Year 13 2023/2024 - General support thread

[Rollergirl11]

It’s now the time for our young adults to sit their final year at sixth form/college. Everyone is welcome!

@MirandaWest
good luck to your dd!

We had another open day yesterday, revisiting the top choice for an Art foundation course. Got to look at the very impressive accommodation too. It was about £7k for 42 weeks accommodation. How does that compare with other places?

DDs main issue with a gap year is FOMO - doesn’t want to be left behind.

Did another Uni visit yesterday and DD really liked it. Upper end of grades but talk suggested there may be some flex. Really super impressed by everyone we spoke to - from lecturers on stands, to the actual subject talk, to an SU rep, to a rando lecturer we bumped into in an empty building. Everyone just so bloody nice, welcoming and helpful.

Very different feel to a few years ago when we visited w DS. Interesting!

That's interesting @SooperOuting I think my DS is partly motivated by FOMO too but for him he doesn't want to miss out on the adventure some of his mates might have in a gap year!

Yes I can see it definitely has an impact if some of their mates are considering gap years. To be the only one is a different thing too.

DD has one bestie intent on taking a gap year and the other one most likely going to roll straight on to university. So she's pulled two ways.

Given her lifestyle choices, I'd say she'll need to work for a year to earn enough to help her live in the manner to which she's become accustomed. We don't mind providing the support that SFE deems us capable of paying towards her costs, but really not going to be enabling her to live a 'rich kid' lifestyle (which she very much does at the moment, using her own income).

DD is considering a 'middling' university as her preferred choice, on the off-chance that she changes her mind about the year off. If she does massively better than anticipated, she may revise her options. It's all a bit up-in-the-air here!

More tests for DD next week which I believe are to 'firm up' the predicted grades they were given at the end of Year 12. She thinks there are two more lots of mocks to do in Yr 13 too.

@Aaarghthepancakes, I'd say that £7K for 42 weeks is probably pretty standard for accommodation nowadays, certainly in halls. Some unis do have a broader range of accommodation types (and rental costs) than others. It's the having to pay for Christmas and Easter holiday periods too which ramps up the costs considerably (this was much less common in years gone by)

A busy week is off to a good start today - DS has just passed his driving test. We've also got school prize giving coming up where he's won the annual prize for best in his favourite subject and he turns 18 later this week so lots going on. Hopefully things stay this positive going forward!

@MrsAvocet congratulations to your ds!

Is that with an ensuite? Expensive if it isn’t. Ds was at Warwick and that would be comparable for an en-suite. Warwick was not too expensive imo as accommodation with a shared bathroom starts at £117 per week now.

@ShanghaiDiva yes it was ensuite. It was actually lovely - the hall is only 3 years old, immaculate and good sized rooms for one person. When I think of the places I lived when I was a student .....

Congratulations to your ds @MrsAvocet - a milestone out of the way.

Ds has handed in his PS and UCAS form. It's all been a bit rushed but glad to see the back of it. He needs to knuckle down to some actual work now.

Yes congrats to @MrsAvocet DS for passing his driving test. I’ve noticed an awful lot of Year 13’s now driving when I’ve picked up DD. There must have been a lot of passes over the summer.

Gosh @Lightsabre that all seems very soon! Has he put down all 5 options or just Oxbridge for now? DD’s internal deadline is 23rd September but she still hasn’t had any feedback from her draft PS that she submitted at the end of term. She’s done more work on it since then. Can’t see how college are going to hit that deadline when they haven’t had any meetings with the students yet! I’m getting slightly concerned.

We are nowhere near ucas form handing in - still have two more open days to do and one isn't until October 14th. Plus I'm hoping for a slight improvement of predicted grades by then. He just needs one to go up a grade for the course he really wants.

DD’s best friend submitted her ucas form yesterday. Dd has a meeting with her tutor today to review her personal statement then head of sixth form will review it.

Yes, it's a pain that it's so early @Rollergirl11, he could have done with a couple more weeks but his sixth form have almost 100 Oxbridge entrants so I guess that's a lot of work for the school prior to the 14th Oct deadline. He rushed the college choice really but I think there's a small window of a couple of days to change it so we'll sit down and discuss tonight.

He did put all 5 choices down - two aspirational (Ox and Imperial), two hopefully achievable (Warwick and Bath) and one for if the exams don't go as predicted (Southampton). Has anyone else dc finalised their choices too?

I wonder if he'll get any early offers? Would be nice to have one in the bag by the Jan deadline.

@Lightsabre
dd has finalised her choices: Cambridge, Bath, Exeter, Loughborough and Warwick for natural sciences.

DD pretty much has her 5 but she won’t know one of them until she has visited Warwick on 7th Oct so I don’t think she will be in a position to put all 5 until after then, which is after the internal deadline.

Hers are: Cambridge, Durham, Exeter, York or Warwick and Lancaster.

Congratulations to your ds @MrsAvocet

Deadline of this week for DDs form as well, internal deadline for early entry, she has done PS, not sure if has finalised choices yet, she wants Oxford and LSE but wasn't that interested in anywhere else and said she would have gap year and reapply if doesn't get in either. She might put Bristol down too. She's got 2 very good jobs, 1 were pay is very high and she likes to spend so a gap year could work well though hope she gets an offer first time. She was on about putting the LSE down 3 times for different courses which seemed very odd to me but she said people do that now but normally 2. All similar courses, seems a bit of a waste of choices for me but then I applied to 5 and it was just as was ones Mum had taken me to on open day and 3 I disliked then there was LSE and Cambridge. My Dad was having a fit at LSE choice saying it was full of left wing people and he would cut financial support, not that parents gave much at all as it was in days of grants. Ironically I remember it being full of public school boys and rich international students who wanted to work in city when I visited nothing like the communist place he maybe read in the Daily Mail from his rural home.

DD has one choice nailed down and the others will be added later depending on the autumn open days. PS not started yet.

No idea when DS has to get his PS in as he has decided he no longer wants to apply to Cambridge. At the moment his choices are UCL, Leeds and Sheffield but he is unsure about the other two.
Well done to your DS @MrsAvocet My DS is a month into lessons and really enjoying them. None of his friends have passed yet as all are young in the school year.

Congratulations to your DS @MrsAvocet

DS seems happy to be back at college but I'm not getting a lot of information from him. Not sure when the early entry deadline is, not as early as some of you seem to have had! I know they have more assessments at the beginning of October which may influence their predicted grades so hopefully he will put the work in for those. He seems slightly too laid back to me but hey ho.

I think he has decided on three to go onto his form and is talking about leaving the other two spaces blank until a bit later. Not sure what further information he is expecting when he doesn't want to go to open days but I guess he can do it like that if he wants to!

DS1's requirements of a history degree were quite niche so he only has

Leeds
Manchester
Liverpool
Edinburgh
St Andrew's
Birmingham

I think Birmingham is the most likely to fall off the list, but we are yet to see it. He didn't really like Manchester and decided against Oxford.

DD's current shortlist is Oxford, Edinburgh, Durham, Bristol and Belfast.

DS's shortlist is currently Bath, Lancaster, York and Sheffield. One other to be decided.

Warwick was on the list but it has the same (aspirational) entrance requirements as Bath and he would always pick Bath over Warwick and probably York and Lancaster over Warwick too so that's been dropped. We need to chat through a possible option 5.

DS's is Oxford, Edinburgh, Lancaster and 2 out of 3 of Leeds, Manchester and Durham (still to visit the last 2). He didn't like Warwick so that has dropped off the list.