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?

Yes Netflix, it's not going to be a sit back and relax situation ( I was going to say chill... ) On the upside though dd seems to love STEP questions and there's no point in doing a maths degree unless you love hard maths!

Thank goodness the application has gone off!!!

I don't think Oxbridge would mind about your ds2 english result. I'm not sure about other unis, but it does seem to be that mostly maths admissions tutors just look at the maths side - do they love maths, are they very good at it, do they take up opportunities to do it outside of the curriculum. I'm happy to talk about it via pm if you like.

Hi everyone! Been lurking for awhile. Got DD who wants to study music. Offers from Bristol, York, Nottingham and Kings. (Just rejected by Oxford but we have got over that now. ) Great to hear how everyone is doing. Think we have to wait for offer days for DD to decide. Favourites are Bristol and Kings.

We are down in Exeter so if anyone wants any info on the city itself I would be happy to help!

I was listening to radio 4 yesterday, the university representative wanted international students taken out of the immigration numbers as they wanted to encourage more international students for a list of reasons. Unless it was mentioned in another part of the interview the difference in fees was not spelled out (I know it wasn't because the £30k figure above came as a shock to me)

The position here is that DS is still holding an offer from his first choice but I want him to make a proper choice which does involve having more than one alternative. He's contacted his second choice to reschedule the interview that he should have had in November. Part of me says that it doesn't matter which he picks because they are both good, part of me thinks he's picked the "right" one anyway but part of me thinks that he's picked the one that was less stuffy on the open day and although that is one way of choosing it's not a solid basis for a four year investment.

Looking back, I think now that he would have been better attending his original date because immediately after the funeral he was still in denial and in a better place than he is now. You just have to make the best decision that you can at the time and then beat yourself up for being a bad parent later.

marmite ds1 also wants to study Music, although by all accounts he is much less academic than your dd. He is also very much a film buff, so film music is his first love. He has interviews from Surrey and Ox Brookes, and an offer from Hull. We haven't visited any of them yet (or he hasn't, more importantly) The ones we have visited, Glasgow and Cardiff have not yet offered anything, even an interview! Glasgow and Cardiff would be our first choices, I say "our" in rather regal way, I'm not quite sure what ds thinks...(I think he just wants to move forward)

Dh went to King's (History) 30 years ago. He said he enjoyed it but the campus bit wasn't really in evidence... My nephew went to York, and although he did History enjoyed the music side of uni life (singing) My ds would think it too much early music.

ds1 came home yesterday, and then went to bed at 6pm and slept till morning (7.15) He must have had an enormous sleep debt! I do find myself worrying a lot about his lack of sleep. 6 hours a night is what I suspect he gets weekdays, he really cannot seem to get into a good pattern, and far too much screen time is affecting his ability to wind down. He is tired, and then the screen stimulates him to wake up/concentrate on his work, so he thinks it helps, but then he cannot get to sleep until some important programme is finished. I wish I could send him off to a wilderness camp where they sat around playing the flute in between building cabins or hiking. It is this intense sitting and absorbing information which doesn't seem right.

knitting, you weren't and aren't a bad parent. How could you have known how things would be a couple of months later? It was an impossible choice to make, in the circumstances there wouldn't be a right one.

Agree with kitten. - we make choices based on information available at the time. We can't predict the future, so please don't consider yourself a bad parent.

For international fees - 30k is not the maximum, either. For Oxbridge you pay course fees and college fees, which can be up to 11k per annum, but usually between 7 and 10. Outside Oxbridge it's 'just' course fees, but for medicine it can be £35k plus per year. Cheapest options are English and history which are around £16k. Some unis do have lower fees, but they tend to be pretty far down the league tables.
Ds wants to study at Warwick at the business school and it's 22.5k in the first year and then 23.5 and 24.5. Also we have to pay 20% of the fees for his placement year.
It is frustrating for us as we don't have a house in the UK so don't easily meet the criteria for home fees, therefore Warwick suggested looking at their international scholarships, but as Ds is a British citizen he doesn't qualify for any of them!

knitting there are so many choices though...it so tough...I know I've read the situation regarding ds1's school/A levels in a way that later on...well...it is never ending...

Personally, I think you did absolutely the right thing to delay the interview.

Always remember that if this year doesn't work through, next year is just one year on. I know so many people whose sons have taken a GAP year because they needed that time to work out what they wanted to do, or resit one exam. It made no difference in the long term. I think their sons felt nothing but relief by the time Oct came, not disappointment not to be joining everyone else at uni. (sorry my grammar seems to be deterioating)

I'm getting so utterly bogged down in mess and muddle here. I've taken a deep breath and started boiling things, and dusting things and throwing things out. Made hardly any progress to the naked eye but I'm feeling so subsumed in my kids' academics that everything seems to be collapsing around me...and something has to change. Started with loose change.

