Year 13 2024 - General support thread part 2

[Rollergirl11]

All welcome as our young people head in to their last full term before the summer exams. Between UCAS applications, receiving offers/rejections, learning to drive and taking driving tests, revising for mocks and sitting them the pace hasn’t let up for our DC.

This thread has been a lovely supportive and immensely helpful place to talk as we guide our DC’s through this challenging time!

Old thread here https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/further_education/4851165-year-13-20232024-general-support-thread?page=40&reply=132323436

[MrsAvocet]

Just checking in to the new thread. Thanks for the new one @Rollergirl11
The original was indeed a lovely, supportive thread and I am sure this will be too.
First of several offer holder days for us this weekend, and mocks begin next week. Busy few weeks coming up! DS is not his normal cheery self at the moment and had an unusual and terrible physics test result this week so I may be looking for shoulders to cry on!

[WombatChocolate]

Thanks for new thread.

[Lightsabre]

Thanks @Rollergirl11. Really sorry to hear about your DD's Physics result @MrsAvocet. Does he know where he went wrong or has the teacher gone through it with him? Ds has his mock tomorrow and is panicking as he hasn't been able to revise as much as he'd have liked due to the Oxford and Imperial interviews taking up time.

[stoneysongs]

Checking in, thanks for the new thread.

[space99]

Thanks for new thread @Rollergirl11
My DS says he is having the worst month ever... difficult mocks (dreading the results), splitting up with his gf and now he has failed his driving test. Let's hope Cambridge offer day won't be the final nail. Not sure how he has feeling about that as he keeps his cards close to his chest.
Sorry to hear your DS is having a tough time too @MrsAvocet

[WriterOfWrongs]

Hello, following on from previous thread and the discussion about being a taxi service for teens, must admit that's one of the advantages about living in Central London, good public transport running late and Ubers if necessary. I can outsource the ferrying about

[Rollergirl11]

Hope the bad physics test was just an anomaly @MrsAvocet and that DS’s month gets better @space99. I don’t really know how DD is feeling about Cambridge results day either. Although she has said she’d like celebratory dinner in our favourite restaurant if it’s good news and a commiseratory takeaway if it’s bad news.

On the taxi front, I still do a fair bit of ferrying around during the day but thankfully DD just gets an uber for anything late at night. Either that or she manages to persuade her BF to pick her up.

DD’s latest hair brained plan that she hasn’t stopped trying to persuade us on since she got back from college is that she wants to go up to Manchester for the weekend in 2 weeks time to visit her cousin and go to a rave! I don’t know what she intends doing about her work shift on the Saturday or how she plans to get in to said rave as it’s an 18+ event and she doesn’t have any ID. 🤦‍♀️😬

[chocolatenutcase]

Thanks for the new thread.
DS has had 4/5 offers including Durham which was a surprise. He's got a chemistry test tomorrow and says he's feeling excited about it. I'm accepting that because his mock results have been far from stellar. I think I'm seeing a change in attitude and I think it's because his top 2 choices have given him an offer.
Good luck to everyone. January is such a horrible month I'm sure it can only get better

[SooperOuting]

Checking in!

[MirandaWest]

Thank you for the new thread 😊

[losingtheplot999]

Thanks for the new thread. DS2 has only received one offer which is his non-medicine choice still waiting for his 4 medicine choices to come through. Has had 3 interviews and his last one is next week.

[MirandaWest]

My hope of outsourcing taxi duties to DS has been thwarted by him going off to the pub! I don’t mind though as he’s been ill (and in hospital again) over the Christmas holidays and it’s nice seeing him being out and about before he’s back to uni in just over a week’s time.

DD and one of her friends are both 18 but the other one they’re out with isn’t (very nearly is) but I know where they’re going doesn’t check ID. They were thinking of going somewhere else but DS said that place does check 😃

[MyOtherProfile]

Just checking in. UCAS form finally submitted by school yesterday. How long is it currently taking to get responses, does anyone know?

[Jaxx]

My son’s mocks officially finished on Monday, but he had a bonus Latin translation paper in lesson this afternoon. He might get back his maths papers early next week, but won’t find out grades until the 2nd February. He thinks he did quite well apart from the first maths paper. I am hoping he gets a B or lower in maths to shock him into doing a bit more practice.

Final push on history coursework for the next couple of weeks and then the plan is to start regular but not intensive revision. He is still waiting somewhat impatiently for a Durham decision and it looks like the informal visit he was due to make on the 9th February is off due to LNER strikes. Will be good to get final confirmation on Cambridge next week, but I really think he is pretty much over it.

Good luck to everyone waiting on decisions - particularly Cambridge and Durham like us. Really hope things improve for your son @space99.

Best way to avoid taxi duties is to not own a car.

[JediKnightingale]

Checking in. 1 of 5 offers received so far for York, waiting on Bath, St Andrews, Southampton and Durham.

Lucky here regarding taxi service as my older son drives and (being in his last year of uni) doesn’t have his own car yet so I bribe him with short runs of insurance on our car in return for ferrying about my two non drivers!

