Starting year 13 2016

Teta dds Epq is driving me mad, I think she's leaving it to the last minute too.

Errol I get so muddled with all the variations, but as far as I know they all start with mechanical, and then specialise after the first or second year.

We've been to Brighton today, which asks for BBB, but you can see why, not such polished facilities, an old poly etc. Still liked it better than I thought. Also they are not guaranteed halls.

Oh well Errol i think dd1 is happy with the A ,although its an estimate and can go up or down one level.Bearing in mind she had 2.5 days to write it up and had to wrap it up very quickly.
Littlehohum thank you so much for the offer.I would really like to know how many places are available but it sounds as though that info. is difficult to find.I think the situation will probably be quite different this year.
Well done to bigTillyMint's daughter.Apparently our local school still has to send everyone's in this year!

Argh, forgot that using Bolding on the app plus one star would mangle how it appears on the app! I sometimes have to reread things in the browser to make sense of it!

Gosh, some v high offers and v bright DC on here! Fingers crossed for them all.

DDs UCAS has apparently gone off. Now to hope for the offers!

Teta - yes, there is an A* grade for the EPQ.

Dingit - I took a look at the soton website, they seem to do a (to me) bewildering set of different types of aerospace - its the mech. rather than elec or astronautics variety is it? Fingers crossed for her.

Brilliant news Errol.Another hoop jumped through.Well done on the others with offers.Dingit your ds will get there .Wow what an interesting subject to study.
Dd1 has been given her estimated Epq mark - A.Can you get an A* on this?
Forecast is A,A,A in Chemistry with a possiblity of an A* if she works really hard.But I'm not sure sure how accurate the forecasts will be in the Sciences bearing in mind the new A level format.
I'm just looking forward to all this interview hoopla finishing so dd1 can concentrate on her exams.We may have to accept that she gets no offers, though I hope she does.Its been very difficult trying to fit in the required work experience since last Easter and dd1 has had very little down time.Some mature students are already getting offers from Surrey but many places haven't started interviewing yet.

That's ok Errol, I never remember anything! Aerospace engineering.

Arghh, I need a spreadsheet, forgotten precisely what your dd was applying for dingit.

Thanks Errol. Dd is predicted 3 As, but there might be hope yet.

3A* was the 'optimistic' prediction they put for ucas but 'realistic' maybe a star down on one. She's done an EPQ, dont know yet how that went.

That's great news Errol. Remind me again, what were her predicted grades, and is she doing an Epq? I'm not sure Dd is going to get an offer from Southampton.

She's got her offer, A*AA MEng, AAA BEng I think as expected and maybe wiggle room on the latter if its the firm choice (got this second hand via DH). So thats all good.

Teta - they say life is wasted on the young but I think DD is more aware of the extracurricular opportunities at uni than I ever was ... but yeah, its hard not to be a bit

I have the clearing newspapers for the past three years. Happy to look it up. It doesn't tell you the number of places - just which universities / courses entered clearing.

However I would take it with a large pinch of salt as it will be completely different each year as universities adjust recruitment based on last years successes and mistakes.

Errol sounds like it would be wasted on our dd's....

Can I go ?( ok 30+ years too late but I look young)

Yes Errol you may well be right.Some of the other vet. Schools don't seem to be interviewing more than normal though.I'm wondering whether there will be many more clearing places this year.
Does anyone know how I can find out how many clearing places were available for vet. Science last year?

DD's approval rating for Soton went up another notch this evening when perusing the bag of brochures they gave out - the sporting activities one is at least half devoted to watersports!

Maybe they also aren't filtering so tightly on who they interview in the first place because of the new A-levels and no AS to assess on?

Ah it's vet, right? That will indeed be more competitive, like medicine, but you only need one offer.....

Yes,i think in the past they only interviewed arround 450 for 120 places.I don't know why they've decided to do it differently this year.Maybe because they didn't have enough offers last year and had to do some extra interview days in June.
It's fiercely competitive to get in anywhere.Dd has quoted only 40% applying get an offer in any year.These are the ones who pass all the educational requirements at the first stage.Many places like mature students and gap year students and ones who are reapplying with months of work experience .

Yes...DD was a bit alarmed early in the process looking at some of the ratios until she'd figured that out!

They're apparently interviewing a 1000 for 155 places.

But each applicant has 5 UCAS choices and may also be applying abroad. It depends on the course how many offers they have to make to fill their 155 places. Unless they are a really top course it would be usual to make at least 5 times as many offers as places. Outside Oxbridge, even top universities like Imperial, UCL would expect lots of their offers to be turned down.

teta - glad the interview wasn't too bad. I've read that in the cases where they really do need to rate the candidates in the interviews, the questioning will ramp up and get tougher according to what they can handle - if she got to difficult questions that might be a good thing iyswim.

It sounds like progress is being made on nearly all fronts.Hopefully the applications will all go off in the next few days and the teachers will pull their fingers out!I would definitely be one of those annoying mums firing off cross emails.
I think dd's interview went ok.The practical and team work parts were fine but she was asked some very difficult questions in the interview.But hey ho it's all good experience. They're apparently interviewing a 1000 for 155 places .No further interviews yet but Bristol have sent a message to say they're still considering her application.