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!

I think one of the main difficulties of getting summer work is by the time exams have finished it is a bit late to start looking. My son got his job by chance last year as the interview days were in May and fell on one of his study leave days for his mocks. It then took nearly a month to get on their payroll and he didn’t start until the first week of July.

He remains fairly confident he did well enough in his exams, but have to admit I am starting to get worried. Only just realised that his insurance university starts two weeks before Durham and he will only be back from Italy for a couple of days before he’ll have to go. That will put an end to my plans for the three of us to rent a cottage nearby for the week before he starts.

We're still on holiday here and Not Talking About It. DS convinced he's not going to get the grades for his first choice. I have no idea. He worked really hard so it'll be a crying shame if he doesn't. We'll do plans B-D once we're home at the end of the week. I've had a sneaky peak and his first choice course is in clearing so hopefully that'll give a bit of wriggle room if needed.

DD is very pessimistic but won't discuss alternative plans. She is not the easiest to be around at the moment so I'm looking forward to 15th, whatever it brings. Tomorrow she has to provisionally choose her modules for her first choice, which doesn't help 😬

I actually just want results day to hurry up now - I want to know and to be able to get on with proper planning. DS is fairly confident he'll make his firm, but with just a bit of a niggling worry about physics. He hasn't looked at clearing as his insurance have dropped their offer significantly and if he doesn't make that I think he'd need to reappraise his plans entirely. I don't think he'll have done that badly though even if physics didn't go entirely to plan! I hope he'll get his firm though. He has certainly put the effort in so fingers crossed.
Hoping we'll all have happy news to share in a few weeks.

Same @MrsAvocet , especially as like @Jaxx there's quite a difference in possible start dates. DD doesn't seem to be able to compute that she might not have got the grades, she's so excited and her face falls a little when I try to remain cautious. She is halfway there or thereabouts so should be fine.

I tentatively broached my clearing research and got a lukewarm response, which I know from experience means "that is probably an option but I'm tired and need to research it myself." Then she threw a curveball of a last resort, of doing performing arts at college! I think she was only half joking..!

@TenSheds the sister of one of my son’s old friends did this when she missed her Oxford offer - last I heard she was really enjoying it although she would have graduated a while ago now. Fingers crossed for Plan A, but plans B-D can be great too. I guess my son is already on Plan B, although he has definitely moved on from the Cambridge rejection and speaks of it as a luck escape now.

We had some good news earlier, his medical evidence was accepted so he will be allocated a single en-suite room. This bodes well for Exeter as he should also get some priority in accommodation allocation there too even though it is his insurance.

New to thread. Has anyone had experience of results not going as expected with an older DC? Were they able to "persuade" their chosen university to accept them?

I have experience of this with DS two years ago. Sadly his chosen subject (Economics) was/is v competitive so by 8.10am he knew both his firm and insurance had rejected him by logging into UCAS so we scrambled to our mobiles in the car driving home from school, phoning round all the unis clearing numbers. Then ensued a very painful few weeks sorting something for him.

Accommodation is the big issue to be very wary of in clearing. It’s all well and good a uni dropping its grades in clearing but unless you’re commuting from home then accommodation is really important. DS ended up in accommodation not for freshers and with people from a mix of unis so he had to work really hard socially the first 6 months or so. It actually worked out ok for him but he is very self confident, very different to DD.

Knowing about this first hand I have been very very careful in guiding DD to insurance and clearing choices that will guarantee accommodation with freshers from the same uni.

Happy to answer any clearing questions.

Can you advise about which places guaranteed accommodation in Clearing please? Thanks.

@WombatChocolate
Warwick did last year
I think Aberystwyth do too

Thank you.

The ones I know of are Lancaster and Reading. There may well be more but these ones are the ones on my radar.

Dd has a job in notts so it’s local and only 4 hours per week so she plans to keep the job going and do Wednesdays and weekends if they need her. They might have to be a little flexible freshers week as there’s lots of inductions and a field trip as well. Lancaster usually has accommodation in clearing. You might not get a superior en-suite as they always go first but the rest are still great accommodation.

Just starting to get nervous but DS seems ok and not mentioned it. Tbf I barely see him as he is out with friends or at work. We have a plan to start looking at clearing a couple of days before results day to get prepared. Fingers crossed we won’t need it. I only know Lancaster of the universities that give accommodation to those who got in through clearing but that is already DS’s reserve uni. Wonder about Birmingham as they seem to have a lot of accommodation?
DS has had his job since he turned 16 but his friends have had no luck getting one this summer. The uni students get a head start really.
DS will try and get a job at uni but hopefully just an ambassador one or at the student union so fine to come home in holidays.

