End of Year 13: Results, Summer and plans for September and onwards

[Rollergirl11]

Noticed the current thread is almost full so thought I better start a new one for discussing results day and our DC’s plans for uni/gap years or anything else!

Much the same here! No nagging but a fair amount of noseyness 🤣. What a mess up all round with your op. I do hope they get it sorted and soon!

Thanks - I know I’m probably being over sensitive so sorry.

Super proud of her and just the best feeling in the world to see her smiling face and be amongst all her friends celebrating. After 11+ issues, then DS in Clearing we are finally getting a taste of bliss! It feels hard-won.

Agreed that the entry requirements are so off in many subjects at many unis , and have been now for 2 years it seems. I guess it’s the unis wanting to appear exclusive/top tier (as much to each other as to prospective students) but it clearly needs less opacity.

I think the new UCAS tool now available to all will increase transparency significantly.

This was my main fear, a marking error, or if DD had somehow missed a question, or written in the wrong language or something. Definitely worth finding out for general due diligence.

Speaking of which, what a shambles @Penguinsa Hope they can reschedule before your new job (congratulations in order to you too!)

Am both shattered and a nosey mother! The mother-daughter gossip is one of the things I'll miss most.

DD did better than predicted by quite some way. She got AAB. She will reapply for 2025/26, grades in hand, and will be aiming high next time around, Exeter being her preferred choice.

@Penguinsa phew for your most recent post but not for the unnecessary delay it will have caused for you.

Good luck to your DD @Rollergirl11.

So much worry and stress leading up to today. DD is currently having a long nap as she has slept so poorly recently.

Hoping all the young people, whether results and unis were as planned or required a rethink, can look forward to taking the next step. Such exciting times ahead for all of them.

Perhaps this year's cohort is a super clever one? DD's school year group's results were considerably up on last year. She has previously commented that the teachers had said as much but they may say that every year!

We will be having a quiet celebration this evening. DD not fussed about going out to celebrate. Her bestie hasn't shared her results so DD is now feeling bad for her. Still, they have their second Taylor Swift concert of the summer to look forward to this weekend!

Gosh, the day has absolutely whizzed by. Hope everyone has managed to secure an outcome that they are happy with today and your young people are excited for this new chapter.

We had a lovely lunch. DD is now starting a uni list in earnest that I will no doubt be presented with in the coming days/weeks. Her and her boyfriend are heading out for an early dinner soon as it is also their anniversary. Then she is meeting up with an ever growing group of people from her year and they are all going clubbing.

ps I am most definitely a nosy Mum!! 🤥😂

@@QueenMabby congrats on the Lancaster place. My eldest daughter has just graduated from there for particle physics and its truely been an amazing 4 years. They gave so much support for her, especially when she stuggled in second year (health and mental health reasons). Internships, Helping with phd applications, they were brilliant. I love Lancaster so much. Campus felt so safe and the city is brilliant. Enjoy Sultans of Lancaster on Campus. They do amazing loaded cheesy chicken fries lol.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/565423604640153 This is the Lancaster Parents group if you havent dropped by. Theres lots of posts on there all the time :)

Congrats to everyone who posted about their DC getting the offers they wanted since I last was on this thread.

Thank you so much to those of you who name-checked me with support. Hugs to those in similar situations, where their DC didn't get the grades they needed, or even wanted.

In answer to someone, I am extremely exhausted!!!

When DD told me the other day she was going to her boyfriend's across the country this morning as she'd booked a train forgetting it was results day, I was concerned about that in case she had to do any scrambling.

After some cajoling, and with me checking out the relevant links and calling her insurance uni's housing dept first, she has put herself on the waitlist, and sent all relevant documentation regarding her disability needs to disability services and the housing health dept. I'm really hoping she gets the halls she wanted. She has managed to do this from her laptop while in her boyfriend's car. But it's done.

I started a thread in Higher Ed about this to get positive opinions on Sussex to help me bolster up DD, and that (and the ones already on here) has really helped. She did love Sussex when we visited and it is very good for her course, and she is fortunate they confirmed her offer even though she didn't make the asked for grades. So hopefully it will work out.

@WriterOfWrongs My daughter went for Oxford, got as far as interviews and it was a no when the offers are given out (around early jan time). She had an unconditional from Lancaster, but it still didnt stop her being upset and quite distraught because of how much emotion she invested in the place. We took her to Lancaster soon afterwards, and she realised how much she fell in love with the place on her first visit. She just forgot that feeling, and it came back. 4 years later, graduated, and Lancaster was home and warm and safe and amazing and supportive. Could you do an impromptu visit before she turns it down? Maybe it might re-ignite that spark possibly?

@sammyjoanne thanks she hasn't turned Sussex down, thank goodness - although there was a few hours this morning when I was worried she impulsively would!!! She did quickly become resigned to going when clearance didn't work out.

We may have cross-posts but as I put above, DD has now applied to be on the housing list and registered with disability services, so she is moving forward with it.

Well done to your DD @WriterOfWrongs (and you of course) for getting her situation sorted whilst travelling. That shows great resilience and perseverance. I know you are worried about your DD when she is away at uni but today is testimony to the fact that she can dig deep and do what is needed with a bit of support from you. You must be very proud of her!! 🙌🙌

That's a promising update @WriterOfWrongs and I hope all turns out well. I'm sure she will have a great time at Sussex and do really well.

@Rollergirl11 you made me cry! Thank you, I am.

