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!

Yes she's on about going to 5 choices in January but I am a bit concerned when I applied in the dark ages so it may have changed I had offers coming back within a month or so and will they have done first sift by then and first offers. Also adding a university in January its pretty obvious its not your first choice. I agree would do 5 now. She has said she won't put LSE as insurance if Oxford offers a place as same grades and Oxford is more flexible though mine were Cambridge and LSE so I can't really argue that one. But I do think Oxbridge is more flexible as they have interviewed and know who they want.

I didn't realise she hadn't looked at course content either. Having said that there's normally quite a lot of options and things you like can change. I don't know what other 3 to advise her myself and also think it needs to be her choice not mine. She doesn't want to visit places apart from Oxford either. Having said that she's been to a lot of places in the UK and looks at the online videos and I've been to loads of them and know what she's after and at end of day you just need the 1. She does seem to be doing masses of online research. I can't get my head around how some of them have changed from my day, Bath was very meh in my day and Bristol was far above it. I think she'll be aiming at jobs in London for after, Edinburgh also has similar jobs but she did not seem keen on that and its a long way.

What A levels is she doing @Silkierabbit and what was her GCSE profile? I know a dc who has an offer for PPE at Ox and she didn't do FM but had predicted of 4 x A star and 11 x 9 at GCSE.

She has an excellent grade profile and is obviously resilient. Teaching herself additional maths and the maths competition achievements will go in her favour. Given the extenuating circumstances and, particularly if she's at a state school, she may be in with a chance of an interview at least. Do her A levels include maths and is that an A star predicted grade? If so, then she's in with a shout but as others have said, a lot of r the course places will go to international students. I always ask at the open days how many 'home' students are offered. It helps to gauge chances.

Yes state school with contextualised gcse results and yes A star in maths. She does interview very well and never not got through an interview but its so competitive and I know when I was there it was a bit random who got in.

Thanks very much for your help Light I've asked for the results posts to be deleted as DD did put a ban on them. She is scared MN mums will be able to identify her. 😂

@Silkierabbit - your dd sounds very determined! It's such a stressful thing this choosing of universities!

DS going for one fave, three solids (of which he has a definite preference) and one "disaster day" like @Rollergirl11's dd although we've not visited that one yet.

His predicted grades are 3 As and he has his EPQ A in the bag already so we're hoping this stands him in good stead.

DS1 hasn’t seen enough yet to decide I don’t think. Most of his main contenders are in October, but I’ll advise similar to Rollergirl. The main issue he will have is that all are very similar grade profiles. He might add Cardiff in as his bad day choice.

Same here @StColumbofNavron . It’s kind of tricky to know how low you should go. What do people think of DD’s choices with regards to her predicted?

So her PG’s are A,A star x 2 and A for EPQ

5 choices are:
Cambridge: A star, AA
Durham: A star, AA
Exeter: AAA
Between York or Warwick: AAA
Lancaster: AAB

We are conscious that there’s a fair bit of replication there but as stColumbo says struggling to find courses with a big variation. Wondering if we should go lower than AAB but taking in to consideration that she may get lower offers with her EPQ. 🤷‍♀️

@Rollergirl11
Presumably Cambridge would be her first choice and then Durham if no offer from Cambridge? If she prefers an AAA uni to Durham then there is no point applying to Durham.

Her favourite AAA one is a good back-up for firm choice in case neither Cambridge nor Durham offer.

If that's not Warwick I would probably get rid of them for now, as they don't reduce offers for EPQ I don't think. Warwick would make a good alternative firm but probably too high for an insurance, whereas Exeter and York could fulfil either role if she does well in EPQ.

I don't think she needs to go lower than AAB as insurance - Lancaster's website says they lower their offer by a grade with a B in EPQ so possibly ABB.

If I were her I would apply for Cambridge, Durham (assuming it's her second fave), Lancaster and fave AAA uni now and see what happens. By 24 Jan she will know about Cambridge, might know about Durham and will probably know about Lancaster and the fave AAA uni, so will be in a better position to choose the fifth.

The offer makes Lancaster a good insurance, OP. AAB for insurance is always my recommendation for someone recommended A star A A or better, ad it allows for two grade drops.

