Thread 24 Covid Cohort - Oh Come, Oh Come offers from Emmanuel - and all other universities aswell!

[OrangeCinnamonCocktail]

I tried to sing the title... It kind of works...

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 posts 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 goodwill continues.

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

Oh @Alsoplayspiccolo how incredibly frustrating for you and dd! Are you able to work on it with her over the weekend so it can go in on Monday?

Bless her Piccolo. Sometimes it takes just what you did (which must have felt like metaphorical shake) to come to their senses. Editing is such a tough job, and the PS is these days so far removed from anything remotely personal.

I hope you can get it to a stage together this weekend and she feels good about it.

Good luck to everyone else for today. DH and I are banished from house so currently sat in Starbucks. We are allowed home at 1115 to run him to school for third lesson!

@Alsoplayspiccolo - how frustrating for you and DD. I hope you get it sorted for Monday submission. Sometimes later submission gives you more time to think about choices. DS would definitely swap one of his now if he could.

@DoggerelBank & @Shimy How to leave a lasting impression! Love it.

Good luck to the interviewees.

DS has first offer in! Sheffield AAB (standard offer). He's happy.

@Alsoplayspiccolo not surprising you are cross, I thought independent schools were supposed to be really good at that sort of stuff! I hope you manage to turn polishing it over the weekend into a positive support exercise.

@Zebracat I can imagine the sinking feeling of just getting an application off and bring asked to do another! Ultimate compliment that the girl sees you as an expert though! A lot of engineering courses are general, and definitely if she did a foundation year she works be able to swerve into civil. Most engineering grads are office based, DH is a mechanical but is involved in design and installation of wind farms, the boundaries are flexible. We had a brilliant (aero) engineering grad working for us who did arts A levels and then did sciences as a Y14. What are the subjects and predicted grades of the student you are supporting?

Zebracat, I don't know much about Mechanical Engineering other than my brother and father were MEs, but, there is a regular poster on the HE boards that is an engineering expert, recruiting and business-wise. We always clash (not intentionally!) on our differing opinions on languages but I always respect her good intentions. @TizerorFizz, if you are able to help @Zebracat with her query, off line or whatever?

Thanks, Isthis and ealing.
I spent last night sorting it, so it should be ready to go now. The worst thing was that she is applying for English, so quality of writing is pretty vital! It had been seen by English teachers, who said it was fine, but it really wasn’t - punctuation had been removed, making it impossible to understand.

I’m still not convinced it’s a good PS, but it’s a lot better than it was.

Monkey, that was my belief too.
All she needed was a one-to-one session with a tutor and it would have saved a lot of hassle and time-wasting.

What a good think she did give it to you to review before submitting @Alsoplayspiccolo - glad you managed to make progress. Realised I forgot to say: Ds had his first offer in! AAA from York (standard offer) - he’s really chuffed to have something on the table!

@Alsoplayspiccolo Deeply frustrating that the English teachers had not made it a cracking PS. I wonder if it's an age thing? Generalisation but loose grammar seems more widely accepted. What surprised me with DS's English GCSE was that essays do not require a conclusion paragraph.

Enjoy the coffee Esther , he'll be just fine, good luck to him.

EwwSpouts, lovely news for him to finish the week with!

Isthisjustnormal Great news !

Of course...Ds wasn't up this morn before I left for work so that I could pay for his application. He wants me to check address and phone number is correct too. He's 18 and isn't sure if his address and phone number 🙈
So another day with it not done.

Brilliant Isthisjustnormal, that will help him through today's interviews, just lifting the pressure slightly!

Glad my mishap brought smiles and chuckles to you all , I’m still cringing.

Congratulations to all those with new offers, yes it’s exciting once they start rolling in.

Good luck to those doing interviews.

DS breaks up for Xmas today, thank goodness. When do you all break up? The sooner the better.

I have laughed out loud at the parents eve tech problems and especially loud at Shimy's faux pas 😂

Burning question: did DS get up in time for you to pay his UCAS fee icanbewhatiwant?

Good luck to your DS too Isthisjustnormal with his interview today and again to esther's 🤞🤞

Monkey and Shimy I remember being on GCSE study leave and getting chased across the fields as I walked home from school after an exam as they thought I was bunking off. I was short and skinny back then and probably looked like a year 8.

Alsoplays that is awful of the school. Totally dropping the ball with regards her PS when others have had theirs submitted. Thank goodness you are an involved parent who can help her this weekend.

I do think the schools are under a lot of stress as yet another school year is disrupted and I so feel for them but this is part of their job and these poor students only have this chance at applying with the teacher's help. One foreign student in DD's year came over specially to study in UK this year as she wants to study medicine here. Our HO 6th form didn't let her know that she needed to do a UCAT / BMAT test and apply by 15th October so she's missed out and has to return home to study medicine in her Country. She is gutted and only been here a short while.

