GCSE results are upon us

[Remotew]

Anyone else suffering from the jitters? DD has been for a couple of days now and now me. Coping strategies welcome.

Can anyone link to where it says 20% achieve 10 As because I don't think this is true. At our school which is a state comp but a decent one only 8 pupils achieved 9 A and A's so this would be about 6%.

20-25 might get and A* or A but not a string of them.

Very chuffed today as DD has her photo in the local paper.

No, that can't be true. Our local paper just announced proudly that three students at our London suburb's most super duper mega expensive v hard to get into independent school got 10 As each. Two students at our local vast chart-topping grammar school got all As.

Congrats on your dd being in the paper!

Thanks and it isn't true, tis rubbish.

Polkadot, my DD was also predicted higher grades than she got but even so was one of the top achievers in her school. If she wants to do the course at Uni she has to get A's. I know she didn't put enough effort into revising and she knows she has to up it for the next two years. We are planning to recap on her work together once a week and if she struggles she has her very brainy friend who has offered to tutor her.

Abouteve,

I am in my final year of medical school at The University of Nottingham.

In order to get into most medical schools you need at least 2 sciences at A-level. I would strongly suggest that your daughter does maths, at least to AS level as if she does not, she will find the maths in chemistry/physics A-level very challenging.

I did worse in my GCSEs than I should have done as I was having a difficult time at home when I took them. I got A*s in Latin and Chemistry, As in Biology, Maths, English Lit, History, Physics, French and Bs in English Language and Food Tech.

I got all high As (no less than 90%) in my AS and A-levels in Chemistry, Biology, Maths, Psychology and General Studies (which we all had to do).

Nevertheless, I still faced some difficulties when applying to medical schools. It depends on the university. Ignore what it says in the prospectus about admission grades and visit every university that you are interested in and directly ask them what GCSEs they would accept. I was told by 4 universities that if I did not have at least 5 A*s at GCSE that they wouldn't even read the rest of my application (even though it only said 6 A-C grades in the prospectus). Other universities looked at the application more as a whole and gave more weight to work experience.

I would strongly recommend that your daughter get as much work experience as possible. I volunteered in a nursing home, with Barnardo's play schemes, with work shops for adults with learning difficulties as well as working in a pub/restaurant. I also spent time in a hospital and GP surgery (all organised by myself with great difficulty). Your daughter will also need to show that she has interests outside of academia to show that she is well-rounded E.g sport or music.

Your daughter will be competing with a tough crowd to get into medicine. A lot of peoples' parents or relatives are doctors so they have an advantage when it comes to work experience.

My top tips are:

-do maths
-do plenty of work experience
-do something either sporty or musicy
-research the universities that you apply to.

I got offers from Nottingham (which was my top choice), Hull/York and Liverpool and did not get an interview for Newcastle.

On a side note, congratulations to everyone for the GCSE results.

Notyetamummy, thanks you very much. DD will be interested in what you have told me.

She is doing Chemisty, Biology and History to A2 and we have an appointment about whether she does Maths of Geo at AS.

Everything is in place for her to do voluntary work at a care home once she goes back to school, also thinking about a few weeks voluntary work abroad next summer, she does paid cafe work and has done DofE. She doesn't do sport or music, so food for thought there.

Good luck with the rest of your studies.

Notyetamummy, forgot to ask did you do an entrance exam, is it called a UKCAT, do all do them and what type of exam is it? Thanks . Promise not to bombared you with anymore questions.

"Can anyone link to where it says 20% achieve 10 As because I don't think this is true. At our school which is a state comp but a decent one only 8 pupils achieved 9 A and A's so this would be about 6%."

I really doubt that, so I'll be surprised if anyone can find you a link. Although this year my school had the best results since 1989 or something, and 20/90 got over 10As. I think it's fantastic considering it's a comprehensive in Wales.(where we get less funding and the results are lower on average)

abouteve - I would suggest your daughter does maths as well, but her work experience/voluntary work etc. look great. It's a lot more than I have!
THIS PAGE had info about the UKCAT, if that helps.

DustDustDust, I appreciate your posts on here, and hope you will stay on MN making such good contributions.

I'm sorry, I can't help with the UKCAT. When I applied in 2005 you only had to take it if you wanted to go to Oxbridge or UCL, neither of which I wanted to go to.

I think you now need it for loads of medical school so unfortunately that's another pressure for your poor daughter.

It is great that she has done DofE - unis really like that. Also the voluntary work and work abroad sound great.

Have you heard of Medlink?

www.medlink-uk.org

I was expensive but I saved up to go and am so glad that I did. It is a course for AS students held at Nottingham uni that gives them insight into a career in Medicine. It is held in the school holidays and the students stay in the uni halls of residence which is good preparation for going to uni.
I got so many tips about the application process that really helped me. It also looks good on your uni application.

If your daughter has any more questions that I can help with feel free to ask. I know how stressful it is applying for medicine.

