Computer Science - Why is UCAS so stressful

[KatieMumofThree]

Is anyone else finding the UCAS application process for Year 13s stupidly stressful? First child going through it and he is totally at his wits end. Applying for computer science - good predicted of Astar Astar A A in CompSci, Maths, FM and Physics but being told those arent good enough and he wont get an offer anywhere in the top 20 without 4Astar, winning competitions, straight 9s at GCSE etc etc. No idea if thats just doom-mongering but he is feeling totally demotivated and now not sure if he even wants to go to UNI - he was so enthuisastic about programming and computers before. First chioces - St Andrews and Durham. Are these too aspirational?

No idea what advice to give - school being quite useless and said they would worry with those grades - and not giving option to up the predicted...I think those grades are awesome.....but maybe thats unrealistic and I am just a proud mum!

Should he be changing course? He is a bright boy and would have thought he had a chance - but what do I know! I am not sure he really wants to go through the process of getting a load of rejections

I don't know about CS in particular, except to say that it is very competitive; but those are great PGs and in the perfect subjects for sure.

I have (genuinely) never heard of anyone needing all 9s at GCSE for anywhere - even Oxford looks for all 7-9s AFAIK. In 2019 fewer than 2000 ppl (from memory) gained all grade 9s, which would obviously not come close to filling the top 20 uni places for CS. And that's if they all applied for CS (which they wouldn't, obvs).

I believe you can find out what grades successful students have at the various unis - this may be an FoI request tho.

I see Durham lists A-star AA for CS and St A says AAA so I would say they were very reasonable targets for your DS.

Take a moment and breathe. I am sure he will get great offers. What is his PS like? does it focus on why he wants to do the course and what has inspired him, what extra work, reading, online lectures he has accessed? It doesn;t need to be stressful and school sound like they are not helping. Is it a grammar school? With those PGs he would be a top candidate in most schools.

I support 200 students a year with Oxbridge applications and he would be a strong applicant and v likely to get some offers with those grades! Com Sci is one of the most competitive courses but ultimately, if he is predicted at least the standard offer, he should consider applying to places. Universities are more interested in predicted grades than GCSE grades and any admissions tests are crucial. Applying early can help too - some unis give out offers as applications come in (but not all). Good luck!

His grades are fine. Is he really getting this from school? Is he hearing it even if they're not saying it? Could it be from the Internet (bloody Student Room is a nervous breakdown piped handily straight into your head imo) instead of school?

Full disclosure: ds is doing Compsci at Cambridge. His GCSEs are worse than your son's. The highest offer he got was from Manchester. He got a decent range of offers. Your ds should certainly look at a range of places but of course he should apply to the unis he likes with those predicted grades.

Ds was at a comprehensive with an average of good but not amazing GCSEs, which did weight his application well, he was a high flyer at his school. But even if your son is at an independent school, he should learn right now to set his goals, listen to advice but make his own decisions.

Thank you so much. Yes he is at a grammar school. He will be the first one in our family that has gone to uni - its a big investment for us as we dont have much money and I am a single parent. I think thats also weighing on him. He is now saying he isnt sure he wants to try and not sure why he is working so hard. I really feel school should be more supportive but they are on the "we need to be realistic" side of the argument.

Thank you thats really reasssuring. I appreciate it.

So yes he has been on student room and showed me loads of chats with "my friend got 4/5 star A predicted and no offers with 11 9s at GCSE"

He is a really good kid - had a job for 2 years and works so hard. I hate the fact he isnt looking at uni with excitement but more doom and gloom. When did life become so hard for youngsters - no joy at the future just everyone telling them how s@@t and competitive life is

So yes he has been on student room and showed me loads of chats with "my friend got 4/5 star A predicted and no offers with 11 9s at GCSE"

125 students got 11 grade 9s at GCSE in 2023 and 188 in 2022; I think it is vanishingly unlikely that any of them failed to get any uni offers at all. People always "know someone who" and it's always bollux. You know it so tell him. He should apply to where he wants and I bet he gets a bagful of offers. My DC both got five offers (for STEM and English) from RG or RG+ unis and neither of them had all 9s or PG of any A-stars.

Anyone can write anything on the student room, it doesn't mean it is true. Also sometimes there are additional screening tests. For example in medicine there will be people saying they didn't get offers with 3A* but then it emerges that they got a very low score on the UCAT screening test which essentially means you are very unlikely to get an interview.

Thank you everyone. I am feeling so stressed. Feel I can sleep a bit easier tonight reading your more positive comments

Can you turn this around?

He wants to study Comp Sci... get him to have a think about possible solutions to people writing scary rubbish on the Student Room website. (He doesn't have to come up an answer, it's about how he thinks about it). Take it as read that a lot of the gossip on there is nonsense. Does he know what programming languages The Student Room is based on? What features would those languages have, strengths and weaknesses? I know in year 12 or so ds did a Google course on a particular language. He could have a look at how people learn more about things like that.

Try to be positive. If he's the first in his family to be thinking about university he's doing something amazing, and it's tough. The universities he wants to ho to should be interested in talking to him. Have you looked together at open days? There will be people whose special job is to reach out to candidates like him - and I think it's completely legitimate for you to help him find them, especially if he's having a crisis.

