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

Yes it's all getting a bit close now. DD has brought her revision timetable forward realising how much she has to do and all the non school things she also wants to fit in. First exam is April 15th! (language speaking element)

DD’s final English NEA was due in on Friday. She has had 2 separate English NEA’s and one for History. The other English and History were due in just before Feb half term and clashed with doing revision for her mocks which were immediately after half term. She’s had the mark back for the English one that’s been submitted and they have had specific feedback all the way through which has been useful. She has no idea when she will get the History back and she has no idea on what kind of grade it is.

She received her mock results back yesterday. She’s one grade below her PG’s for all 3 subjects and just a few marks off getting the next grade in 2 of them. She’s worried because she wouldn’t fulfil her Durham offer if she got these in the real thing but I’m trying to reassure her that these were all sat in 5 days rather than spread out over 6 weeks. And she also had NEA deadlines that curtailed her revision. The teachers are confident that she will still hit her predicted grades.

Off to Durham offer holder day tomorrow and Exeter on Saturday. Then hopefully she will be in a position to decide firm and insurance.

Has anyone done their student finance application yet? There are constant posts on WIWIKAU about it. I thought we might as well wait until she knows what her firm is. If I understand correctly though if DD is only applying for minimum maintenance loan she can just tick a box and she doesn’t have to enter any parent information and we don’t have to create accounts.

I mentioned to DD she can create her student finance account now but really there is no hurry. Need to get DS to do his again for next year as well (will have two at uni for at least two years!)

DS just gets the minimum loan so DH and I didn’t have to create accounts which does make it simpler

We've not done ours yet either. Ds is busy as school is trying to cram the last topics in for all subjects so they are finished with the syllabi by Friday. He has an extra maths lesson after school today!
His revision timetable officially starts next Monday giving him Saturday for the Bath offer holder day and Sunday to veg.
Aiming to get the finance application done over the Easter hols sometime.
DS also needs to confirm his firm and insurance but not sure when to do that - our school has advised as late as possible. What are everyone else's DCs doing?

We have DS last ever parents evening today (online). Time seems to be going very fast, I think it feels more alarming because Easter is so early this year.

He had an offer holder day at his firm last weekend and loved it, apparently the food was really good! I'm hoping it will motivate him to put the work in to get the grades he needs, feels like he will be disappointed if he doesn't get in now. He's not decided on which insurance to choose, he has another offer holder day coming up. He went to one earlier in the month but didn't like it so that one is off the list (apparently they kept talking about careers and jobs that their graduates go on to do rather than the course being interesting so that put him off!) We'll see what his teachers say about how secure his grades are and hopefully that will give him a steer.

He's not done the student finance thing yet, I don't think it's urgent. Don't think DS is even aware, they had some meetings about it at his college but they were all when he was in lessons so he missed them. I expect he got an email with the presentation in but he hasn't read it!

Everything is on hold here as DD has a music exam tomorrow, so no revision being done, just a lot of swearing at the piano practice.

No rush for student finance as she is still waiting for one uni decision and hopefully an offer holder day. We also have Birmingham OHD at the weekend. Should be all done and decided towards the end of April with a bit of luck, just in time for her MFL speaking exam and the science practical, which are in the same week.

We had an email from school this week reminding us that student finance is now open. There's no rush though. DS is our third child and the other 2 applications were very straightforward so I have no reason to imagine his will be any different. We know he's only entitled to minimum maintenance loan so there's no evidence to provide or anything.
We're off to his last offer holder's day at Strathclyde on Saturday. He is 99.9% certain this will be his firm choice so it's a confirmation visit more than anything else. He's already been to the open day and had an online offer holder's session, plus we have been up on a normal day to have a look around so I will be very surprised if he now changes his mind. But this is a course specific day so worth attending I think.
After that I think he will be in a position to make his decision and I think he may as well submit his choices then as I can't see anything changing after that. I think it would be good to have that done so he can then concentrate fully on revision in the knowledge that that's one job done.
All seems scarily close now.I got a bit of a shock yesterday when DH suggested we all go to a hobby related event in the Summer and I went to put it in my diary and saw it was the weekend after results day. I think we'll book...hopefully a celebration ...

We're almost finished. Last offer holder day for DD2 (History) on Saturday at Bristol. Then she has to decide between Exeter and Bristol. Both have offered her reduced grades, Exeter based on her getting an A in her EPQ and a contextual offer from Bristol. If she chooses Bristol she will put Kent as her insurance.

DD1 (Biomedical Science) is in a quandary as she can't make her mind up between firming Cardiff or York. She knows her insurance will be Kent so that's something.

Then it's just the finance & accommodation to sort out.

DD is going to the Bristol offer holders day on Saturday too - she’s doing History and Spanish. She’s travelling down on Friday and planning on going to evensong at the cathedral 😃. Then travelling over to Watford afterwards to see some extended family and back home on Sunday.

She's still waiting on Edinburgh - Bristol definitely the preferred one at the moment although not sure about Edinburgh.

