there were a couple of revision sessions - literally, two - and that's all that has been offered by the university for the whole of this term. Of course they've had to pay accommodation up until July and a whole year's fees.
As I say, I don't know how course dependant it is, but it might be worth asking some probing questions.

Cheltenham today and it currently lies top (has 250 applicants for 50 places :( ) bournemouth is second currently - that has a 15% offer rate. Falmouth is a non starter.

thats a shame Cardibach.
Leeds was very good today. Ds liked everything about it, but its the first open day so might feel differently one hes seen a few more.
Thought yesterday was an open day but it was just some sort of lecture.

Well done CardibachDD
DS went to Warwick yesterday and came home buzzing. He loved every bit of it and thinks it will be his 1st choice. Of course he hasn't been to any other open days yet.......
Durham on Monday and then he is going back to Warwick for a one day Maths thing.

Lucky you Cardi

Ds went to Imperial today but went out partying and havent seen him yet. Have to be up at 5.30 to go to Leeds tomorrow.
Im going with him to Brunel on thursday, abd Dh tajing him to Nottingham and Durham on Friday/Sat

Oh, been away from this thread for a couple of days and missed saying well done to cardibach's DD!

It's certainly open day season for DD and all her friends. Big week coming up for various friends - Manchester tomorrow, Oxford mid week, Exeter last week and 800 mile round trips to Edinburgh last weekend!

For my DD, we had together decided London wasn't for her. Then she went to a taster day at Kings, and loved it! So rethinking the criteria for the list.....

Snowy, my DS went to Bath today too. Hope you had a good day. He came back and said something along the lines of "yeah, looks alright". He's going to Birmingham tomorrow.

And core 4 is finished!

Mundane school now, but not lessons - it seems to be lots of singing and dancing as well as a trip to Cerne.

That's one off the list!

Falmouth was an unlikely choice due to courses not being perfect but as its on our doorstep we thought it would be silly not to go to the open day and see. My daughter was right, the courses aren't for her, but its a wonderful campus and halls and we were both very impressed.

Well, that said, he's going to the University in our home City this week, with school.

Well done to Cardibach's dd.
No, we're not going anywhere until the Autumn... combination of the places ds wants to visit, the fact he didn't get his finger out very quickly, and the clash with other things that were already on the calendar once he did decide to make some decisions.

"She will sort that though".......Agggghhhhh, what's she gonna do to her? LOL!

Well done her on getting DHG!

We start hitting the Universities tomorrow - four (out of seven to visit) in the next week. One in July and the final two in September. Managing to get away with just one extra paid overnight stop. Kerrr ching!

Legallady DD1 is doing French, German, English Lit and History at AS and doesn't want to drop anything in September as she loves all her courses. The course at Bath sounds great and a friend of ours did French and Russian there ( a few years ago !) and loved it . She also likes the languages and European studies at Southampton .

Fingers crossed for your DD Snowy - hopefully the German wasn't as bad as she thought. My DD wants to do French/Spanish but only doing French at AS (having dropped Spanish after gcse.) She didn't think this would be problematic but Bath, for example, requires you to have both languages at A2 if you want to do French and Spanish . Typically you can't do Spanish as a beginner language. She may have to go down the French/Italian route if she loves Bath enough and it does look fantastic.......

Is your DD doing both languages to A2? I do feel a bit bad as we advised DD to not do two languages at AS as we thought it would restrict her options for university - shows what we know

Legallady you are right about it being expensive !! Already been to Cardiff requiring over night stay - away 2 nights this week and will have to stop over night in Southampton - only Birmingham is possible from South Yorkshire !! Well Warwick is but doing that on way back from Bath !

Legallady we are going to Birmingham and Southampton in September ! May see you in Warwick then !! DD1 wants to study French/German but was really upset after her German speaking AS exam as she went to pieces after doing a brilliant mock exam ! She is now convinced all the places she is looking at will be beyond her reach but predicted 4 As so think she will be ok ! But results day will tell !