Corona Cohort: Statements Scripted, Grades Predicted

[Monkey2001]

This is a thread for supporting all young people post GCSEs 2020, regardless of their educational setting. It is respectfully requested that all are supportive and helpful to each other. If you want to start a debate, e.g state vs private, please don't within this thread. Please also be sensitive when responding to threads about grades.

Some of us have been here since first thread back in yr10, some will be new. Everyone has been friendly and helpful in the past. Everyone is welcome. It is hoped this will continue.

From OrangeCinnamonCocktail:

Our DS/DD may go down various paths (such as employment, apprenticeships, higher ed) We have decided for anyone interested they will most likely find us within the Further Ed board.

Previous thread - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/further_education/4339233-Thread-19-Corona-Cohort-Enrolling-on-Year-13-hopefully-NOT-unlucky-for-some?pg=1

We had a wet visit to Oxford Brookes too and that’s not on the list!

It rained the day we went to Sheffield too. Had to take shelter under a bridge.

Oh that is such a pity @icanbewhatiwant. It really does make a difference I think although it shouldn’t. Bad luck.

So did it put him off Icanbe? I think you wanted him to look at a range of places, although hopefully without giving up on Sussex altogether.

Ds still only wants to go to Sussex. No it didn't put him off. He's hoping it did the others though 😂

We parked at DH's dd's and she dropped us off. We messaged to be collected again earlier then she expected, she was at an appointment in Brighton. She said we could meet her in an hour. So we got a train from the university into Brighton. I didn't realise it was so far, well only 10 mins, but i thought it was closer. Then we couldn't decide whether to find a cafe or look in some shops, but then saw a bus with Rottingdean on...where DH's dd lives, we both ran straight to it. Couldn't wait to get back to the warm and dry. Ds didn't want to take a coat. I think he was very grateful that I packed his waterproof one.

Button pressed! He chose Loughborough.

Well done him Shimy! Phew!

Shimy Wanting the better rated course has to be a good criteria! I'm impressed he's all done this early.

We got drenched at Bournemouth today too, foolishly didn't take a coat. I keep a waterproof coat in my car but at the last minute I swapped with Dh as his car had more petrol in it than mine, jumped in, drove off and no coat. The weather was foul. However we got a lot out of the event and it's probably in first choice position for DS at the moment, we both like it a lot.

This evening we have spent time poring over the Guardian tables, websites, stats, until our brains went into meltdown and we agreed to call it a night about half an hour ago.

@Shimy well done to your DS!
DD is an Oxbridge aspirant and she’s not even darkened the submit button, yet…

Thanks all. In the end he admitted he preferred the course at Loughborough and the Nottingham course sounded rather dry. He also said if he didn’t get any other offer except Loughborough, he will be excited to go there to study that particular subject. So I said, ‘What are we waiting for?”

Sorry to hear you also gor caught in the downpour @EerilyDisembodied. It glad you still got a lot out of it. Fingers crosssed, I know that feeling of brain going into meltdown only too well.

We were booked on Exeter open day today (Saturday) for geography but were unable to go as we didn't have enough petrol to get there We're based in the south east and everywhere locally is out of petrol. Did anyone manage to attend today and have any insights to share?

shimy, I think that's a good call. I looked at our past 4 years' destination data at my school yesterday. Nottingham is a popular university because of the journey and quite a few also pick Loughborough. Nearly everyone doing a management or finance style degree had headed to Loughborough!

Piggy Thanks for that reassurance. I couldn’t think of a better reason for him to choose. He is very academically focussed and said unless Loughborough is based in Kuala Lumpur he really doesn’t care about the town & he prefers campuses anyway. He also loves the fact Loughborough does a variety of business courses which means he will meet more likeminded students (large faculty) whereas Notts was very limited.

Oh that's such a shame mumma !

My friend took her DC went to Exeter (they've got an electric car!) and they really liked it, very hilly though was the comment.

We have been having petrol problems, garages here are either sold out (about half the time) or massive queues.

I’m heading west to an open day in Plymouth next weekend snd have just booked train tickets rather than drive, because of the petrol situation. We are ok for petrol here - seem to be able to top up when we need to - but I don’t know about down in Devon. U was also going to take DS to Falmouth for Exeter’s open day down there but we have ditched that now.