Lequeen. There are two papers in Maths GCSE one is a calculator Paper and the other is a non calculator paper and students are not allowed to take or use calculators in that paper. ) the 2 papers are taken on different days)

I can't find any link to a 20% A rate. At my dss' independent, slightly selective school 15 students got all A's, about 6%, though many more got a mix of all A's and A's, at the state school i teach at 2 students got all A's about 0.75%. Perhaps the poster who mentioned this got muddled and meant 20% of students got at least one A*? more of a sensible and believable statistic.

at ds highly selective state grammar school 12% of all papers was A*

at one of ds university for university he had to take 3 pieces of work and do a thinking skills assessment after the interviews

this was harsh but with so many A/A* students- understandable

gosh dont know why i wrote that so badly!

Can I just ask....we had to collect me neice's results and ring her with them as they are on holiday, and they make no sense to any of us!!!

The paper says this:

Board 01

Year 2010

Opt J121

Option Maths

Qual GCSE

Level - one says 'SC' and the others all say 'B'

Type - one says 'C' and the others all say 'U'

Result - varies from things like:

56D

052c

038c

040a

?????????????????? WTF does all this mean??!!!

She's expected to be a bit of an A* girl .

Thanks

This year at ds2's independent school (NOT highly highly selective) 20% scored 9A or more. Last year 4 students got 10A; this year 4 got 12 stars, 6 got 11 stars and approx 6 got 10 stars (ncluding DS2). All academic subjects for DS and he also sat AS French and Free standing Maths Qualification.....

I don't think he needed to be stretched further other than in Spanish: generally he was taught well and passed well. Next year the school will have its first full year of the IGCSE because it thinks that it will differentiate better at the top. I have no idea but DD1 will find it tough.

Having said all that, and having said I am hugely proud of DS, he is extremely clever, and bloody well should have done that well at his school because he has all the advantages in terms of teaching and environment.

Thank you all for your suggestions and we will take them on board. It sounds like Med School is virtually impossible to get into for state educated clever students, but I know DD will give it her all as it's all she wants to do, if not then she will have to rethink.

Will check out the medlink.

Lucky I cannot understand those results, hope someone comes along that does.

Lucky10 the grades are the last letters at the end of the numbers in the result column.

Hope that makes more sense - although you need to remember that if she did any OCR nationals/BTECs etc then the grades are D,M or P (distinction,merit or pass)

IME most(but not all) children who get into selective schools have been heavily tutored and it's not uncommon for parents whose children fail to secure a place at grammar school to 'buy' them an education.

Attending an independent school does not automatically make a child more intelligent or more academic - it just gives them a better chance to up their game thanks to smaller classes,etc. The real divide is not academic ability but the ability of some to buy a better (??) education for their children.

However, throwing money at a child's education does not automatically make then any more clever than us plebs who went to comprehensive schools - it didn't do Gary Lineker's son much good did it?

Lequeen so students from state schools will fail the entrance exams to top unis whereas if you go to indies you will pass. What a load of bollox. The IGCSE's are favoured by the indies simply to attract international students who are better earners. It's all about the money.

We've had a look at the UKCAT site and must say I'm really pleased as the tests sound very similar to CAT test which DD managed very nicely although it was 5 yrs ago. She did them having never seen a paper before and got into NAGTY on those results. (I know its now defunked). Lets hope that if all unis have their own entrance exam they stick to this format so that in theory it doesn't matter how much money your parents have 'You can't get away from the basic fact that some students are just always going to be more intelligent and more academic than other students'.

Yes, agree TidyBush and the appalling thing is that those pupils whose parents are able to pay for their education are so disproportinally represented at the 'top' universities, even though they are not more intelligent (just ask my DCs and DNs), far from it in some cases apparently.

Also, please remember grammar schools are state schools and not all pupils are 'heavily coached'. Mine weren't and neither were any of their friends.

thelastresort I did say that not all grammar school entrants are coached, but many are and the shame is that some of those then go on to struggle. It's to your DCs credit that they have done well thanks to their own intelligence and hard work.

wrt to the disproportionate number of public school entrants in the top universities a lot of this is about knowing how the system works and using it to the best advantage.

It is recognised that when it comes to education their are typically three types of parents:

Privileged/skilled choosers, who are typically middle class and have the economic and social ability to ?work? the system in order to gain entry to the school of their choice.

Semi-skilled choosers, who although they know what they want from the system they aren?t always in the position, financially or culturally to achieve their goal.

Disconnected choosers, who do not actually ?choose? the school their children will attend, rather they opt for the local school, which is easy to get to and where their children can be with their friends.

For anyone to suggest that the children of the privileged/skilled choosers are more academic or intelligent than the other two groups is nothing short of snobbery of the highest order.

forehead - how quickly do the papers get re-marked and when is the cut off for making a request?

DS has also found that he is one point off an A* in a science subject and is pondering which paper to get re-marked.

Thanks