UCAS parent confusion!

[Mumof3France]

Hi,

Am looking for a heads up from parents educated (like me) in the UK who (unlike me) have stayed in the UK and brought up their families there.

As an outsider to the UK for the past 20 years, with children born and schooled in France, I am trying to identify the main changes to university admission since I began my own degree at Oxford in 1992.

I sense that some degrees have become massively competitive (especially STEM and law and anything else that looks likely to be able to be monetised so graduates can pay back their loans). At the same time, other degrees with less obvious vocational value, even in some traditionally good universities, have become much easier to access, to the extent that administrators may have to scrape around to get good bums on lecture theatre seats. Or at the very least, apply far less stringent criteria to the applications they receive for these less sought-after degrees.

The increase in demand for some courses translates to great pressure on candidates for those courses to achieve faultless A levels. With applications so high, it seems that getting into those courses has become a fairly pitiless numbers game, with little if any attention able to be paid to candidates as (thinking) individuals with potential. The emphasis on contextualised offers also means that those candidates are viewed more as products of a certain set of circumstances than as individuals.

The pressure felt by candidates means that they focus a lot on universities’ perceived ´prestige’, which makes me suspect many aim for those universities mainly for the brand or label. Which does seem a shame, intellectually speaking.

Finally, for the most competitive universities and courses we have a tilted playing field, with overseas applicants aplenty, ready to pay hugely over the UK odds for a place at Oxbridge or London. It seems clear that admissions criteria on some courses are looser for those candidates.

All in all, I see a system that makes me queasy. Please tell me if I am missing something or misinterpreting the information I am gleaning from across the Channel.

TIA!

😂😂😂 Yes many actually can string a sentence together. Unusually for MN I know.

I think you know what I mean, sweetie 😘

I think you are rather over-playing the international undergrad presence at Oxford and Cambridge, nowhere near the levels of LSE or UCL, and a fair bit lower than Warwick, Edinburgh ect @Mumof3France www.hesa.ac.uk has lots of stats.

Could also be worth a look at www.hepi.ac.uk and www.wonkhe.com ; both have interesting range of article / reports / blogs, and some great data tableaux at the latter.

Exactly. Upper class roles that regular people don’t have access to! The other professions mentioned by others also would need further qualifications in the legal and financial sector.

There is literally no point in getting any degree and sitting in an office job on £30-£35k and paying back potentially £100k forever.

Did English degree and now getting an additional qualification to do finance. Why not get a finance degree in the first place?

what is is point in getting any degree and sitting in an office job where the maximum salary is about £35k after a long time working there. Meanwhile paying a huge loan back of upwards of £70k depending on your circumstances for the rest of your days?

Because education for education’s sake is important. It makes you well rounded, able to converse, makes personal connections that are useful professionally. The world doesn’t operate like you describe. I do see that attitude a lot in the non-educated groupings (like in my family). Do an accountancy course if you want to be an accountant. Why study history unless you want to become a historian. It’s a vocational attitude projected at broader academic education. Doesn’t work like that.

But I do feel that they need to half the number universities in the UK. We don’t need 80 unis. Half of them are not worth it.

Because she didn’t want to do a finance degree. She earns way more than 35k as a grad trainee. She’s not getting a finance qualification to go into finance? She is on a graduate scheme straight from Uni

We’ve a fair few more than 80 unis in the UK @springtimemagic

where did you get the number 80 from?

what criteria would you use to halve them?

do you want to halve the number of unis to halve the number of uni students? Or both?

I would do both. Revert the lower tiers back to vocational institutions.

The criteria point is a tricky one. I don’t know the answer to that. It would need to be looked at by the relevant people. It’s obviously not a straightforward exercise. But it’s unsustainable from a funding perspective not to mention it’s highly misleading to many people thinking that by getting a degree that it’s going to transform their lives when it fact it won’t but rather will land them in a lot of debt.

Ooh, I had forgotten how MN discussions immediately veer away from the OP’s question or point. I will leave everyone to get on with it and check back later for the constructive posts but just reiterate now that no, I didn’t use AI for my post (where would be the point in that?) and if I mentioned Oxford it was to give some idea of my own experience at university in the UK, not to show off. I am anonymous to everyone here so the notion of my « showing off » is nonsensical. I am sorry some people’s insecurity makes them take it in a way I didn’t intend or expect.

You might need to be more specific and focussed in your question.

Fair point - I think I just wanted the view(s) from the UK on the university scene, as a way of trying to imagine how I would feel about it if I was still UK-based and a parent of wannabe students. Didn’t have specific questions just a feeling that I wanted to test.

@Mumof3France I’m British, living in France for 20 years and a uni guidance counsellor for an international school. And I confess I don’t really understand what you are asking in your post. Are you starting to look at UCAS applications for your own children? And wondering whether the criteria that applied when you are younger still hold good?

.I am sorry some people’s insecurity makes them take it in a way I didn’t intend or expect.
Do you really think that someone with the writing panache of an AI bot, who doesn't know the difference between Further Education and Higher Education and who doesn't even know what question she is asking makes me feel insecure? Get away with you.