Petrol still an issue here. Took me half an hour to get into Sainsburys for shopping yesterday because of the petrol queue. Thankfully by the time I was finished the hour long queue to get out had gone...

Icanbe we were at the Sussex open day yesterday too. Good journey up in the dry then 10 min before we arrived OMG the rain and wind started and didn't let up the whole time we were there.

Parked in the top carport as directed (had checked map and wanted a particular car park as close to lecture halls but they said it had to be the top one). Battled through to register only to be disappointed by only given a prospectus and leaflet (DD was expecting a bag of goodies like at Winchester and Chichester 😁). Looked round the library but it was quite lean for her subject then attended the talk at 12.30pm. V good and got to chat to a student and tutor. Sampled the food in the big canteen/cafe which was great but was disappointed not to have a good old walk round as weather was truly hideous.

Had to be booked on to the campus tour and the accommodation tour so missed those as hadn't booked but we luckily knew someone there who showed us round their flat so got an idea from that.

DD really liked Sussex uni despite it being so big - she didn't like Winchester as so hilly and fairly big in her opinion but loved Chichester as smaller in size so seemed more personal so I was surprised she liked Sussex so much. Lots of applicants for not many places so we'll see but the tutor she spoke to asked her name so maybe he'll remember her.

We have Oxford Brookes in Half term but think we may cancel and do a virtual as DD is exhausted and it's only her insurance Uni choice. Also doing Bristol UWE as a virtual too as only chosen as she had to have 5.

Glad the weather looks okay for the Marathon today 😀

I don't understand why the petrol crisis is still a thing, surely the panic buying must be over as once people have filled up the system should be able to keep up with demand. The industry said it was only the panic buying which had caused the issue in the first place. Bristol seems to be OK now, although as we are electric I may have noticed availablity more than non-availability. I think the worst of it is in the Southeast, but can understand that your would not want to venture out of not confident you could get back.

Don't forget there will be offer holder days next year, so they will get a chance to see places before deciding where to go.

It is still an issue here in West London. No sooner does a tanker get to fuel a station, it’s closed again soon after. There aren’t too many parental benefits to having a swimmer but right now the 05.00 are a god send to sitting only short periods queuing for fuel on the A4!

I think the problem is people using up about a tenner's worth then going back to top up again when usually they would wait till they needed a full tank. Obviously some people normally do that because they can only afford a tenner at a time but a lot more are doing it now glares at one of DH's colleagues who is buying petrol every night on the way home from work.

We're off to Sussex on the 16th, it will be interesting to see what DS makes of it as those we've been to so far are small-ish or tiny (Bournemouth, Winchester, Chichester, Royal Agricultural, Royal Holloway). We have also got Reading and Chichester booked (Chi was only a campus tour last time). If it proves to be overload we might bail out of some but he has a two week half term.

On the to do list today is to email some admissions departments about Foundation years. At one DS is likely to just miss the grades for year 1, but I am unsure whether to just apply for it or the Foundation, the question being if he applies for year 1 gets an offer and misses will he automatically get offered a Foundation year and vice versa, if he applies for foundation but gets better grades can he be upgraded or does he have to go through clearing. Worst case scenario is apply for year 1 and not get an offer at all. I am getting all muddled and so is he.

The SE and London is being worst hit by the fuel problems. It's definitely still a thing North of London too. The deliveries are just not getting through. This is commuter belt and lots of white van men too. So people who filled up last week have genuinely now run out again. My car takes about 230 miles at a time so it's not a big tank.

@EerilyDisembodied I think that would be useful information. One of DS1's friends had a place with foundation year at Swansea and they suggested he should switch to normal entry. Bit particularly if school has been very disrupted by Covid a foundation year can be a great idea.

My main issue with foundation years is that some of the courses DS is interested in are also optionally sandwich courses with a year placement and doing the Foundation plus the placement year a) doesn't seem to happen it's either/or and b) makes the whole thing last for 5 years and c) potentially means my two overlapping for three years instead of 1 if DD (y11) opts for a three year degree. My placement year was the single best move I ever made career-wise so I am loath to rule it out for DS.