Thread 37: Covid Cohort 2020 Results Thread 'Heroes of Their Own Stories'

[CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee]

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@CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee wno.org.uk/take-part/youth-opera

@Monkey2001 sorry to pick your brains re review of marking. DS has really poor handwriting, too! We will wait for teachers to be back but given it is a review of marks for errors, and there is tolerance level for different subjective marks (this is a humanities subject), do you ever see much movement when 1 mark off?

Orange the dogs home on Penarth Road is always looking for volunteers and dog walkers, you get a hi vis jacket and everything! 🐶

Ooh yes they do great stuff, there's a version of Cheryomushki coming up which should be amazing.

WMC is good for casual jobs too.

HA! Not much but it was the meal plan bit that was confusing.

We got Aitken. There was one room so he nabbed it. With two girls so far so I hope that changes. They open equal numbers of rooms each day I think.

There was pages and pages of rooms . We seemed to be offered within our original range. Loads of Shackleton Tennis Courts, Maple Bank.

Fantastic news for your DD @CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee . Gosh you really have gone through a very traumatic 24 hours & I'm so glad things are looking up. Cardiff sounds as though it will be brilliant for your DD. It's a brilliant place to be a student too.

If anyone has any advice or intel on Birmingham accommodation I’d love to hear it. DD met her offer there yesterday - first choice - but no welcome email or accommodation details. She chased this morning and was told that as she had missed the deadline in June she could not participate in room allocation, they would only get back to her in a couple of weeks after everyone had chosen and there was no guarantee anything would be left (in which case basically hard luck). She did actually register preferences but it was after A levels finished and she wasn’t aware there was a deadline.

aaaargh! I know they can’t magic up accommodation but seems really harsh on an offer holder. Presumably the same will apply to people who had it as insurance or through clearing (I know there won’t be many of those but there will be some)?

Or is there actually a reasonable supply of accommodation and in reality there will be leftovers??? If anyone has any info to make us feel better, please let us know as gloom has descended!

(DD is a spreadsheet-type of girl and I’ve no idea how we missed this, which is kind of making her feel worse).

Sounds like most people are making good progress. @Fiddlersgreen I went to Leicester and we visited with dd. She really liked the accommodation village (green, some lovely Edwardian houses), the small campus and the city. It seems very unfashionable now and I’ve no idea why as it’s still decently high up in the league tables.

DS still undecided….Strathclyde for Economics or UEA for Business Management. They are different in every single way!!

Oh dear tawny.They did change their allocation system a couple of months ago. I think this has actually worked in your DD's favour because everyone else is almost doing the whole selection process twice.

Birmingham is not one of the unis that seems to have a dearth of accommodation, although they are building more this year. I suspect what will happen is she gets pickings from what's left, alongside others in her boat, insurance offer holders and clearing. There won't be zillions of those because Birmingham wasn't in clearing. The Vale is the most popular so she may end up at Pritchatts Park or in Selly Oak .But nowhere is far. It could mean you don't get as much control over cost though. If ,say, Chamberlain is all that's left it's very expensive . I think they changed their system from random allocation because people kept ending up in accommodation they couldn't afford.

We managed to get 7 marks for A level chemistry, mostly because of handwriting and I expect the 6-9 in GCSE Eng Lit was mostly handwriting (although it was 2017 when it appeared that papers were marked by people who had not read the books the kids were writing about!) I don't have any experience of humanities A level subjects.

Ah thank you @crazycrofter thats great to hear! Thank you so much for sharing

@Piggywaspushed well done for getting first choice accommodation, it sounds like a strange system to me, but I have not seen any universities which allocate accommodation well! @TawnyPippit might find the expensive stuff goes first - so many want en suites now that the shared bathroom is often the last available, and is cheapest. Hope she gets what she wants, but must be very upset to have made a mistake like that. 😥

Thanks @Monkey2001 really helpful. Yes, as an Eng Lit bod, I learnt recently about the no need to have read the books thing with Exam Boards. Yikes!

DS was very happy in Tennis Courts last year. Key thing appears to be on the Vale (but he was on the Vale so allow for natural partiality on that one!)

TBH each experience depends mainly on the flatmates you are with and that is a crapshoot.

Golly.
In that case try this:
Tell him that he is going to try it randomly. Cajole him and make him promise to ho which ever one he picks blind.
Wrote both in two bits of paper, fold up small, move from hand to hand with much fanfare etc. make him pick one and then tell him he has to go there.
If he is disappointed, or relieved, then you have learnt which one he really wants!

Sorry typing while walking hence typos..

So DD has an offer from NTU for Sociology. I think it would be great in terms of distance from home (1.5hrs) and lots of nightlife that she wants , also on train line to bf. She needs to make a decision asap. Not heard back from Sheffield H.

Those of you whose dc got their firm or insurance - is there anything needing to be done if they are happy with the place?

Ds contacted Sheffield about booking accommodation and they said

“It can take up to 48 hours from accepting the Course offer to be provided with the information to set up a MUSE account when coming to us as an Insurance choice.”

This implies you need to do something to accept the offer?

Ugh, the en suites all having gone is her nightmare. She is talking about deferring if we can’t get any accommodation, which is what she was told on the phone this morning was a possibility (although one I take with a pinch of salt). Am currently googling those strange and expensive private halls. 🙄

DD is going to UEA in September, but a different course. We've visited several times and really liked the campus. All the staff and students seemed really friendly and helpful. DD loved Norwich itself. Can try and answer questions if I can 🙂

A lot of universities don't have enough halls for all first years, and give priority to firm places. Then it's first come for insurance or clearing places.

Dd went to her insurance and there were no halls for her at her university.

So she moved into private accommodation. We just phoned around all the providers to see where there were places, plus put her name down on a waiting list for uni halls. She didn't known anyone moving in but once we settled in the accommodation she managed to find flatmates in her flat and also in neighbouring Ines in her block - private flats aimed at students but not officially halls) through social media groups. It worked out fine in the end but me at she wasn't only with first years, but a mix, a waiting list place was offered mid way during the first week - we'd said we would take the hit in the first flat (we could opt out after first term) if it was what she preferred but she decided to stick with the private.

Ds has heard from York and been allocated one of his first choice colleges, but with an en suite rather than shared bathroom so pricier - which seems surprise as he really wasn’t bothered about an en-suite and I know lots of kids are! @Decorhate - he didn’t have to do anything to confirm his choice…

Hi just note York to NTU on the train can be tricky as you go via Grantham I think to get from the east coast line to travel into the Midlands. Maybe there’s other lines though (I seem to live on the East Coast Line at the moment).

Sheff Hallam, like a number of other universities, has contracts with privately owned halls. They work in a similar way to university halls in the end. Dd has friends in a number and they've all had good experiences, several choosing to stay in these private halls but through the university for their second and now third years, rather than moving into privately owned houses. Pricing seems to be very much inline with university owned ones. .