Year 12 - 2025/2026: Support Thread 2

[QueenMabby]

A new thread for us to keep chatting on!

Hi @GCSEherewego i also have an equally laid back wannabe engineer … though I have doubts about the extent of the wannabe !

We’ve visited a couple campuses when closed just to give him an idea .

I’ve also recently what apped him 13 YouTube uni tours that are less than 5 mins long - he’s watched none of them ( too busy with mock revision !)

To be fair we have been told the focus now should be on mocks. These determine the UCAS predicted grades so are pretty key. Worth putting some open days in the diary for afterwards though, even if nowhere they end up. Back in the day I went on the train with friends.

My DD is going to do uni open days after her AS and her mocks too. She will be going with friends too (not parents). The concerning thing being a number of her friends have passed their driving test (her included) and they seem to want to drive there. I guess all quite retro. DH is joking that they plan to sleep in the car! I do not find that funny!

Welcome @GCSEherewego. I have a ds at uni who was similarly uninterested. I sent him two at a time with a “this or that” and that helped him narrow down his choices.

Hi, @GCSEherewegowhat's engineering triad???

Welcome @GCSEherewego - I also agree that mocks/predicted grades come first, followed by choosing the right uni course, then follow by open days.

Quite a few prospective students go on open days AFTER they get offers in Year 13 to narrow it down. Especially if the offers received are for similar grade profile.
I think DD is focussing on researching the actual course primarily and whilst she fancies the open days as a jolly with her mates, I doubt it will inform much detail on the course she intends to study. I think as that is really important we are going to focus on that together primarily once she is done with her mocks (hopefully).

If you go to the right talks it can inform course. We went to the Maths admission talk at Exeter and they showed every module for each year and which were prerequisites for others in later years. It was fascinating and I didn’t know they taught meteorology in such depth due to the Met office being based in Exeter.
I suppose you can get this information online but I am very much an in person learner.

Thanks, yes of course you are right re getting the predicted etc...I just like having the ducks lined up. @creambeforejamonscones I was told the physics, maths, chemistry combo was known as the engineering triad. I might be wrong.

I thought the engineering triad was Maths, Further Maths and Physics.

DS doing an engineering degree - no chemisty though he's have happily taken it but phyics fitted better with maths, FM and computer science.

DD has big art deadline loaming - think she wasted a lot of time with the project TBH - putting off getting started and generally putting bits off. She's also got AS exams starting 40% of final A-level mark and hosnetly think she wasted time there as well.

I really hope I'm wrong but feel she heading for a fall in August with results - not end of the world as she can pivot but will take more time.

She doing two more open days after the exams - she also heading up to big sis in half term while she still in her uni city as celebration. Then we'll look at more open days post August when we roughly know where we are with grades.

We've found open days illuminating - sometimes in good ways some ways in cross that uni of list.

DS has binned off the subject he was talking about, back to Econ possibly with MFL. No idea where this will end up. Is stating that should he not get high enough mock results he can take a year out and apply with actual grades. Fine. Not sure if that works in your favor given predicted grades seem to be inflated 🤷🏻‍♀️ Taking pressure off which is probably good, although not too much!

He has booked an open day and the subject sessions which I’m please about. I also suggested one too and have booked that. Just trying to get an idea..school careers session apparently pretty useless..

@Araminta1003 this is interesting - I'm concluding that DD doesn't have time to go to open days really - she's miles away from the unis and conservatoires she's interested and has lessons on Saturday. But there aren't so many unis that really offer what she wants, so I'm wondering if we can wait for offer days as you say.

We've booked her an online masterclass with Cambridge offered for one subject (£15, which may be well spent, who knows - certainly cheaper than a train trip). Others don't seem to offer similar though.

@achangeofnameisasgoodasarest - DD now wants to do Law and as the SQE has changed, we are just working on the nuts and bolts of the courses offered first and whether to include some non LNAT strategically or not. And as she may want a year abroad as well in year 3, a lot of the work need to first be done on paper.
I guess same for eg Engineering and the placement years and exactly how much support there is from unis to provide those.
Currently stuck at whether to apply for Cambridge or Oxford at all, and if so, which one! All her close friends are aiming for Oxford, I think Cambridge would be much better fit and prefer the law faculty and I think DD is better off with a uni more likely to interview everyone as she is personable primarily.

