Post GCSE’s 2022 - Year 12 2022/23 General support thread

[Rollergirl11]

This is a thread for supporting all young people post GCSEs 2022, regardless of their educational setting.
Our DC’s may continue down various pathways ( employment, apprenticeships, higher ed)
Everyone is welcome!

DH and DS are back from Warwick and enjoyed their look around. DS thinks he will apply but he is talking about it being a second choice so I think his heart is set on Cambridge!

Also back from Warwick and DD absolutely loved it (though now torn between single and joint honours). By the end she was talking as though she was going there. We have others to say, but think it's fair to say it's a clear front runner.

Also back from Warwick with DS and it’s now top of the list. Physics talk was great plus got to speak with the lecturers and students, did a tour on our own and liked the vibe. Two more unis to see in July and DS has year 12 exams next week.

Good to hear from you again @Silkierabbit what hard times and how well your dd is managing. Leeds a great success here except open days exhaust ds so much he doesn't want to do many more! I hadn't anticipated how tiring it would be.

I did offer now that my plans next weekend have changed due to my ankle to get Liverpool and Birmingham done, but he has opted to keep them Autumn which is a bit of a relief as it definitely is way more tiring that anticipated @aramox1

We just have Oxford on 28th then a nice rest.

Yes they are really tiring aren’t they? We have York in 2 weeks and Cambridge the following week. Then we are planning to do Warwick, Lancaster and Leeds in the autumn. Interesting to hear how everyone loved Warwick!

Thanks Lego Yes the Economics has got a lot more maths focussed since my day.

Thanks Rollergirl Sorry Durham open day was a bit rubbish, they should have said in advance really.

Thanks Light She's aiming for Oxford which is why the dilemma. Though not visited anywhere yet but she seems to know what she wants.

Sorry about the C QueenMabby though would be pretty confident that will be a temporary issue if its out of line with grades normally. My DS is like that too just writes the answer then says its obvious why its that. I do think it can be taught though, a tutor should help.

Thanks aramox1 Glad Leeds went well.

Went out to May Bumps garden party today which was lovely just DH and I. DD was working. DD is veering towards doing the Economics A level but now not worrying about a predicted grade in it, we will see. She said she loves studying. I think if she starts it will help with the interview and she can always drop one later. We finally were called about a school for DS on Friday. They are currently saying can't meet needs (it all gets quite political re funding) but Head of school had a Teams chat with me and we are having a tour early next week and meeting 2 more senior people. They are considering putting him straight to A levels and skipping GCSEs, its what the LA requested but we will see. I was expecting a y11 repeat. So trying to negotiate a deal with school and LA and then it'll be trying to get DS to cooperate. LA have fought me for 1.5 years to stop a school placement saying he must be EOTAS which he won't do as he's asd and rigid so learning must be in a school plus their EOTAS package was rubbish and had about 15 minutes of teaching in it whole period, there is a lack of school places in the county.

Biggest shock of the day from our open day visit was the cost of accomodation!

Good to hear the feedback about Warwick - we're off next weekend.

Bath today was really impressive- passionate lecturers and research, a real emphasis and support re; industrial placements and studying abroad (they even provide language support for this). Excellent employment stats for the s pence subjects we looked at. Labs were bigger and brighter than some of the others we've looked at. Lots of accommodation options but unfortunately the en-suite rooms are £8k! Totally self contained campus but good bus to or walk to town. The hill back was punishing. And, of course Bath itself is beautiful.

It's a real contender for ds and we all liked it. Did 25K steps today so I'm totally exhausted.

Ha, I've told DC not to worry about cost of accommodation as it won't be as expensive as her sister's in London £11000

@Lightsabre - ds said the same about Bath - he loves it. It's knocked Warwick off the top spot for him. He raved about the sports facilities too - and the colour changing LEDs in the fancy accommodation (Quads?)

We have Southampton next week - bit of an outlier but it has links with the Harvard-Cornell astrophysics lab which looks interesting.

We'll do Durham in the autumn - hopefully they'll have sorted themselves out by then!

