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

That sounds awful @Alsoplayspiccolo

I hope it is sorted soon

@Alsoplayspiccolo that trip is the Covid nightmare stuff. I assume the poor person who tested positive has to spend the whole trip isolating, them come back when they are allowed to fly again. With musicians you also have the difficulty of covering the parts of the missing people. Eurghhhh!

Shimy so easy to do as everyone looks 12 these days!

Also - I'm not surprised you're cross. They should have sorted the basics. DD's personal statement got a lot of editing from us, and from school. She's dyslexic so DH checks it (as I'm dyslexic so no help at all!)

Congrats on the offers Isthis and Ewwsprouts - great to have the offers.

DD breaks up on Wednesday. Just hoping all is okay Covid wise til then.

@Monkey2001 & @ Zebracat I concur with Monkey on Swansea. That would be a fab choice. Swansea invested heavily in its engineering department some yrs ago and it has one of the best at the moment, it also does foundation yrs. Very strong reputation in Engineering and Computer science.

@Alsoplayspiccolo Sorry to hear about the poor support for DD's ps. These dc are so lucky they have involved parents who are also rather knowledgable otherwise God knows what would have happened? even more frustrating is that the dc trust their teacher's judgement in academic matters more than their parents, so it can be quite hard to convince them they've got it wrong. I hope it does get straightened out and edited properly so she can submit.

Crazy:
"and they've been told there won't be exams....Scotland, but where they go, England and Wales will follow no doubt."

That was exactly the issue last night, Shimy - DD insisting that she should leave it as it was because the teachers had said it was great, and me trying to argue that it wasn’t, without making her feel it was her fault.
She’s just messaged me to ask for payment and it’s been submitted - she sent me a screenshot of the UCAS message, with the comment “hopes and prayers 😫”.

Monkey, absolutely - one of the people told at the last minute that they couldn’t travel was the leader! The other was one of the percussionists, so they’ve ended up having to take a recent graduate who hasn’t rehearsed at all (it’s a new commission, so not a known work either!)
I’m keeping everything crossed DH doesn’t contract Covid 🤞🏻

My DD just got an update from Lincoln changing her offer from BBB to unconditional! It sounds like they read and liked the PS and references.

@Zebracat I’d agree that Swansea & UWE are good ones to look at. Also Surrey - they were fab with a young man I know who performed badly at A Level due to very understandable family issues. They could see his potential from his GCSE results & took him on a foundation year & he has flourished

@Alsoplayspiccolo Did she edit it though? If she hasn't, hopefully it's not totally disastrous and won't stop her from getting offers. It might not be altogether grammatically correct or perfect but I think admissions have seen all kinds of PS's and hers won't stand out as one of the worst.

@BlueMarigold How fantastic! are there any conditions on it?

When is everyone closing for the Xmas?

That's a great result BlueMarigold, and a real insight to how some of these unis review and adjust offers made retrospectively!

@BlueMarigold that is great. It is so nice that Lincoln issue a quick offer to most applicants, then woo the ones they like best!

Lovely news, BlueMarigold. I told DD only yesterday that some universities change their offers to unconditional on the strength of the PS, to stress to her how important it was to make it the best she can.

We edited it together last night, Shimy, so there’s nothing more to be done now but wait.

@DoggerelBank omg! I am dying here! this is exactly the sort of thing that would happen to me!

@Shimy DS also has a teacher who looks barely old enough to have left school, also an 'old boy' who now teaches. He does have a baby face despite being about 30.

@Alsoplayspiccolo that is incredibly frustrating about the PS, thank goodness you looked at it!

Good luck to the interviewees today.

@ewsprouts and @Isthisjustnormal well done to your DSs on the offers and also to @BlueMarigold DD.

Our school doesn't break up for another week. Both DSs are exhausted. We also got forms about mass testing on return to school which has the added effect of moving the mock dates around so I've printed off the new timetable. I am not happy about the Scotland whispers...