@Araminta1003- dd is also drawn to the increased likelihood of an interview at Cambridge even though she thinks Oxford is prettier! She wants natsci though which Oxford doesn’t have an equivalent of which has helped the decision making process. Is your dd thinking of law with an mfl? Very marketable if so!

@QueenMabby - DD is stuck at whether she wants a law course which offers MML properly or just wants to go abroad in year 3 to study law in that country. Oxford and Cambridge have partnerships with different unis in year 3 for the “language” she wants to take. Oxford you get in I think and are interviewed in the language in Year 13. Cambridge you do not even apply until beginning of uni year 2 for the year abroad and then there is Turing funding or not.

I mean at this point, I think we are just exploring all the actual differences in the courses across different unis. And this is for a child who actually likes Maths and Science and Music too… so it is all rather confusing. However, we had her verbal reasoning tested and it is in the very top percentile, so hoping LNAT will be OKish.

We have quite a few uni open days lined up in the next few months; annoyingly my two DC are mostly not interested in the same unis so we have a double lot to visit 🤦🏻‍♀️

Mostly they've chosen unis within easy public transport reach. Except for Cambridge, but that's worth the effort!

Visiting Bristol at the behest of DD1, it was on the list partly because we thought it was a direct (if rather slow) train ride from our city. Then when we went to book our train tickets for the open day, not only was there no direct train and thus a very long connecting slog, but despite buying months in advance it cost £££ I'm really hoping DD1 decides it's not for her, the travel costs alone will bankrupt us!

Ds had asked me to book open days. He kept saying he’s not sure he definitely wants to go to uni. So now it’s getting closer he’s taking it more seriously and wanting to look. We’ve booked Cambridge open day. He says it’s very unlikely he’d get in as there are 7 maths applications for each place. He may as well give it a go. He also asked me to book imperial, but it says bookings aren’t being accepted yet. That’s all we’ve done so far. I’m not sure where else to suggest he looks. I have explained he needs to look at the maths content at the unis he might be interested in.

My oldest ds’s both knew which uni they wanted to go to and only looked round that one. Ds1 did look at a second too but didn’t want to go there. But they were both aiming at lower ranking unis than ds3. so got offers for their favourites and got the grades. Though ds1 wishes he’d not gone to our nearest university and ds2 wishes he’d aimed higher. He went for his offer ABC grades at Sussex his actual grades were A*AA. But he’s enjoyed his time there. He finishes in a few weeks (he did a year abroad too)

We had an email today from Imperial. Open day bookings open on Thurs 7 May midday.

I see Imperial Open Day is on weekdays in state term-time. Do schools authorise such absences?

Dd is going to miss the Cambridge open days in July as she’s at a competition. There is another one in September though and she’ll go to that. She’s certain she wants to apply. I’m hoping Edinburgh doesn’t make the cut though - we’re having to fly up as it’s less than half the price of the train.

@MissMogsthanks. I did put ds’s email for updates. I’ll wait to see if he tells me. The June open days are when he has exams. So it’ll have to the September date.

Depends on the school. DD’s authorises up to two days for open days.

Yes the downside of finally finding a Saturday job means it’s tricky to attend uni open days. DD has booked Leeds for a Friday & then Kings for a Sat so just misses one day of school & one day of work. She may do a couple more in autumn.
Her ASs start on Monday 😬, which has come round super fast. She is studying but is snappy - I don’t think she’s as well prepared as she was for her GCSEs but we’ll see.

DD2 starts AS exams Monday - has hand in tomorrow for art subject and art peice next week as well.

I don't think she's in a great place TBH work wise - but DH says older two needed a shot a bow so we'll see where she ends up. It's odd as it's 40% of the final A-level mark but I don't think any of them took that on board.

@CatHairEveryWhereNow ahh I feel for her! DD3 also has ASs starting Monday but is in England so they don’t actually go towards anything - she thinks that’s not great as all that work needs to be done again next year! But the results must be recorded on the ucas form. I’m guessing that’s the same for your DD, re UCAS form. So the better grades the more likely of decent predictions and a place.