Class of '18 still nattering.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

forgot the old link hang on a mo...

Lonicera - good news with the job apps.
Hopefully her weekend with the bf is the last!

Watford - can imagine my son doing the same with bedding and towels! Might send him a gentle reminder :)

Fantasty - great news for the course swap. Hopefully the room will soon sort itself out too.

All good here. Ds enjoying uni and seems to have made a couple of lovely friends.

Missing him less ... and ds2 and I have been adapting to our new normal with just the 2 of us. He seems so have stepped up and matured since his ds1 left. Seems to be thriving as an only child

Marmite - how are you doing?

Just out of interest what is the proportion of male to female students in all of your DC's university courses?

Having been to 4 universities in the last month it seems to me that girls are outnumbering the boys by quite a lot. Or do boys just not bother with open days?

I'll ask dd and come back to you. it's shamefully low though.

females I mean.

Maybe Oxford is different though. We have been to Lancaster, York, Newcastle and Manchester and there were far more girls looking round than boys.

Cambridge, not Oxford. D'oh!

This link is for the 2015-16 academic year but gives a good indication.

thetab.com/2015/11/16/revealed-the-gender-ratio-at-each-university-62167

Lonerica UCAS publish the data by subject.

www.ucas.com/data-and-analysis/ucas-undergraduate-releases/ucas-undergraduate-analysis-reports/2017-end-cycle-report

You want "patterns by subject" and then there is a nice table at 3.4 which shows the M/F ratio by subject

Even better, two views with the xpost - one by uni and one by subject

Thanks Knitting and Downey. Interesting!
DS's experience so far certainly confirms the statistics that he is in a very male dominated subject - he has college parents to show him and his college sibling the ropes, and 4 of them are male, as are the other family whose parents live with his Dads.

So, it looks like I am right. The universities DD is interested in have a reasonably even split. Where are all the young men going then? Straight into work?

dd says it's 15% women in her year in maths at Cambridge.

That's quite shocking.

Seems to be mostly males on ds's course - no data, just from talking to him. He is studying accounting and finance.
Also interesting to see how many more students universities are now taking. Ds has a compulsory maths course - 2013 there were 300 students taking the course, this year 450. Also a lot of students from China and India - clearly UK universities are big businesses and it is all very different from when I attended in 1980s.

Kitten could it be that the mathematical women are veering into medicine or even dare I say architecture or engineering or even going straight into accountancy rather than pursuing it as a discipline in its own right at university? I know a female mathematician at Durham who has just finished her degree; her mother is very impressed but in an odd way baffled. Those of us who aren't good at Maths, and I'm very very bad at it, and cannot think spatially at all, seem to accept that women might not be good at Maths; we don't fight it or the perception, so we pass on to our daughters who might be very good at Maths, the idea that only geniuses would choose that option. Certainly it wasn't considered at my very academic girls school the flexible alternative, as mathematicians tended to be good at everything anyway, so they would choose other options as degrees.

Anyway I don't have any statistical evidence from my old school, I need to find out! They ran a whole edition of the school newsletter on old girl mathematicians who had "made it" through maths. Now dd's school tries their best but the very able mathematicians tend to gravitate to the boys' sixth forms. And of course the Boys's sixth forms are delighted to have them, because they are as good or even better than the boys and boost the Boys' schools results. So the gap widens. Lower down the girls' school there is still the perception that arty subjects are more "interesting" at A level, because all the Mathematicians have left!!!!!

My mother was always excellent at Maths btw, but my father wasn't really..I think there was a genetic streak on the Maths incomprehension. My dses are bad at it, and dd is good.

lonicera could it be that some male students are quite "determined", have their heart set on a particular uni, based on reading statistical evidence, will go round two unis but that is their limit, and are pretty sure they want to go to the first and second, and therefore don't visit the third fourth and fifth. So a friend's son, went to Warwick and had refused to even visit his second choice, let alone his third fourth and fifth choices. His parents had to visit them! He was determined to go to Warwick.

Not posted for a while, marmite thinking of you.

Had post 16 meeting for DD last night, really hadn't realised the scope of apprenticeships available - apparently Physiotherapy being released in a few months. Also hadn't realised that by level 6 you get degree certificate. Definitely an excellent option so long as your subject is covered!

Couldn't tell you boys v girls on DS course as he doesn't communicate. In flat heavily dominated by girls.

Asked DS to confirm when accommodation payments happen and exact amount. Still waiting. Still waiting on his contribution to accommodation from maintenance loan also. Hope he's not drunk it all!
He has allegedly applied for 3 jobs. He just doesn't get he'll need to put in a bit more effort than that!

@ShanghaiDiva my DD is also studying finance and accounting, if I remember correctly your DS is also at Warwick so they will probably cross paths.

You might find this interesting Nettle. It's an article about the number of women that take up maths at university.
www.varsity.co.uk/news/13945

dd paid her accomodation on her first day. The bill was in her pigeon hole so she paid it. It wasn't due for weeks!

Re male to female ratio ...

Not in the UK but DD's course in Paris (v selective) is overwhelmingly female - well over 100 out of a promotion of 150. Even the science stream is about 60% female. DD's stream (economics/social sciences) is about 3/4 girls and the humanities stream must be 90% female. The course has a hefty element of compulsory literature and languages, and all the students have to take a humanities or social sciences option - which I guess appeals more to girls.

The other thing that surprised me - this is France after all - is the number of vegetarians. DD reckons there are more veggies than meat eaters! I don't think she'd ever met a French vegetarian of her age before she started on this course.

Seeing her tomorrow for the first time in a month, can't wait.

DD's History course is heavily weighted towards females apparently.

And she's home. And she's gone to buy grips, with my iPad tucked underneath her arm.

Several of my friends and about half the Facebook group seem to be either visiting their offspring this weekend or welcoming them back home for a visit.

DS1 felt a bit homesick during the first week but now seems to be settling well, so we're going to stick with our plan of him coming back for the first visit in reading week (half term).

We have a family wedding tomorrow hence why she is home. But there is only one girl left in her flat for the weekend.

Ursula it wasn't aimed at you, I remember you mentioning that there was a pre-planned family commitment this weekend so you'd be seeing her anyway.

I hope DS1 isn't the only one left in his flat. Although at least then he could catch up on some sleep and actually attempt his laundry.