[lifeturnsonadime]

Checking in here too, thanks for the new thread @Rollergirl11 , good luck to all the DC still waiting on university offers x

[SooperOuting]

@MyOtherProfile

Just checking in. UCAS form finally submitted by school yesterday. How long is it currently taking to get responses, does anyone know?

DD did hers a while back, in November. Quickest was 3 days, slowest 2 weeks. But then she didn’t pick any of the ones known for taking ages.

She still has one spot to fill - time marches on and I think she’s realising there’s no point.

[QueenMabby]

Also checking in and thanks to @Rollergirl11 for the new thread.

DS's mocks are all done - grades by the end of the month I think.

He has an interview at Lancaster next week and is still waiting to hear from Bath. Yeses from Sheffield York and Keele.

Final push now I think. Can't believe it'll all be over in six months!

[SeaofTranquility]

Checking in here also. Thanks so much for the thread, it really helps hearing other parents go through the same thing as you. Mocks finished here too.

@MyOtherProfile I think quickest was within a week, then some took a month, others a couple of months and we're still waiting on a couple. It seems to really vary according to the course and uni.

[GreatWorldAtlas]

@MyOtherProfile dd3 will be submitting hers to school this afternoon, so hopefully they will submit early next week... will be interesting to see how your dc's responses compare to hers!

4 years ago, oldest dd applied in October - had 1 in 24 hrs, 2 in 48, 3rd in a week, 4 about 6 weeks then waited until the end of February for the last (fave) - that and the 3rd were Scottish so usually later. dd2 was doing medicine - had offer for 5th subject within a week (also Scottish surprisingly) and 3 medicine offers between 24 Jan and March I think.

[IThinkIMadeItWorse]

Thanks for the new thread not much to report here. Still two empty spaces on his form but he's not thinking about it, he's not booked offer holder days for the two offers he has either, everything is waiting until after Wed. Mocks after half term and parents evening in March so those feel a little way off but will come around quickly I am sure.

[legosnowqueen]

Gosh, another thread already, thanks @Rollergirl11

A challenging week here, with a mixed first week of mocks (in one DS didn't finish a 25 marker, in another there was a question he couldn't attempt, but...ending on a high...the third went very well). All this against a backdrop of snow & ice. At least no work shifts this week but he is working tonight, then on Sunday followed by the work Christmas do (works in a restaurant)!

Tomorrow we are going with family to scatter my late DFIL's ashes at a local-ish river by a ruined abbey, his favourite place & MIL's ashes were scattered there previously. He passed away in November 2020 & this has been delayed several times. DS, like me, is passionate about the importance of family so we are pleased to get to finally do this.

Interesting to see some Durham offers coming out - nothing for DS so far...

Have a good weekend, all!

[Aardvarksforall]

Hello all.

[WombatChocolate]

We’ve had mocks in the first week back and all results received last week. DS was happy with what he got - would have met his top offer.

He had a ‘no’ from Oxford last week, but was pleased to get a Durham offer this week. So all results are in for him. He did apply in September. The first 3 (York, Birmingham, Exeter) came in over October. Then there was all the Oxford prep and he knew Durham wouldn’t be quick. But he’s been pleasantly surprised to hear this week, as humanities offers are often not until the spring. Maybe they are speeding up, as there was a lot of moaning last year.

Thinking he won’t go to Offer Holder days but not quite sure yet. He visited them all whilst in yr12 and is pretty set on his choices. Durham is a long way for us and I looked and could see that train tickets and a night if accommodation would be over £400 by the time we factor in a couple of meals too. He looked at quite a few Durham colleges when up there before and went to all the subject talks. I’m not sure it would change his decision to be there again, even if it did make him more excited and give him a chance to meet a few people. In the end, who knows who will and won’t be there in October. And he knows that you can rank the Durham colleges, but where you get a provisional allocation and also a final allocation after results is pretty much random - so no real point in doing massively extensive research and getting attached to the idea of one. He’s taking the view that a good time could be had at any of them really, so he will have a preference for catered/non-catered and rank mostly on the basis of that.

I do hope that there aren’t too many who will do first-come first-served accommodation only after Firming starting soon this year. I know Nottingham and York have done it in the past. It just seems wrong, when lots of people are only just submitting their applications, and some of the very popular courses only offer in March or later. I know they are essentially trying to pressure people to Firm them early, but it seems wrong to do it outside the usual offer timetable.

I read somewhere else a very good point - the young people can become overly obsessed about their room type or hall and this can drive them to firm too soon and before all offers are in. However, a good point is that they only live in hall for one year in most cases, and the accommodation type is rarely the thing that makes them have a good or less good time. It’s the people they find themselves with…and nine of us have any control over that. 2 years will be spent living elsewhere and if accommodation is guaranteed for first years, they will definitely get uni accommodation. So being brave and waiting for all the offers is probably a good idea, even when it’s hard and some unis bombard with info about accommodation going fast.

Best of luck to everyone just getting their applications in for the deadline and for those who applied back in Sept/Oct and are waiting for the last elusive offers.

[stoneysongs]

Is mine the only one not to have bothered with mocks revision? She advises me she is "playing the long game"