School's approach to UCAS - is this typical?

In the nicest way, is your son ready for university if he cannot take control of this process himself?

I did all my UCAS stuff myself, researched my universities, organised open days, did my finance. I bought books and looked up how to do my personal statement. My college didn't help at all. I proof-read my dyslexic classmates' personal statements and helped them with the forms.

It was all very straight-forward.

My ex has ADHD and we were at uni together. I helped him with his application and, later on, his degree. I was helping him wake up for lectures (we lived together), drawing out revision plans and writing notes for him, keeping track of his deadlines. Ultimately, we broke up, and he dropped out surely after. He already had to repeat a year. He never finished his degree.

The best case scenario is that you have to helicopter-parent your son through the degree, contacting uni lecturers (which they hate) and so on. The worst is he loses confidence and doesn't complete.

If he's a few chronological years behind (as my ex was) isn't it better to give him time to grow into himself and develop those skills? University is expensive and "false starts" dent self-esteem in a lot of cases.

I just think it's worth thinking about. Graduating at 23 is not the end of the world. I went back to uni to study medicine and I will graduate at 31.

When someone tells me they are too busy to do something important I say "if I give you £1000 would you find the time to do it? Yes? Well then pretend I'm giving you £1000 to sort your student finance/applications/accommodation out."

It's not about time, it's about priorities.

Op your ds doesn't need a statement to apply for DDA. It can cover things like the price of an en suite for a student with asd.

Sorting open days is the responsibility kf parents and students.

If someone wants to go to uni, they talk with friends and 6th formers talk lots about uni and open days.
If you have a child who wants to go to uni about 5 mins of go ogling tells you about open days.

At my 6th form, students get ucas info and personal statement hell during tutor sessions. There are some visits from local unis in and sometimes we do a trip if there's lots wanting on open day we book a coach if it fits into teaching commitments.

We don't do a parent pack or evening because at 17/18 years old we expect the students to actually talk to their parents about it and parents to talk to their children about such a big decision.

I think you're being unreasonable expecting school to tell you when open days are etc. That's part of parenting.

You might find this long running thread in higher education helpful OP

Lots of people in similar situations, some with super organised offspring and others pulling their hair out

Most importantly, we share our collective knowledge of the whole process.

OP my DS has taken a gap year and his course is five years with a year abroad, he was only saying last night he won't graduate till 24.
I cannot over emphasise how good this gap year has been for him. My DH wasn't keen on the idea but even he's been converted. The chance to work in his case in four totally different settings including abroad, earn a bit of money, get four excellent references which I hope will help him get a job when at university, juggle his working life, (48 hours a week) social life, home life and the bit of voluntary studying he's doing, meet a broad cross section of people from lots of different backgrounds, just chill out, and have fun, has been brilliant, he's matured so much. On leaving school he dreamed of gaming doing nothing within three weeks he discovered it's not all it's cracked up to be, last night he completed his accommodation application form and his enthusiasm and excitement at the prospect of going to university was palpable, this time last year he wasn't interested.
I personally don't see graduating at 24 as a problem.

I don't know if this is typical but at DC's (independent) school, the pupils got lots of advice and help with the application process.

There was an evening event for parents to explain it all. And emails setting out the process and deadlines. Open days were mentioned because school granted a certain number of excused days to attend. But we had to book them obviously.

The actual application was overseen by a tutor. And frankly the school wanted them all sewn up quickly. No one wanted it hanging over.

DD1 attends an independent school and I do expect a high level of support and information. That is part of what I am paying the fees for. However, obviously we have a role as well and I don't expect DD to be spoon feed either, a large part of the process is independent.

We had several meetings in the Lower Sixth to discuss, open days and the whole application process, as well as alternatives to Uni and Gap year initiatives.

The girls received lots of support and in house deadlines for their applications to ensure plenty of time. The school took them on a trip to a local Uni open day and a careers festival.

The school also helped prepare my DD for her interview, mock interviews with her Head of Year and Form Tutor. I would expect these things to be part of her pastoral care.

In all we were very happy with the support she received and more importantly DD felt supported and encouraged. Now she just needs to get those Grades!

"I have always assumed that one of the things you pay for when you use private educate is not having to chase around finding things out for yourself."
"would expect to have the process fully explained to me and my child by the school".
IME experience careers staff are readily available at parent teacher meetings, even open days, usually this is stated in correspondents about these events, ours was open during office hours every day and parents were very welcome to drop in for advise, they're also very happy to talk to parents on the phone or by email. HMs are equally happy to talk to parents and offer advise. The school termly diary listed closing dates dates for Oxbridge, medicine etc. I can't really see that much more can be done. There is also little point in inviting all parents yr 12 to a talk on the university application process if for example you've already sent two children to university then your probably pretty au fait with how it works. So I suspect most private schools and I guess state schools are expecting parents to use their initiative, work out what they would like know come forward for advise.

Well, obviously the child concerned has to book their own open day visits, but I would expect to have the process fully explained to me and the child by the school.

I have always assumed that one of them things you pay for when you use private education is not having to chase round finding things out for yourself. It's certainly been the experience in my circle of friends and family.

I can't see anything unusual in the school's approach. No deadlines were missed.