I am also going to be having some words with the school about how a predicted grade for a subject with coursework of A/B, which was constantly being reinforced throughout the year as at least a B, could in reality be a D.

x posts, thank you @stoneysongs x

@WriterOfWrongs aww thats great news :)

@sammyjoanne thank you so much. I think Lancaster will be fantastic. DS did love it when he visited and interviewed there I think he's just forgotten that. Lovely to hear about your DD's great experience. I've joined the FB group. @PuddingtonPuddington - see you over there??

I ended up having a nap this afternoon - think I was more worn out than I realised. Very glad I took today off work!

DD has gone out with friends - there’s one of them who hasn’t said about how she did so they’re presuming she’s not got into her first choice 😞

One of DD’s friends was refusing to open her results at college this morning as too scared and nobody has heard from her since so assume she’s not happy. I don’t think she had applied to anywhere though so not sure what her plans are.

Well done to everyone, whatever the grades! And @WriterOfWrongs i hope your dd starts to get excited about Sussex and forget her disappointment.

Ds got BBC, which we're really happy about given his experience of constantly absent teachers and then very low attendance in year 13. The C is 4 marks off a B so we’ve asked for a review of all 3 papers as we don’t know the scores for each paper. It will potentially cost us £150 if his grade doesn’t go up but we did the same for dd two years ago. There was four marks in it then too and she went up a grade.

@QueenMabby welcome. lol I did cry a little when I left for the last time last month, the day after graduation. Im from notts so I doubt I'll be up that neck of the woods again anytime soon. Shes now at Manchester for the phd, so totally new territory lol.

DD2 is starting Nottingham Trent uni in September. She is living in a student studio with her boyfriend after taking a gap year out. We bought all the stuff for halls last year, so its been sat under the bed all that time, but now its a studio this time, so were having to get dish drainer, and a waste bin, a kettle and toaster and all of that fun stuff that normal halls have as standard. Not to mention the boilersuit, steel toe cap boots, wellies as well (zoo biology).

I've been following your thread with butterflies as DD is a year behind all of you and can be lazy so I'm worried about her getting in to where she wants to go (Exeter).

It all seems so complicated. If any of you would like to tell me what you wish you'd known a year ago, I would be very keen to hear.

And congratulations to all of your fantastic children. It was so lovely reading all your good news posts, especially those who got unsettling results but then sorted out something brilliant. It was lovely to think of so many young people and their families celebrating yesterday

For me, the biggest realisation was with my elder one, so first time. I didn’t go to uni (or do sixth form) so really stupidly just didn’t realise how quickly sixth form goes.

its 18 months. Which is absolutely no time and means they really shouldn’t take their foot off the pedal through any of it. It’s not like GCSEs where you can just ramp it up at Easter, IMO.

So start the work early and keep it up consistently would be my advice. Plus have a look in clearing now on the different unis websites and screenshot what you find as it’ll all disappear in a few days and the information won’t be searchable. It’s useful to know.

That's brilliant and really interesting advice, thank you.

I shall get DD to have a look at clearing with me this morning. Might help focus her mind.

Thank you

What a day yesterday. DC got back home yesterday about 8pm and promptly burst into tears. Apparently they'd been convinced all summer they got 2 Ds, instead of which they got 3 great grades. A mixture of relief, alcohol (!) and exhaustion. I was in tears too. Off to Art Foundation in their dream location. But the tears of empty nester me are already bubbling, although very well hidden.

@Perfectlystill. I'll echo what @SooperOuting said. A-levels are a massive mountain to climb. If you start climbing the Easter before exams you won't reach the top. Start climbing now. This summer encourage your dd to really consolidate her year 1 work. Go over the topics and review those she's uncertain of. RAG them (red amber green depending on knowledge/confidence on a topic) to help focus the mind. Do some practice questions on those topics - you can often find question sets by topic online - physics and maths tutor is good if she's doing sciences.

@Neveragainisaid - unmumsnetty hugs for the empty nest. DS is our eldest and our home will feel emptier without him but not wholly empty as we have dd going into year 11. I'm still heart sore. About 75% of me is wildly excited for the next phase of life for DS and 25% my heart is breaking.

What subjects is she doing @Perfectlystill?

Staying absolutely on top of them is really important I think, so catching up anything missed straight away, if something is hard to understand, work on it until it isn't. Y13 is pretty tough and Jan - May is so busy trying to get all the content finished while also making revision materials, learning stuff and doing past papers, there's not much time to faff about! Start preparing for exams nice and early so that she can have plenty of time away from studying too. DD put off her revision for so long that she ended up with a ridiculously tough revision schedule just before and during exams, and that was so hard, I think she's still recovering.

Your job is to be very calm, absorb any stressy energy, keep reminding her she can do it and why she's doing it. Uni seems so far off in the dark days of February! Especially if she's a bit lazy, you might need a little conversation about whether or not she really wants to give herself the best chance of getting to Exeter and what that means in practice - revision and exam prep. Ask her how you can help, whether that's by making cups of tea, waking her up, testing her, keeping her accountable, keeping up supplies of special foods, just depends what she wants and needs from you. I made a lot of nice breakfasts 😂.

DD has a tendency to dig her heels in if she thinks I am nagging or trying to get her to do something, so I had to be clear that I really didn't care how hard she worked, her exams, her life, but I was on the team if she needed me. (She does have ADHD and struggles with focus and procrastination so I was probably more needed than most.)

There's such a lot that they can't control, anything can happen in exams, so I think it can be useful to reframe the goal away from grades and towards how do they want to feel going into the exam room - prepared and confident that they're going to do well, or scared and dreading it. And how do they want to feel when results come out, especially if they do drop a grade or two - knowing that they did their best or regretting that they didn't do that extra few hours of work.

Here endeth the lesson 😂