My word , fantastic help as always. Thanks, she is predicted Ccc. I guess I thought Civil because she loves building dens! , rather than tinkering with engines, but wind farms sound really interesting.
@Alsoplayspiccolo. Well done for fixing it. I can so see how this could happen. Thank goodness you spotted it. I think we probably spent about 20-30 hours on the personal statement, and we were lucky enough to have 2 friends with relevant experience to read it and make suggestions. And Idon’t even know if it’s good enough , but it’s a masterpiece next to the one I’m looking at now, and maybe that is how lots of them are. But I do agree that for the school to have approved it with glaring errors is criminal.

Well done on the offers @EwwSprouts and @Isthisjustnormal (hope I've got the right people!).

@Alsoplayspiccolo that is incredibly frustrating and very poor. I'm glad you've managed to sort it. The annoying thing about the PS is that lots of them don't even get looked at by the unis, they just offer on the basis of grades.

I'm a bit of an editor extraordinaire, I'm very hot on spelling and grammar (if I say so myself!) and I proof read everything for everyone. Dh is a minister and I always check his sermons! I took one look at dd's PS and there were literally only two typos in the whole thing. I was really surprised, it actually sounded really good! And relieved as I just wanted her to submit it by that point!

A friend told me last night that she knows someone who works for SQA and they've been told there won't be exams. I don't think any of us are in Scotland, but where they go, England and Wales will follow no doubt.

Fab news, isthisjust. I’d have loved DD to apply to York - my mum lives up there - but she wasn’t keen.

Re good grammar and punctuation being a generational thing - I said the same to DH yesterday (before I’d seen the PS). I was in the last year group to take O levels and my English teacher was militant about both. I wasn’t great at English, but I do know how to write coherently, at least.
I’m left wondering how on earth DD will manage a degree; granted, she has dyslexic tendencies as part of her ADHD, but even so.
I don’t think text speak has helped teenagers either, ditto autocorrect.

@Zebracat My degree is in Civil Engineering & one of mine is now doing it at uni so if I can help let me know. I think a foundation year will be essential as usually A Level Maths is a requirement. Civil is possibly a good choice as it gets less applicants than say Mechanical (which always amuses me as it was the opposite in my home country back in the day!). This leads to a shortage of graduates so plenty of job opportunities. Plus it is a very wide ranging course so there are a huge number of different careers available.

I’ve also been frustrated by the quality of English in the PS this year - did lots of editing of ds’s & those I’ve reviewed at work. But also blown away by one pupil’s amazing PS! I think on the whole they have all suffered with the disruption over the past few years and the quality of PSs reflects that.

Just catching up - congrats on new offers and good luck to interviewees. Also and icanbe, DS's form hasn't gone in yet either, we have our fingers crossed for next week. As DD would say, I am so over it now. Luckily I haven't been in Doggerel's position as most UCAS conversations around here do tend to involve the phrases "that effing school" and "Mrs bloody [name of useless tutor whose name begins with B, pleasingly]"
DS still quite down about it all but hopefully a quick offer from somewhere - anywhere! - will pick him up for next term. And he has tons of Welsh Bacc to do over Christmas, ho ho bloody ho.

That’s an interesting development, Crazy. How long before it’s announced officially?
I’ve heard of schools delaying post Christmas mocks because of the worry about a peak in cases after the holidays; our school is ploughing on for now.
Nothing makes sense any more. DH flew out of the country yesterday. Two of the party were told at the last minute they couldn’t go because they’d recently had Covid, so PCR tests were positive. However, someone who flew out a few days earlier (and was passed as fit to fly) has now tested positive and could only have contracted Covid before flying because of the time line of events. How will they be able to get a fit to fly status to come hone after isolation?
DH couldn’t get a booster before he went, despite being 6 months since the 2nd jab, but I’ve been called for one.
I can see scary headlines hitting next week, in time for the holidays.

singing, we’re the same here. DD moans every day about various staff members and I have had a few choice words to say lately too.
With so much confusion about exams, mocks, uni places etc, morale is pretty low here and an offer before Christmas would be a great motivator, as you say.

Fingers crossed for our stragglers 🤞🏻

@Zebracat
I’m out today but l will try and help when I get a bit of time later on.

@Zebracat in truth the places which accept CCC probably don't look much at PS, they are the mid range places which are not super competitive and just look at grades, although I guess that if Lincoln make unconditional offers if they like a PS, that could be very nice! It also helps to be a girl applying for engineering! UWE is 80 points, Swansea could be a nice option.