Just to say that ds is having an absolute ball at Cambridge. He's surrounded by clever state school educated candidates like him, and like your son. Hes really enjoying Compsci, and so are his friends doing the same in other unis. He's got the extra boost that university is 'normal' in a family like ours and that's a big help, so your ds should know that there are people who want to help him enjoy it too.

Oh BTW about the money - I was a single parent when ds started university and because my income is 'low' in uni terms (I earned about £35k at the time) ds got a full maintenance loan, and he's managed fine on that plus his vacation jobs for the most part. He's had some presents from proud aunts, and i bought him a laptop (nothing special, if he has one now it should be fine). Cambridge also do an extra bursary for all students from lower income households - it's designed to prevent them having to do paid work that could affect their studies, and it'squite significant, something like £4k a year. He's been pretty well off tbh. Maybe Durham and St Andrews have something similar?

People deliberately say untrue things on Student Room. It is complete rubbish that someone with perfect gcses and A levels would be rejected by all unis.

School are being ridiculous. My son's friend is off to do Computer Science at Durham with Astar Astar A B in his A Levels.

DS applied for Maths, which is similarly competitive, and got 4/5 offers from very similar grades to your DS.

Is he sitting an entrance exam? Practising that is the key.

On the UCAS website it now shows you not only the typical offer but also the range of previously accepted grades. So for Durham Comp sci the offer is Astar AA and the highest/lowest accepted grades are Astar Astar Astar - AAB.

Always worth applying to a spread of unis though so you have a decent insurance offer to fall back on. And even if the worst happened and he didn't end up with any offers, that's not the end of the road. He could take a year out and apply again with grades in hand.
good luck, my DD has just gone to uni this year and the whole process is very stressful.

Durham has a uni open day today with spaces - if he is close to Durham he could just go speak to them

Are there no other schools he could attend or go via an apprenticeship?

There are many roads you can take to become a programmers. Most of my colleagues didn't go to university either or studied something unrelated, which can also be a good addition to the profession of programmer, depending on what type of software and in what industry you are working.

Schools are no longer gatekeepers into this profession. You can use one, but it's not essential like it is for doctors or lawyers.

I would actually look at engineering. Much broader range of careers afterwards - coding included. Easier to get into and as long as he could think why he wants to do it, it’s a great alternative. Young people are a bit like lemmings with CS making it more competitive than it should be. Jobs aren’t necessarily keeping up because others can do this work. Engineering: they can’t.

I don't know if they ever were, one of the things I like about IT and programming is that you meet such different types of people who've wound up in those jobs. Really clever scientists with PhDs and ex-labourers who retrained. OP, you can definitely get on without a degree and the apprenticeships are good. But a lot of jobs do want graduates, so if he has the academic aptitude (which it sounds like he does), I'd still think it was worth going.

Look up bursaries at each of the universities.
I'm a single parent earning around 40k.
E.g. if my DS goes to imperial they get 4k per year. UCL is 1k per year.
For some places the cut off for support is way way above that for free school meals.

One of the options is to defer and for him to work for a year. My ds is doing that and whilst he has a place at a very good uni, he is potentially re applying with grades in hand.
It means he is going with a financial cushion and he's a known entity to Unis. Your son could apply with his cohort (as mine did) and then reapply if he didn't get what he wanted or changed his mind on his course (as mine had). It gives a breathing space and gets some work experience.

As someone in the industry I agree. You don’t need a comp sci degree to do it, the market is oversaturated at the junior end and it’s only going to get worse with AI.

If you study maths, physics or material science instead you will be designing the chips or creating the operating system for new quantum computers. If you do computer science in 4 years time you will be competing with 200 people for 1 job that used to be 10 jobs.

As I understand, the first programmers were all mathmeticians.

Programming itself is not difficult to learn and there are such a range of resources online that can help you. A little bit a guidance from collegeagues or a mentor can make you a great programmer. Programming has more to do with the way you approach problem solving.

What can make you an ever better programmer is if you can bring in outside knowledge for the software you're developing and that could be anything from mathematics, engineering, physics, biology, medical science, data science, law, economics, psychology, etc. Some of these come with courses (or even whole semesters) of programming.

I think young people aspiring to be software developers now have a lot of paths to choose from and I think that it's worse exploring a path that is less obvious.

It's right to be realistic as CS is one of the most competitive subjects out there but the rule of apply for two aspirational, two achievable and one dead cert still applies. Your dc is very likely to get at least two offers if they're realistic. Dc that we know with similar predicted for CS as your ds were offered Southampton, Nottingham, Bristol.

Tigerandfizz's suggestion of engineering is also good and I would argue, a better option in my opinion as the job prospects are wider.

OP
Book some open days and visit these universities. He does have strong enough grades, but seriously- go visit.

As for subject choice, if he does want to broaden his subject choice, he may want to consider Robotics, Machine Learning, Cyber Security, Math for computing etc

DS got into KCL comp sc this year with maths physics and comp sc. They wanted Astar Astar A, as did his other offers except UCL which he had to sit a SATS test and failed to make the percentile due to the English questions.

UCL also wanted one of the Astar in maths.

It was most stressful waiting for the A level results.