@Lightsabre DD’s best friends sister is doing Bio-medicine and has just done her first year at Bath. We’d heard that the en-suites are eye-wateringly expensive. DD and her friend went to stay one night with her sister for a gig back in Feb. She said the en-suite room was really nice. There are laid on buses that run really regularly from town to campus. Most people use them because of the hill. They caught one of these after their night out and DD said it was great fun with everyone singing and in high spirits.

Hello all - just reporting back on the Bristol open day yesterday - DD thought it was ok, but she didn't come away feeling like she absolutely has to go there. I think she's hoping for a lightbulb moment somewhere. She felt the subject talks were not particularly inspiring, tbf they were mostly about the nuts and bolts of how the courses are administered. Bristol is also a bit too close to home I think. Her first experience of an open day though, so a good benchmark. We have Birmingham and Manchester on consecutive days next week and Oxford / UCL the week after.

DD has just done AS exams so I guess they will be the basis for A level predictions. AS grades contribute to the final A level and they go on the UCAS form so I don't think there will be much wriggle room on predicted grades. 😬

She seems to think that college has finished now. I am a bit suspicious about that so have sneakily emailed them to find out. Ages ago there was talk about starting on the EPQ and also Y13 teaching this term but she is convinced that she doesn't have to go in again until September.

Yes, I've been surprised how tiring the Open Days are. Slightly wishing we hadn't agreed with DD to go to so many :)

There is a thread on WIWIKAU about people who were underwhelmed with Warwick, which I guess just proves that different places appeal to different people.

One thing DD really enjoyed at Bristol was the alumni Q+A. I thought they made a couple of interesting points - that most jobs just require a degree, so choose what you're going to enjoy studying rather than worrying about what will happen afterwards. They all said they didn't know what kind of job they wanted until second year at least.

And their other advice fwiw was that it's quite hard to tell if you're going to enjoy a university, as it depends so much on the people around you, the teaching staff and other students. So once you've narrowed it down to places offering a good course, focus on deciding where you would like to live for the next three years.

We also liked Southampton however a lot of the accommodation is a short ride away. Having never been to Southampton or Bath before, I think we preferred Bath as an actual place to live.
The other tempting thing is that the offers are both a lot lower than other places we're considering - Oxbridge /Imperial. We're struggling to find an in between offer place if that makes sense? St Andrews looks ideal but it's so far away from us if there are any issues.

Well following the unopened email debacle last week DS has apparently demonstrated contrition to DH. Still a bit sulky with me, but that's some progress. He has had an email from them saying that he is so far down the waiting list that there is no chance of a place at next week's open day but offering alternative dates in September. Not ideal but at least we know and DH has been able to cancel his day's leave.
By sheer chance we were at a social event yesterday and met a relatively recent graduate who had done a course in the same faculty with some common modules to the course DH is interested in, so they had a good chat and he answered quite a few of the questions we would have asked at the open day. DS has a sports event in the same city over the Summer too so we will try and have a nosey round the campus then. I'm still angry with him, but less so than I was!

We went to Warwick yesterday too. DD loved the feel of the campus, especially the walk down to the Life Sciences buildings however she was a bit underwhelmed by the actual labs and thought they felt a bit tired and old. Mind you she had been looking at the new state of the art science teaching hub at Aberdeen (on line only) which may have affected her opinion.

She also wasn't overly impressed by the accommodation-especially the cost of it. I did tell her that it was pretty much par for course!

That was a result @MrsAvocet! I find talking to the students one of the most useful parts of these events. Often they're candid about what the course is like and what they think of the teaching. It's also good to talk about what they're planning to do next and how helpful the uni have been with that.

I think that’s really good advice. Ultimately it’s where you can see yourself living. DD is definitely struggling with weighing up the benefits of going somewhere prestigious that are more in line with her predicted grades and whether that should be a factor as opposed to somewhere that offers the complete uni experience and matches more her idea of what uni should be like. When we visited Exeter she could instantly see herself going there and so far it is ticking the most boxes in terms of the course and modules on offer (even above Cambridge and Durham). But Cambridge and Durham offer the prestige. She wants to have fun as well and I think she’s worried that she won’t get that at Cambridge.

