Christmas half term - Year 13 (another original thread title!)

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Carrying on from previous thread

I'm so rubbish with thread titles. Anyway...

This time last year there was lots of chat about tests/exams/mocks at this point. Are there fewer of them, or is everyone more chilled about them?

It's ok knitting because quite often I'm Icould. I don't say a deal these days because I am worried about identifying DS. There are 10 places nationally for the thing he's doing and combined with our family drama that makes him instantly identifiable to anyone in admissions. I delete 9/10 of what I write but sometimes just writing it out is enough to get some perspective on it.

Today we have hopefully learned that identifying a problem in advance gives you more time to work on a solution. Leaving it until two hours before you have to face the thing you can't face turns it into an emergency. I've not had a phone call from college so it looks like their pastoral care rose to the occasion. I'm glad they were up to the job today because I didn't feel that I was.

Can't wait for the end of term. DS tired. Has history coursework to finish. Waiting for 2 more unis to respond, but has 3 offers so that's good. DS2 about to embark on GCSE mocks - he's shattered too. I think mocks are harder than the real thing - they've done so little exam practice and revision that the mocks just serve to kick them up the bum!

Good luck with waiting, completing PS, mocks, coursework....just getting to the end of term.

The more tired they get, the less inclination they seem to have to get ready for bed it seems. I reckon we should make them brush their teeth and get into pjs as soon as they get in in the evening, so going to bed literally means getting into bed

Another one with a tired DS here. Next Friday can't come soon enough for him.

There doesn't seem to be any let up at the moment - test after test and then he has coursework to be handed in next week that he seems to have been working on forever.

He isn't usually overly emotional but was extremely crabby at the weekend, he has decided to give up his Sunday league football (he's played with this team since he was 6) as he said he won't be able to cope with all the work/revision/mocks, his job and football. I'd rather he gave up the job.

On the upside he has had 4/5 offers with a standard and alternative offer for his second choice if he gets a good EPQ grading and an unconditional from his insurance.

Another tired DS here too. Mines doing performing arts and has had weekend and evening rehearsals, evening shows, plus juggling a part time job.He's proper shattered. I feel the same as I'm busy at work and trying to finish an assignment for a professional qualification. Trying not to think about Xmas.

16 year old DS2 on the other hand, has a very light timetable so is pretty chilled and driving us both mad! It's all a bit tense in my house at the moment. I'm really looking forward to the Xmas break. DS both finish on the 15th, I'm working til 22nd but then off until 2nd Jan.

Final offer in so that's good. Just need to achieve now.

do the offers vary a lot in terms of high and low Ursula? I wondering whether ds's choices are all a bit similar in their grade criteria, although I also suspect that in some cases they will accept much lower grades even if the offer is pitched high. I know of students applying to Bristol and Leeds who received respectively offers of A A A and A A B. He assumed when he got the B (which he was expecting) that he was going to Bristol, but Bristol snapped him up nevertheless, and Leeds was clearly disappointed!

We've had a birthday dinner for husband today, and ds was musing about Christmas with the family, decorations food presents etc (because this year we are going away to sunshine, so not usual festivities) Suddenly he gave a start, and said, but of course NEXT YEAR I WON@T BE HERE.. we reminded him that even if he was at university he was allowed home for Christmas He is a bit like someone who realised the "game" was going to be reality eek! (hopefully he will still defer though so we won't get to that stage]

Mainly at predicted grades of AAA or a B with an A in EPQ. The insurance is 112 UCAS points whatever that means.

BBC is 112 . Back in the day when I was applying that was more or less a standard offer for what is now called a RG university.

We have sorted the interview logistics! Travelling into London the night before and booked into a hotel.
Ds1 has his own room for the night as apparently I snore. This caused problems as not all hotels allow under 18s into their own room but we found one in the end.

He wasn't rejected by one university today who seem to have sent a lot of rejections today. This has been a minor cause of celebration tempered with empathy from ds1 with those who miss out.
Who knows what tomorrow will bring though?

Back in the day.