Nettleskeins. Thanks for that info. The pros for Kings are that they have a lot of access to the big music establishments in London which is obviously useful for future career choices. Also my husband works in London so she could stay up there with him if money becomes difficult. Though she would definitely be in halls for at least the first year to make friends and become more independent.

Bristol was a favourite because she likes the course and the sports facilities for rowing , her second great love after music, are fab. Also not too far from home but far enough.

I am a bit worried that the London campuses empty out at the weekends.

knitting
You’re not a bad parent don’t worry ❤️
University is one of the most stressful applications dd has been through
It will work out I’m sure
Last day of mocks here and then the dreaded results a lot of dds downfall is lack of revision and time management which can be fixed
Unlike If she’d done bulks of revision and didn’t do well
It’s onwards and upwards

Agree with everyone else Icouldbe, there was no wrong decision. Youre both just doing the best you can

Knitting I think you are a flipping wonderful parent. Like others have said, there was no right or wrong decision - you did what felt right at the time, and it sounds to me like it was the right thing.
I'm so glad your DS has his first choice offer.
Perhaps he can treat the rescheduled interview as another open day/ him interviewing them to see if he's made the right choice? Could take the pressure off a bit?

Thank you all. I am having a pity party today, all in all this has not been a good week for me or for DS. The only point in rehashing old decisions is to learn from them in case you are in a similar situation again and clearly that does not apply here. Whether it was a good decision or a bad one, it's done now.

The best thing for DS I think will be the fresh start, getting away from this house and all the people here that know him socially as a double act with his dad. The worst thing would be a repeat of Y13 which is why it is so fortunate that the standard offer is EE. He's still got a few months yet to pull it back but he's really struggling at the moment and his original AAB is currently looking like BCD. That would be such a shame because he is better than that. The things I can't deal with I can leave until such time as I can cope, he doesn't have that option.

You are more than entitled to a pity party when you need one.
I'm sorry it's been a bad week for you both.
I think a drop in grades right now is only to be expected - it's amazing that he's still going at all. And there's still plenty of time to build them back up if he wants to.

Agree with the others knitting that you are doing fine and you are doing your best to parent in a very difficult situation. Am afraid that grief is really unpredictable so neither or you can be completely sure about which timing would have been best.
The fact that he has an offer from his 1st choice is really positive.

I'm sorry knitting that it's been a particularly bad week. I'm often not sure what to say, but I do think of you both.

Knitting - you are doing so well and so is your DS. Sending you love

I'm sorry you've had a bad week knitting. I agree with everyone else that you are doing your best in an extremely difficult situation. There was no way of knowing how you would both feel at any point, so you make the decision at the time, based on what you thought was best.

knitting
There’s always clearing? Some of dds friends got into better universities through clearing

Ds1 is making me watch "Inside No 9". I have resisted for a quite a while but it is probably more boring hearing the blow by blow account of it..

tgif is all I can say, this week has been tiring. Ds1 just drip fed that Cardiff has asked him about a music exam. Will they offer an interview?

Could I beg a question of you oh wise wise Mumsnetters. DS, he of the very late application has discovered another course he would like to apply for, can he just add another onto the sent form or is it one send per candidate only (he's applied to two universities on the form.) It's not end of the world but he was interested, there's always clearing if we go and visit and he loves it.

Knitting it's been so hard but if he was a high attaining student it will come back and he will thrive eventually wherever he is. It's not comparable to your lovely sons terrible loss but DS2 had a terrible life changing bereavement (well we all did) when he was 10 and then one of his good friends died of cancer as well, it was impossible at the time and his start in secondary school was not good. But he's gone, slowly, from strength to strength and I truly believe that whilst still having those people here would be a million times better he has a quiet strength that those who haven't been touched by the horrible realities of life can't learn. The world tilts on it's axis and it's just really hard to get used to the new reality. Sorry I'm not good at this, what I'm trying to say is have a giant pity party, you've earned one but also the world will be different but ok in time. They changed all the rules without telling you and that's just rubbish but your boy will be amazing and do really well wherever he ends up. Sorry, that's the most helpful from being 5 years down the line I can try to be. Hold on and you'll both get there.

He can add them before the deadline MrSlant :)

I'm utterly creamcrackered.

Thank you OYBBK. I do feel somehow we, well he, should know these things but there is a strong chance they all had a three day seminar on it but he spent the entire time thinking about bikes