I can't see that school should take responsibility for notifying parents of open days for all courses at all unis, there are heaps of them.

Kitty if a school needs more than 2 weeks then that should be stated by the school in a disseminated timeline of the process (copied into the parents). However it has been less than 2 weeks in at least 2 state schools with large sixth forms that I know of so I would expect a fee paying school with a well managed sixth form to achieve the same.

And yes, he doesn't tell us everything he gets told at school - and that's one of the issues. I think they need to communicate some of this stuff to parents too.

He's 18 they can't.

And universities can't either. Is he really ready if he can't get the application sorted himself?

Hi. I work in private school, have an aspie son and have to guide those with SEN through the whole uni process. your son will get DSA and he needs to firm NOW so that the SEN dept at the uni can contact him to organise support. HE WILL NEED SUPPORT just in organising himself and meeting deadlines. There is loads they can do. The DSA needs to be sorted in the next few months - deffo before August otherwise he won't get exam concessions (if he gets them), the money to pay for support or aids. One of my pupils has just been sent their letter by their first choice with forms to fill in.

So when he firms he needs to ensure he has ticked the 'disability' bit on the application form. You will need a recent diagnostic report so get this sorted if his is ancient. If you contact the uni LS department, they will talk you through this but actually the SENCO at your son's school will have info.

To be honest, in our school, the form tutors do a huge amount on uni applications and UCAS. It takes loads of time. I do wonder that your son has had this input but has not communicated that to you. He's about to go through a massive transition so may well be head burying. He doesn't want to think about it. To other posters who don't have SEN children, honestly you have to view this lad as being two or three years lower than his chronological age in some aspects of his life - aspies have very spiky profiles.

This transition and fear can cause delays. The same pupil who has just got their LS letter took ages to firm because really they don't want to leave the security of school. I had to get pretty firm with them as did the rest of the team. I think you might have to do this for your son or give him the option of not going to uni and having a gap year. The delay isn't caused by school, it is in his hands and you as a family need to see if he is ready for uni yet. This delay in sorting out stuff is caused partly by your attitude that because you pay this parental drudgery is dealt with (although do agree there should be more communication especially as he has SEN), but by the fear of transition and his lack of social imagination.

My sixth form college didn't really tell us much other than handing out UCAS forms and guide booklets and telling us when the deadlines were, 20 odd years ago. My parents couldn't be much help as no-one in my family had been to university. I had no idea one university might be better than another, other than that Oxford and Cambridge were considered the best ones.

I'd expect a school today to be much more helpful.

IME parents have to be involved in arranging Open Day (or other) visits to check out universities and courses because (a) they fund the travel (b) they need, at the very least, to be fully consulted about absences from home. Of course, many parents accompany their DC to Open Days.

If your son has the potential to apply to Oxford and has presumably applied to other well regarded universities then I'd say he needs to take much more responsibility himself.

He obviously knew that other friends were going on open days last June. It's relatively easy to find guidance on the UCAS website and on the Student Room.

There's also very helpful info on the UCAS website aimed at parents and you can sign up to get regular emails at different stages of the process.

I'd suggest that you find out more about the confirmation and clearing process well before 17 August. If things don't go as planned it's much better to have some idea about how to approach clearing as it all happens very quickly. And if things do go as planned, there will still be lots that your son needs to do to confirm his university place, accommodation etc.

I'd also suggest that you start talking to him now about how different university is, and how he'll have to take responsibility for understanding deadlines, requirements etc himself. You don't want to be back here in a year's time complaining that he's failing his course because the university didn't remind him about assessment deadlines etc.

checking of the PS by several weeks (November until end of term)

Firstly, it is a private school so end of term would be much sooner than normal-first or second week in December.

Secondly, it is not just the PS that gets checked during that process (see my post upthread) -it is absolutely everything including every box/qualification and option the student has entered by numerous different members of staff-often in their own time out of school. It also includes making sure the school has copies of the past qualifications not taken at the school as proof of their accuracy as UCAS often want to see them and in my experience, a lot of students often drag their heels on that part.

It takes a minimum of two weeks and a little more if lots and lots of students tick their final box at the same time. It is perfectly normal and has always been the process in the schools I have worked in.

Could you imagine if every part of the application was not thoroughly checked and double checked? School would surely get the blame then and the student may ruin an offer.

titchy I missed that . However having gone back and read that post, I would still expect a school not to delay the checking of the PS by several weeks (November until end of term), especially a fee paying school with more staff resources. The OP had her eye on the ball for that since she was involved in chasing up.

That said if it were me I would have learnt from both the above and Open day tardiness not to rely on the combination of the school and the DC. I would have then made sure that I was up to speed with the rest of the process to support a 'vague' DS who for whatever reason is not ready to take complete ownership of university application, accommodation and finance. That support as mentioned above could include discussion of a year out.

@sendsummer - thing is the school wasn't on the edge of the deadline at all - there was a good three weeks to spare.

Basically it seems to me that OP (and her dh) took her eye off the ball, and is now blaming school for the consequences of that.

So the school has done everything that they should do but just not to your timetable?

I'm also wondering if your ds is having issues with this aspect of organisation if he is ready for uni (or it could be the making of him)