And Lancaster has come on fabulously in recent years. It is only a matter of weeks since I was calling it a hidden gem of the UK HE system, but it has been garnering enough praise on this Board that I don’t think that’s accurate any longer

Bit pf a dilemma here. DS has his heart set of a very specific course. But there are very few courses nationwide and he knows that he definitely doesn't want to go to at least one of them. I don't want to say exactly what it is as it could be a bit identifiable but it's a very specific type of engineering. I do think it's made for him and he's got a strong application both in terms of his A levels (if he just pulls up his socks a bit in maths!) and super/extracurricular interests. He's done quite a lot of volunterring and work experience in very relevant fields that I hope will make him stand out a bit. He certainly got very positive vibes at a recent open day with the tutors he spoke to saying that he was very much the type of cadidate they're looking for. (But who knows, maybe they say that to everyone??)
But he is going to have to put at least one, probably 2, other courses down and now has this dilemma on how he writes a PS that is sufficiently specific for his first choice course but not so narrow that it massively disadvantages him for anything else.
Also the dilemma as to whether to apply to another, more generic engineering course at his first choice University in the hope of being able to switch if he impresses them or to spread the net wider?
Why is nothing ever straightforward?!

College are saying she has to choose all her other 5 options for the October deadline. DD is going to try and push back.

In all honesty Exeter is her favourite course out of all of them including Cambridge. She probably liked Exeter and Durham equally in terms of university, town, accommodation and vibe when we visited but still prefers the course at Exeter. She liked the course at York but not hugely enamoured with the campus. Really really likes the course at Lancaster and we are due to visit Warwick in 2 weeks.

Things are also complicated further by the fact that if she doesn’t firm Exeter they won’t guarantee accommodation so she has that in her head too.

DDs predicteds are AAA.

Will probably pick
2 x AAB (one of which looks like it might accept ABB on the day)
1 x ABB
1 x BBB

and keep the other one open and perhaps add in January, see how she is feeling. She has massive imposter syndrome at the moment (hangover from 11+ issues) so we are working with that as a backdrop.

@SooperOuting any reason why she isn’t going for an AAA course given that’s her predicted?

@MrsAvocet i know some unis allow you to do a supplementary PS specific for them (I think Durham offer this). Does his first choice course do anything like that?

@Rollergirl11 yes a few reasons:

• imposter syndrome as mentioned
• most of the unis she’s interested in for her subject are AAB. The very top tier ones are higher eg A*AA etc and she’s not interested in them
• I think it’s probably likely she will get AAB

Does anybody know whether it is worth applying for a course that requires AAA, when it is looking likely that DS’s predicted grades are A star, A star, B?

I know some unis allow you to do a supplementary PS specific for them (I think Durham offer this). Does his first choice course do anything like that?
Not as far as I know Rollergirl.
His HOY has told him to write it as for his first option and then she will look at it and see if she can help him rephrase anything so that it reads a bit better for the less specialist course. But obviously it needs to be as good as possible for the course that he really wants to do!
I'm leaning on him a bit to make some decisions and get on with things as my elder DS left everything very much to the last minute as he was unsure and I think that impacted on his A levels as he was still worrying about course choices when he really should have been fully focused on study.
I'm still finding it all a bit surreal that my "baby" is at this stage!

@spacechimp79 it depends how popular the course is, and whether the A star is in the key subject. The best way forward is gor DC to email the admissions team. People are happy to help.

Thanks @poetryandwine I will get DS to email in this week. The course is PPE so popular unfortunately. Fingers crossed he has done enough in his tests last week to bring up the prediction.

@Rollergirl11 based on your subsequent post it looks like Exeter with Lancaster as insurance makes sense. I know we are talking Cambridge and Durham here but if she prefers the Exeter course then that makes some sense. I’d say she has a good selection with Lancaster as her bad day option, but even then she likes it so it’s a good compromise. I think offer holder says can change things too.

DS is A* A A and has

St Andrews AAA
Leeds AAA
Manchester AAA (likely to cross off)
Edinburgh A A B
Liverpool A A B
Birmingham A A B (again likely to cross off)
Cardiff as a solid insurance ABB

His A* is classics and he is yet to drop below this in any piece or work or exam. History (what he will study) is mostly B at the moment but she said she would
predict an A because of the cumulative nature and because he was predicted 6-7 at GCSE and got a 9.

@Rollergirl11
Sounds like she has really good options there.

I think Exeter's offer rate is probably higher than Durham (can't remember the subject tho), so not sure if there is any point applying to Durham if she prefers Exeter? Offer is less likely, higher, and she likes it less? Could say the same about Cambridge too, but I can see why she wants to give that a try.

Sounds like she will have a decision to make if Cambridge offers but will end up with either Cambridge or Exeter as firm and either Exeter or Lancaster as insurance.

Maybe the best tactic for the other two then would be AAA or below in that case. It seems very unlikely that an offer from Durham would be useful - too high to be an insurance choice and third favourite as firm, behind a uni that is more likely to offer?

Spanner in the works. DS1 just informed me that his Spanish mock is on StA open day, for which we have already booked trains and hotel. It’s his current front runner and given where it is etc I don’t think he can make a decision without going there, not to mention I cannot really afford to lose the money. But we’ll see what his teacher says, if she says he has to attend and there is no way around it he might have to do virtual and then if he gets an offer go to offer holder.