Thanks to everyone who’s chipped in. I love you guys. Lovely to hear of the offers coming in. I would feel so much better if we’d had one.
I wondered if being a female applicant was still a help, so that’s useful, and also useful to know that mechanical engineering is more popular than Civil. She didn’t take maths A level, but was ok at maths, by all accounts, don’t know her gcse results. The foundation years all appear to be pretty intense mathematically, and that hasn’t fazed her. She’s a lovely kid, and she works pt as a kitchen porter, so not scared of hard work.which would impress me if I was in admissions! Quite relieved that the personal statement might not be read!
Hope all the interviews are going swimmingly. Our college breaks up next Friday. Just really worried they won’t go back.

I'm sure your edits will have made a difference Also. Fingers crossed for some pre Xmas offers.

Blue - that's lovely. Wonder how common that's going to be? (quietly hoping Swansea might do something similar but that's right up there will dreaming about winning the lottery).

If Scotland are going to cancel I hope they do it soon. I agree we'll likely follow their lead, as per usual.

In case they don't cancel exams, the Boards are issuing high level guidance about the kind of information which will be released in advance. We have a mixture of OCR, AQA and Edexcel, can only see OCR so far. For science subjects they will tell you which areas of the curriculum will be examined in order of the value of the content. Maybe the grade boundaries will go whizzing up if they actually happen! As someone who believes in the value of education, acknowledging that exams are the tangible outcome, I worry about how much they will learn, but at least they will know how to get the grades which will take when to the next stage. If they happen.

Forgot to post the link
www.theexamsoffice.org/coronavirus-advice/

DS happy after interviews. IT worked well except for the source question he had to share screen with student ambassador and tell her when to scroll down ! 20 page source question with 20 minutes reading time was tricky. Both interviews overran so hoping that’s a good sign. All very pleasant people. Mostly general history questions on various periods but quite a lot on his PS and what he had read. He enjoyed it so anything else is a bonus.

@BlueMarigold - great news re Lincoln. DS wishes he had put it down rather than one of his choices

Great news re the unconditional @BlueMarigold and glad the interview went well @estherfrewen. 20 pages of sources sounds solid!! Did they ask questions about random periods of history or just areas he's studied at A Level?

@crazycrofter - mix of both. Some very random stuff!

Hello I’ve completely fallen off this thread and haven’t yet read everything through to catch up but congratulations to all who have received offers and good luck for interviews.

DD has been very poorly with nearly 4 weeks off school just after submitting her UCAS application. She submitted 4 choices and received 3 back (York ABB, Southampton ABB & Cardiff BBB or BBC if firms with them) within two days and the 4th (Nottingham ABB) came 2 weeks later. Not sure if she will submit a 5th at this stage. Due to being ill and now trying to catch up with NEA work and coursework it’s not been a priority.

Re exams we received a letter from school at the beginning of the month re grade determinations and wondered if any other schools have issued guidance yet. This is what DDs school have said:

“If there are no public examinations and schools are required to determine grades (Teacher Assessed Grades- TAGs) then it is our expectation that we will base these on NEAs (Non-Examined Assessment), the September and January internal examinations and internal summer exams. The weighting will be predominately on the internal summer examinations.

For example, if a subject has 30% NEA, then the overall grade could be determined as follows:

NEA 30%
September 2021 mocks 20%
January 2022 mocks 20%
Summer 2022 examinations 30%

Or a subject without an NEA could determine the grade as follows:

September 2021 mocks 25%
January 2022 mocks 25%
Summer 2022 examinations 50%

These final weightings will only be determined once a decision has been made at national level that public examinations will not go ahead and will vary from subject to subject.

The school will continue to retain the Year 12 April 2021 examination papers. It is our expectation that these would only be used if for some reason a student was not able to complete a mock or summer examination, for a reason outside of their control. In such an instance the Year 12 examination papers could be used to support the evidence base for a grade.”

@Alsoplayspiccolo I don't think you have anything to worry about since she edited it. It will be fine.

@estherfrewen Glad the interview went well. He can relax a bit now.It's good they're done before Xmas as well.

Sounds promising @estherfrewen, definitely a good sign that he enjoyed himself!

@mummabear74 - I really think its unfair to include Sept mocks in grade calculations. It use to be that they've be expected to put a grade on their mock results, now those results are bringing their marks down. I don't know how to reconcile that to the grade inflation...if DD Sept mocks count for a lot there will be problems with her Chemistry mark I fear.