''I think that’s really good advice. Ultimately it’s where you can see yourself living. DD is definitely struggling with weighing up the benefits of going somewhere prestigious that are more in line with her predicted grades and whether that should be a factor as opposed to somewhere that offers the complete uni experience and matches more her idea of what uni should be like. When we visited Exeter she could instantly see herself going there and so far it is ticking the most boxes in terms of the course and modules on offer (even above Cambridge and Durham). But Cambridge and Durham offer the prestige. She wants to have fun as well and I think she’s worried that she won’t get that at Cambridge.''

This is exactly what ds is thinking too - they explained the offer for Bath for his course would be A star AB. He's worried that he's selling himself short a bit but the prospects for the grads on the course he wanted to do looked good. It's difficult to know what to do but I guess he'll soon know when he applies as he might not get any offers for the more prestigious places.

Another agreeing that it's all about choosing a course that ticks the boxes and then thinking about where you might like to live for the next few years.

I think the "prestige" of a university is a really interesting question. DD has discounted Oxbridge on the basis that their courses sound dull ("traditional" might be a kinder word) and she's more attracted by some of the range of material covered and opportunity to study broader options at other universities. However I know some wider family members will tell her (I'm trying to protect her from this at the moment) that she would be mad not to give Oxbridge at least a shot. I think it's quite key to look beyond the name of a university and really think about what you want.

Interesting, we went to a talk at Sussex where the student had turned down offers from Oxford, LSE and Queens Belfast to study there despite everyone she knew telling her she was mad. She said she's never regretted doing so, been immensely happy at Sussex (she'd just finished her third year), done really well and had her future career mapped out.

There's a fine line to walk I think. On one hand, particularly with the financial implications these days, I think it is important that young people do think carefully about what they want, take time out if they are unsure and don't just jump at any old offer because they want "something". On the other hand, I think it is also important not to get too fixated on there only being one or two options that will meet your needs.* I think that unless they have opted for a course or institution that is totally wrong for them most reasonably able young people will be fine in most places if they go with a positive attitude.
My University experience was very different to expectations. I'd envisaged an out of town modern campus as that's what my elder sibling had chosen, but I ended up at a Victorian red brickie in the middle of an industrial city and I thrived there.
My elder son didn't do any open days in real life thanks to Covid and made his choice on online info and prospectuses. He chose differently to how I would have and I had plenty of sleepless nights over it. But he has just finished first year with excellent exam results but is staying on beyond the end of term to participate in an inter University competition with his friends. It is proving to be a great environment for him. Would my favoured place also have been great? I suspect that yes, it probably would, but it's better that he has made his own choice and is making it work for himself.
Not that I am saying it doesn't matter where you go, but I think we, and our young people, sometimes end up getting stressed over choices between broadly equivalent places when a bright young person is actually likely to thrive in any of their options. There's so much pressure on them and it can feel like the end of the world if they don't get an offer from the top University for their course or don't make the grades for their first choice. But it isn't. Sounds like we have a great bunch of kids between us and they will be ok. *

So good to see everyone's experience & insights.

@Rollergirl11 we were both very impressed with Durham. DS loved the town & liked the couple of colleges that we looked round. He was interested in Business & as an outlier History, but came away very keen to read History. In large part because the professor who gave the talk was very articulate, candid & passionate about the course. As last year they had 2000 applications for 194 places, it's a real long shot, so would definitely be his aspirational choose if he selects it. And of course depends on these mock grades which are due at the end of the month.

How disappointing about the English talk, particularly as you'd travelled a distance to visit. We had a similar experience with the Business talk, although the professor who was due to speak had apparently been called away due to a family emergency. The outcome was a stand-in, who spent 20 minutes talking very quietly about general Durham info & then did cover Business but in such a prospectus-style way that we gleaned no further insight.

It is a beautiful city & so green. As a state-school boy, I wasn't sure how DS would feel about the formals, but he seemed quite keen...he's a bit of a chameleon!

Next stop Newcastle on Friday...

My DS is going to Newcastle on Friday too @legosunqueen though school are taking them so I am spared. Well apart from the fact that I have to get up in what feels like the middle of the night to take him for the bus that is! He isn't particularly interested i going there but as they can see both Newcastle and Northumbria and it involves minimal effort I thought he should go and see what different places have to offer. Suspect he might be sneaking off to his favourite guitar shop in the city centre mind you...