DD wants to resit - regardless

[Blushingm]

DD has a place to study law. She thinks she's messed up a couple of exams as her nerves get to her.

I've said to wait til results day as she may still be accepted - she's got a contextual offer already.

She wants to resit year 13 regardless as she's not happy with her performance and feels still will always feel like she could have done better. My thoughts are no one ever asks your a levels once you have your degree and she should go if they accept but she's adamant she wants to resit

What do you think?

She was disappointed at her year 12 results

I'm wondering too if the fact her friend repeated year 12 so is only just going in to year 13 is influencing her?

FM is further maths - the most commonly taken fourth A level.

Very few DC take four otherwise. Not needed and yes just spreading yourself too thin. Why did she take four out of interest?

They said 4 A Levels or 3 A Levels plus the WB. WB is stupid/useless so she went for the 4th A Level

Ha now it's me who doesn't know the acronyms! Is WB the Welsh Bacc (just googled it!).

Does everyone do four then? I have to say IME that's pretty unusual - most DC drop one in year 12 if they even start with four. DD dropped her EPQ plan in the first term as her three A levels took so much time.

Yes - Welsh Bacc.

No one likes it - the school try and encourage it so lots take the option on the 4th A Level.

@Blushingm Is she saying she feels she won't be able to keep up with the workload on the course? I don't really see why she thinks resitting would help her academically? Can her potential new uni's careers/admissions team speak to her to make her understand the next steps more clearly and why it's not a good plan?

Is she normally a perfectionist ? If so you need to ease her away from that tendency. The working world will scare her to death.

Some unis do specify results are first attempt though that’s only our experience of looking at physics

I’m suprised they are actually retaking whole years. Usually if you messed up one module/exam you just retake it while you carry on studying. Not repeat a whole year?

That's a brilliant suggestion!

If she gets a place great. But my experience of graduate schemes is they ask for A level results. AAB or ABB for my profession was pretty standard so a levels do matter. Although now a qualified professional they’re pretty irrelevant.

Genuinely, her uni lecturers have enough to do than cosset freshers who think their A should have been an A*.

Much better to be honest with her, there's no such thing as perfect exam performance. It's going to get harder, not easier as life goes on. Now's the time to get used to it while the stakes are low.

Assuming no neuro divergence or mental illness just ignore, don't pander.

I work in the Criminal Justice System and from what you've said she needs to work on her resilience before she gets out in the real working world. I'm not a Barrister, but work closely with them, often things don't go how I'd like or want them too, often for the right reasons, but you need to be able to pick yourself up, learn from it, accept it and move on PDQ. Barristers are pretty damn good at this, with the level and type of work we, and they, deal with (traumatic crimes) you have to have resilience and be pretty stoic, or you'll make yourself ill.

The same applies for Family Law, often Criminal and Family overlap, especially where children are involved.

@GinForBreakfast there are admission people at the uni who's job it is to guide and advise students into the right course. The course lecturers themselves maybe not so much before she starts, but the Uni has (should have) people specifically for potential students who's grades might not be perfect, or a different approach might be needed etc.

She's probably panicking and catastrophising. Best to focus on de-stressing now and putting the exams behind her until results day. What's done is done.

I was convinced I'd done badly in some of mine: ended up with straight As and at Cambridge.

No idea what it's like now but in my day, resits would always have been flagged as resits. They don't erase what went before. She would be mad to resit if she's got the grades she needs but I suspect deep down she doesn't really mean it.

So, if she gets good enough A levels to be accepted on her course they are way good enough for any law firm. You need top grades to get accepted onto a law degree in the first place.

She needs to (and may need your help with this) to think about what the law firms will look for when she's applying for training contracts or whatever they'll be called by the time she gets that far.

She'll be competing against loads of other candidates - all of them will have the academics for it - but how does she make herself stand out in the interview.

I say this as someone who has been involved with managing trainees & have interviewed for training contracts for years - she needs to show she can do the other stuff too- communicate with colleagues & clients, work under pressure etc. she needs to be doing extra curricular things to build that now & whilst at uni so she has something to talk about.

Sometimes school 6th forms don't have the broader view but the university would have that. The question is really 'what do I need to achieve my career aims?'

Also law is a tough career, it's not a nurturing or supportive sector and there's a lot of networking and business development (and people stepping on each other to get ahead) it's also still a sector where working long hours is often necessary and valued. Partners lead teams & depts. They get promoted because they are good lawyers & bring a lot of £ in (not for their people management skills).

Does she know the full picture? It would be good to find out more if there are opportunities - not just the sales pitch at careers fairs.

Good luck to her. 18 year old me wouldn't have been talked out of it but as a working mother I have regularly questioned my life choices!

How would she persuade the school to fund a resit year? Where would the funding come from?

She was accepted and completed the Sutton trust pathways to law course which was at the uni of her choice - she really enjoyed it. It included summer school, work placements etc which I'm hoping will make her stand out a bit

I guess the funding question is a good one - like I said others have resit the year but if she's accepted but wants to resit by choice would funding be granted?

Her coursework she always comes 1st in results - she just gets so nervous in exams

England and Welsh students (don’ know about Scotland) can get 3 years of level 3 funding (A-levels) provided they HAVEN’T sat the exams. Once they have sat an exam, level 3 is considered complete and they are not entitled to a further year.

She would effectively take a gap year and have to privately study and enter as an independent candidate, this is not a good plan.

This sounds like a combination of wishful thinking (I know I can do better) and being a bit scared of the next steps. Reassure her that her fears are normal but repeating a year isn’t an option. You don’t need to study law to go into law later on so even if she did another degree at uni - history etc…) she can do a conversion course. Lots of options and possibilities but she needs to look forward now and not back.

Depending on where she might want to practise law they absolutely will want to know her A level results along with every module grade at uni even those first year modules that don't make up part of her degree classification.

For some vacation schemes and training contracts there are minimum A level requirements as well as minimum degree classification requirements.

Yes, you can. In the state sector, there is funding to study up to the age of 19. Many schools will allow students to retake y13 if they wish.

As others have said, the concern for the MH for your daughter going forward should be raising red flags. She isn't always going to be or do her best in Uno, if she does get her conditional offer, what's her plan then? Does she have any resilience or coping strategies that she's working on? Because choosing to delay her further education to make her junior education just right isn't normal, and doesn't really bode well for any kind of resilience in a course and career with lots of stress

Is she just worried so protecting herself and her expectations?
If she makes this decision then it won't matter if she makes the grades or not as she's still going to do what she sets out to do?
Hopefully, she'll feel differently if she does well enough to be accepted.

I'd considered this too. Could she just be setting herself up to resit so if she has to then it won't be so much of a disappointment?