Thread 28 - Corona Cohort Awaiting Offers, Advance Notice, Gap Years and New Jobs

[OrangeCinnamonCroissant]

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.

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 27 Here

Thanks for the replies @PaddingtonPaddington @icanbewhatiwant . If I knew the password for UCAS I would look but DS hasn't received any emails so none the wiser. He has had 4 offers from Birmingham, Aston, Manchester and Nottingham. Just waiting for Warwick. He is now saying he doesn't want to go to Warwick and will put Birmingham as his firm. He got 3 A* in his mocks.

We too feel your pain Piggy and Orange. DD is gutted they've taken her fave bits out of the family topic. Not impressed at all.

Great news re your DD house share Whoami and so glad the job is going well.

Wat does she think they have taken out AoC? I can't see anything has gone really!

@Nard75 Ds messaged me from school as he wanted me to email him something from his pc. So he told me his password for the pc. So I looked on ucas while I was on the pc. Passwords were all saved. It just says awaiting confirmation under his firm and insurance. Not sure what he'd think of me looking. But I wasn't sure he'd done it correctly as no emails. But all seems ok.

Ds went for the interview for the summer job and got it. He starts mid July until third week of sept. Ds1 did the job for 3 summers. So hopefully Ds2 can do it each summer too. They are paying £9.20 hour. I thought that was good pay for round here. Not sure how much time there will be for a holiday as I don't know when the last date of exam period is. He wants to go away with mates.

Well done @icanbewhatiwant 's DS! DD works every Friday evening in one of the village pubs, to earn some money for next year. She is learning good life skills too, and it may come in handy to have bar experience if she needs to work while at Uni.

@GoldenRuby thanks. Yes bar skills is definitely a great thing to do. People facing. Jobs like that will prioritise them if they apply for jobs while at university. Ds will be working in a lab. testing the crops as they come in from the fields.

That’s good pay @icanbewhatiwant. Dd had a Christmas job at Sainsburys and they paid £9.50 and that was more than any of her friends have got. I’m hoping she can get some work in the summer, she narrowly missed out on being taken on permanently.

@mummyinbeds

Thanks for the new thread *@OrangeCinnamonCroissant*

Good news on Nottingham for DS at long last. He got an offer last night for Law with French and French Law - AAA including Spanish 🤔 His knowledge of Spanish doesn't go beyond Dora the Explorer so I'm hoping that the condition should say French.

Decision time now. Nottingham or Birmingham?

Well done to your DS @mummyinbeds! Nottingham and Birmingham are pretty similar large green campus unis on the edge of big cities so I think he should choose based on the course he likes the most. If he still really can’t choose between them, then I have to say the reputation of Nottingham’s law school slightly edges ahead of Birmingham’s in the eyes of the legal professions. It’s pretty marginal but Nottingham is really excellent to Birmingham’s very good.

Well done to @22Newnames for notts offer too!

Look at me still up at this time. You’d think I lived in New York but, no. Sigh.

@crazycrofter Sainsbury's pay well. I work for the co-op, they pay less per hour. Though I think supermarket pay may vary depending where you live.

What time did you get to bed in the end, Delphi?

Thanks @Delphigirl We did open days at both and I agree they are very similar. Initially he was only interested in Nottingham but he liked Birmingham and had been convinced Nottingham would reject him. We're going to sit down at the weekend and look closely at the courses. Nottingham has more French language (as opposed to French law) than Birmingham, and the reputation might be a big factor.
Both Birmingham and Nottingham rejected me for law, after interview and entrance tests back in the day so I'm already very proud of him. I was a northern comprehensive school kid, totally out of my depth and with no support or advice from anywhere. Thank you Mumsnet 😁

Has anyone else’s DC lost the love for their uni choices, or found, in hindsight, that they never had a real love for them in the first place?

Of DD’s 5, she’s really only keen on her first choice, even though she hasn’t visited it yet.
KCL hasn’t offered yet, she won’t get the grades, and she doesn’t think she’d be happy in London.
Southampton, she’s visited, liked the uni but hated the city.
RHUL, she loves the course but hates the idea of a quiet campus “in the middle of nowhere”.
Reading, sort of likes the idea of the course and location, but feels it would be a lesser choice compared to the bigger name unis.

She’s going to have to work her socks off AND have good days on the exam days to meet Birmingham’s offer of AAB, and she’s going to struggle to love an insurance. Going through clearing will be even harder, as there really wasn’t anywhere else she was even remotely keen on when making her 5 choices.

I just had a bbc new flash saying covid isolation to be scrapped a month early. I don't know if the bbc are accurate with news reports.

It's come up on Sky News too

Bojo said this as part of PMQ today - if the figures continue as they are, will announce plans on 21/2 for living with covid.

It was on the Parliament channel. It’s going to affect the mental health of everyone who is medically vulnerable attending schools, including my daughter. She knows it’s ‘just a cold’ for most people but when you are medically vulnerable it feels scary. She has seizures during the night where she’s stopped breathing so I don’t want her to be ill or me to be ill the same time as her. Don’t know what this means for the hospital appointments she’s got coming up for surgery. We’re fed up of covid and worn out being brave and resilient.

Sorry to vent. This thread should be about A Levels and further education. It’s just trying to work out the cost/benefit in getting exams sometimes. As you were.

@Alsoplayspiccolo

What time did you get to bed in the end, Delphi?

Lights off 3.25, alarm on for 8.35, in work by 9, in court from 10-1.20 (lawyer) I could chew my arm off I’m so hungry. Off to find a shitty sandwich!

Please don’t ever apologise @Zandathepanda, your concerns are entirely understandable and reasonable. It’s all so difficult. Thinking of you and your lovely dd.

@mummyinbeds

Thanks *@Delphigirl* We did open days at both and I agree they are very similar. Initially he was only interested in Nottingham but he liked Birmingham and had been convinced Nottingham would reject him. We're going to sit down at the weekend and look closely at the courses. Nottingham has more French language (as opposed to French law) than Birmingham, and the reputation might be a big factor. Both Birmingham and Nottingham rejected me for law, after interview and entrance tests back in the day so I'm already very proud of him. I was a northern comprehensive school kid, totally out of my depth and with no support or advice from anywhere. Thank you Mumsnet 😁

Ahhhh.. I hope you made your law dreams come true anyway @mummyinbeds! My arts degree from northern uni hasn’t stopped me from a pretty impressive legal career so don’t get too hung up on reputation as between those two excellent institutions. Most major law firms are now uni-blind recruiting and the bar lumps everything that isn’t oxbridge in pretty much the same pot…!

@Zandathepanda the thread is for all issues affecting our DCs so please don't worry about going off-topic as it were

Ouch, Delphi, that’s tough. Hope you find something a bit more satisfying than a sandwich (like a g&t in a tin and a large doughnut!)

Zanda, I really feel for your DD and you. The government seem to swing from one extreme to another, with regards to self-isolating.
I read an article recently where a doctor said that, actually, Covid had shown us how we should all behave when we get a cold; no-one wants to work next to someone who is unwell, and we should all feel able to take time off and stay at home until we’re better.
Hopefully, even with the relaxation of isolating rules, people who know they’re ill will do that.

Zanda no need to apologise. I've an asthmatic DD who really suffers with colds. I dread her getting Covid. It will knock her for six. I keep looking to see if they are doing more boosters in the Spring...

Terrifies me that she'll be sick for exams....