Happy times.

it feels odd doesn't it the BBC in old days v AAA offer now; all very high stakes now. Or are they actually easier now? (sorry if that is red rag, don't really see that they can be, several friends' kids have received B's when they wanted A's or A*s and worked pretty hard)

Ds1 promised me faithfully he would go to bed early tonight; I was waiting up to check, only to have him appear, steal some fruit and tell me he is going to be awake for another hour now to finish a Sports TEC power point for his third subject. grrr. He was so tired when he came home and now he has a second wind yet again.

but that is what is odd, certainly lots of students I know are not getting the AAA grades, yet still going to the RG universities, such as Leeds, Glasgow, Cardiff Royal Holloway and Manchester Warwick, possibly because they are not doing the very very oversubscribed courses, such as English Literature or Maths. One friend says a specialist Maths school told her son that AAA was too low an offer, and to reject them accordingly and only confirm offers that were suitably high. which she thought very odd advice, as Exeter is presumably very good for Maths, why sniff at a lower offer? In the event he went to somewhere else famous RG py, with a higher offer but only because he liked it better anyway.

All very mysterious.

Good luck with your interview Little Drummer, if it is something beginning with I, nephew is there and likes it, and Dh went to somewhere beginning with K a long long time ago and liked it, but both said there is not much of a campus, although loads of activities and friends to make and London is a BIG city, if you don't already live there (which Dh did and so did my nephew)

Required AAA grades - a red rag to a bull in our house.
Why are some departments asking for the Earth and then discounting heavily to offer holders on confirmation?

Dh went to somewhere beginning with K a long long time ago and liked it

As did I...
There's something to be said for being able to pop to Covent Garden for lunch.

he went there in 1984 I think, to do Hist. He was older (ie in 20's) and decided to go after working for three years. Which makes it difficult for us to imagine ds1's trajectory Dh always said he was dismayed to find you couldn't attend the lectures from other subjects (he had always imagined uni to be a place where you popped into a History of Art lecture if you were doing Economics for example) But nowadays this is what you can do ie: create your own Liberal arts degree in some unis esp Scottish ones. He liked the central London Halls, but then later he was out in the styx.

or is that sticks (?)

I'm still arguing with ds about his PS. This is boring...He won't sit down with me and go over it sentence by sentence, just reads out to me two sentences he wants to get right, but cannot. I wish he would just send the bloody thing off now, beginning to think his slightly offbeat literalness will play in his favour. Tonight he is off to RAH to sing carols. Yet his voice is so hoarse from arguing I am not sure how this will pan out [sigh]

Does that happen then? Grades are lowered if you confirm?

Hi!
Just popping in having re-found you.
DD is not applying to Unis. In fact at one point it wasn't clear she would continue to actually sit the A'levels.
Having felt pressurised into trying for an apprenticeship but not being sure which one, and that it's hard to find suitable ones. She is now going to have a gap year, but is also applying for jobs related to a hobby to see if she wants to make that her career. We've seen one amazing job, working in an area she has always wanted to try, but we're not sure if she'd be able to get a visa.
Of course she's said if she got amazing A'levels she'd reconsider going to Uni.

Sounds like a great plan.

DS is withdrawing from the UCAS process because after weeks of waiting he did get an offer in writing for the thing that he wants to do. I suspect that he might have had said offer for some time but didn't check the web based system to look.

Knittingwithnettles I didn't get to see the PS either right until the last minute when I pointed out the things that should have been in there that he'd forgotten and college didn't know about.

I presume that is good news knitting? Congratulations.

No, Ursula I meant more that once you have a uni your firm choice, they are more likely to let you in with lowered grades, so in effect the AAA offer turns into what in hindsight was a AAB or even ABB offer. This happened to another nephew of mine when applying to York for a mainstream humanity subject (so not niche)

My sister said that in these cases she suspects they have several students who haven't made their offers, and they then sift through the personal statements properly, not have read them before. So at that stage the PS clinches it or sways the balance in favour of student with interesting PS. They need to fill the places after all, and they have a necessary choice of people with near miss grades. But they are usually not going to reject them out of hand.