Have you never heard the joke: Q "How can you tell if someone has been to Oxbridge?" A "It's easy. They tell you. Usually in less than five minutes"

Exactly this, thank you @MillicentFaucet Unbelievable elitist bullshit from so many people.

You posted:

I am anonymous to everyone here so the notion of my « showing off » is nonsensical

But you previously posted:

I feel some people are in too much of a hurry to post and show off

Clarify for me - what is it that’s nonsensical, hmm?

Something I do know is that the landscape for the study of Modern Languages at University has changed dramatically since I read French and German in the early 1980s.

I remember having a little UCCA (UCAS) book which listed all the degrees for which you could apply via the UCCA form; it was a positive Aladdin's Cave, I could not believe how many courses there were, the languages ones went on page after page, single subjects, combinations, everything you could want. Virtually every University had a Languages department, sometimes quite large ones.

I still have a foothold in academia, as I try to complete my MA and look perhaps beyond that and am very aware of how much things have changed for the study of languages at University.

Many courses have been shed and I have been told that some Universities have dropped languages altogether and closed their Modern Languages departments.

My main language, German, has taken an immense battering. It started to suffer as the number of pupils taking it at A Level started to fall; the lower number of applicants made it very difficult to run the courses and some Universities just abandoned it as a subject.

Languages are in difficulties at Post-Grad level as well, it seems to me. Most students are reluctant to pay to do a course which gives them no particular advantage when applying for jobs later on. I know that constituent colleges of the University of London have to have a minimum number of students for a course to run and that several of the language courses didn't attract sufficient applications.

The early 1980s seem like halcyon days for budding linguists; a languages degree would, people said, open all kinds of doors, especially given the UK's membership of the EU.

I'm not sure that it would today.

Then why are the bottom half not worth it? They teach the same stuff as the top half, so people still get the same well rounded education.
And how come the English graduates in high positions came out of the top unis, if it really is the education and we'll roundedness rather than the brand name of their degree that got them the position?

DS is one of those pesky international students (albeit with a British passport) of his 5 UCAS choices, only 1 came back with a noticeably lower offer, which we could put down to them wanting his juicy overseas fees. The other 4 (that sit within the usual suspects mentioned on MN) were standard for the Uni/course and on par with his friends in the UK. What he does have is an impressive personal statement which honestly I don't think he could have achieved in the UK simply because some of those opportunities wouldn't have been available so as an international student he had an edge.

If you've been out of the UK for a large number of years and probably ignored the changes in FE then once you dive back in for your own DC's applications it can be quite shocking how things have changed. My observation is that the French system and culture around higher education haven't changed as much in that time.

Honestly, I'd take a step back from all the noise and debate, especially at a theoretical level, and focus on your DC - what do they want to do, where would they like to live, and does a UK Uni make sense in that context? For DS, it does - but he also has offers from 2 other countries, so may end up there when the results come through.

Thanks, Silver Coins - useful info and a good point about things in French education not changing as much. I think I agree. Good for your son! Do you mind sharing the subject(s) he has applied for?

@Mumof3France

are your children in an international or BFI/OiB school? If so they probably have access to a uni guidance counsellor who would help them apply outside France, if that’s what they want to do. Do they see their future as being in France or in the UK?

obviously the cost of study in the UK is now very significant, and means that parents need to be on board with the students choices.

Even if your child qualifies under the Brexit exemption, then they may find they are initially assessed as being international fee payers, which you can push back against. There’s definitely a discrepancy between the offeres made to international fee versus home fee applicants: we’ve even had students told up front that their offer is made on the basis that they are international fee payers, and that the university reserves the right to change the offer if the student is subsequently assessed as being home fees.

What nationality are your children? of they are French then Canada (Quebec) and the Netherlands are other options.

The biggest change I’ve seen in French HE is the massive expansion of courses taught in English, and of ‘dual diplomas’ where bilingual students spend a year in a UK university or elsewhere. They are especially popular in law, economics etc.

Thank RRGrimes. Think I PM’d you yesterday.

Your assessment seems pretty fair to me and quite recognisable. I work in HE and have two DCs in the system. So much of it is about the branding and the job prospects. The bit you leave out is that, especially at the bottom end of the hierarchy, universities are shedding courses and staff so that kids who would like to study English (say) but only got 2 Cs and a D and need to live at home because of costs, have dwindling options. Canterbury Christ Church University - in the city of Chaucer - recently closed its English department. It is a real tragedy.

Thanks BennyBee. I didn’t know that (as others have also mentioned here) so many university departments have closed. I guess this is what happen when market forces are partially unleashed but it will be sad if access to higher education narrows, as it inevitably will.

@TheSquareMile I took German O level in the early 80s, along with French and really enjoyed it. They were the only 2 languages offered at my school. Years later when my older dc were at school they had a choice of French, Spanish and German though none of them chose German. Dd3 is currently doing Spanish standard level IB and her friend is doing German - she is the only one in her class. Her friend is half German. The school sent out an email just before Christmas to say they will no longer be offering German after next year.