We've done student finance (Wales), setting up the account was a bit of a palaver but it was straightforward after that and confirmed within days. Initial confusion as there seems to be a sliding scale for the grant:loan amounts which wasn't communicated in any of the info they'd been given, but fortunately it all adds up to the same. DD is boggling at the amount (both managing it and how much she'll be paying back in the end).

If it’s any help, DS stayed with a friend at Cardiff uni last weekend as a bunch of them went to Cheltenham races. He said Cardiff was brilliant - he went to the SU and a few pubs 😎

@SooperOuting "If it’s any help, DS stayed with a friend at Cardiff uni last weekend as a bunch of them went to Cheltenham races. He said Cardiff was brilliant - he went to the SU and a few pubs"

Thanks, trouble is she really likes Cardiff too 🤷🏻‍♀️ I can feel a spreadsheet coming on 😂

If it’s any help @MrsScrubbingbrush DD is hemming and hawing about her insurance choice.

We did a top 10 list of what is most important to her in choosing a uni. Eg nightlife, course content etc. Then ranked them by importance. So eg nightlife most important give it a weighting of 10. Then took each option, so in your case Cardiff and York and scored each out of 10 for each thing. So eg Cardiff 8 York 7 for nightlife. Cardiff 8 x 10 = 80 points subtotal etc.

Takes the emotion out of it and makes it a bit more structured.

First rejection today, so that cuts the options down. Always hard! I'm quite outraged myself! And ds isn't planning on doing offer holder days at the others-so little time! Hope others aren't finding decision making too tricky.

@SooperOuting that's a good idea, I'll suggest it to DD2

My DS took no time making UCL his first choice and Lancaster as his reserve. Rather different options but he says he is happy to go to Lancaster if need be, so I guess that’s all that matters.
He applied for his UCL accommodation and his student finance at the weekend and all went okay so now just needs to crack on with his revision and get three A’s.
Hope all your DC get any offers they are waiting for, enjoy their offer holder days and decide which uni right for them.

Application for accommodation gone in here too. Not applying for maintenance as DS will only get the minimum and we'll fund him for the first year. As it's a Foundation year he won't have tuition fees and we can (just about) manage the living costs. When it comes to his actual degree we'll have to apply though.

We are only half way through interviews and only a couple of offers in so far (I guess portfolios take a while to review) so I don't think we're booking accomodation anytime soon....

DD had an odd email from Warwick today - saying something like "additional information required: verified email from referee". It had to be done via a link which was only for uploading documents, no mention of referees or space to fill in their details. There was guidance in the email also about supplying docs, eg proof of qualifications or an explanation of what they're doing in their gap year. If she doesn't supply the information within 14 days she will be rejected (bit annoying when she has been waiting for 5+ months to hear from them but hey ho).

Has anyone had similar?
At least they are doing something at last I suppose.

I have now googled that phrase from Warwick and it looks like they want DD's referee to email the reference to them from an official school / college email address. Not sure whether that means it's not on the UCAS form for some reason? She has had 3 other offers and an Oxford interview so that seems unlikely.

If that is what they want, it's incredibly annoying that they've done this the day before they break up for Easter and said it has to be done within 14 days or we will reject you 😡

She will try to get her referee to do it tomorrow but he's part-time and may not even be in. If not it will be 18 days before she can even ask him to do it ffs.

Anyone else's DC's room looks like it should be condemned? Looking for hope here.

Oh yes.
I took some ironed clothes into DS's room this morning and beat a hasty retreat! It's truly terrible, even by usual teenage boy standards but I will bite my tongue. Until June 21st anyway...

I try to avoid going into DS's room where possible. He has set up a work space on a table in the living room as his desk (which is not very big) has disappeared under a pile of paper and books, fortunately the rest of us can usually give him the space he needs. It's not for very many more weeks (eeek!) Parents eve was generally positive though he does need to put the work in to get the grades he should get. Now is not the time to relax!

He got an email yesterday saying that one of his universities was happy to be flexible about his offer (accept one grade lower) if he firmed them, sadly it was the uni he visited and didn't like. Fingers crossed he will like the one he is visiting tomorrow, he is not feeling very enthusiastic about spending 4 hours in the car (it's about 2 hours away). He is set on his firm and just looking for an insurance so I think he feels it's a bit of a waste of time, sigh.

DD was due to firm this weekend. Just had an email from Uni of Birmingham (not chosen currently as firm or insurance ) reducing offer by a grade if firmed. Aaaaaaargh!!!!

Just lost a big reply. Grrrrr.
@SooperOuting - that's a spanner in the works! Will it change her mind do you think?

On bedrooms both my DCs are pretty good. DS always puts his clothes away and under his bed is......clear!

He's off on his last offer holder day today. Dh is going with him but ds is driving in his own car. Very exciting. He did the school run too yesterday and took dd with him. Bliss.

His revision starts in earnest on Monday. He has a lot to do in chemistry to get his grade up but unfortunately that department seems the least "on it". He came home with 15 maths papers yesterday and physics have topic specific revision sets and stuff on teams. Chemistry not so much. Anybody recommend any good resources apart from PMT?