Birmingham is DD's insurance and only guarantees accommodation if you firm them. They haven't asked her to apply for it yet. But it's true that they have lots so it might work out ok for people applying through clearing.

Hi all, nice to read some updates on how your summers are going!

@Penguinsa good luck for your op and the wishing you a speedy recovery.

Happy birthday to those DC’s with birthdays.

We got back from our family holiday yesterday to blistering heat in the UK. DD has a week before she goes off again on her third and final holiday this summer with her boyfriend. She is back 2 days before results day. She hasn’t worked since she finished her job at Waitrose ahead of her exams. No point her looking for anything as she has been away so much. She is fast spending the money she has saved from her job and I know that’s stressing her out a bit. She’s hoping that she can go back to Waitrose as a temp at Xmas and subsequent holidays when she is back from uni so she can top up her savings.

I think she’s nervous about results day looming but very much doesn’t want to talk about it. She’s quite lucky though as her firm offer is lower than the standard and she should make the grades unless she’s done much worse than she thinks she has. I had a quick look and her course/uni is actually in clearing so hoping there will be some leeway in the unlikely event she doesn’t meet her offer. Although it seems to have had the opposite affect on DD in that now she is concerned that the course isn’t as popular as it’s in clearing and is making her doubt her choice and wonder if she should have firmed Durham after all. 😬🤦‍♀️

@SooperOuting did your DS call either his firm or insurance choices?

No - no point as they’d already rejected him. Neither had places in clearing.

2 weeks tomorrow! It’s come round quickly. Ds is having a gap year and won’t think about apprenticeships til applications open so there’s no immediate impact for him. I do hope he does as well as he deserves though -he did no work til February so he doesn’t really deserve top grades, but once he started, he worked really hard. He’s away on 15th so he’s reluctantly agreed to us collecting them 😬

I think Nottingham has plenty of accommodation for those in clearing, by the way.

Feels so much nearer knowing it’s August tomorrow. DD not currently too stressed about it but I’m sure it will come soon

Yes it being August tomorrow is a little anxiety-producing! DD hasn't mentioned it but she's been busy doing a paid internship that is full-on.

I'm feeling a bit panicky about results and it all being real and September looming though. I'm worried about how DD will be at university - she has autism and anxiety, and has had some big struggles with this in the past, and it's going to be a huge change, and I can't help wondering if the option she firmed was the right choice (and which I thought was probably the best)...

However a night out tonight with DD at a pub quiz has DH and I concerned about how she'll be. She'd had a stressful day at work and the pub was noisy, she was overwhelmed but was so touchy and sharp with us and at one point the bar staff, and she went out to speak to her boyfriend and got harassed by some man in the street, and then the bar staff member put an orange slice in DD's alcoholic drink and oranges are the one things that DD cannot bear sensory-wise, so she started crying and walked out...

She will only be a few hours away from home so easy to get to in a crisis and she can come home. But it's not that I worry about. It's about her being on edge when anxious and coming across as, if not aggressive, then sharp in tone and alienating people, or crying and coming across as too vulnerable. She does have good friends and has maintained friendships, I'm just worried how she'll be when settling in.

Sorry for the overshare.

💐 @WriterOfWrongs She'll be ok. Friends recognise that such reactions are a result of circumstances and will help and forgive, especially as they mature out of teen years. DD gets similarly overwhelmed and sharp (anxiety, possibly something else as well), people don't take it personally because they can see she's stressed and she reverts to her default happy self after.

@WriterOfWrongs it’s not oversharing at all and this thread is very supportive. I can understand why you are worried, it’s really hard to think of them out in the big scary world solo when they have had these struggles. DD is exactly the same when she’s anxious and I bear the brunt of her snippiness when she’s stressed out. But as @TenSheds says as they all mature there comes a level of understanding amongst their peers. I am sure she won’t struggle to make friends.

Just out of interest does your DD have medication for her anxiety? DD takes fluoxetine and it has been a huge help for her anxiety.

I also have a concern that DD’s eating disorder will rear its ugly head again when she is at uni and away from my watchful eye. For DD, restricting what she eats is a way for her to regulate her emotions during times of increased anxiety/stress. She had a little blip during the exam season that we were able to manage accordingly with me stepping in and taking control of her food a bit more. I worry about DD and her boyfriend potentially breaking up while she’s at uni and that could trigger a negative spiral. But we just have to hope that DD is able to manage things herself while she is away. I know that she doesn’t want to go back to that place. She has reached out to student wellbeing at her firm choice and I am taking this as a positive that she has taken steps to put support in place for herself should she start to struggle.

Ds also gets snappy when anxious. I guess, at this age, they're still finding it difficult to regulate emotions as their brains are not quite developed enough yet. I find it a bit difficult to deal with as he's an 'adult' and wants to be treated as such, but is still immature in some ways.