Support thread for anyone applying through UCAS this year

[Lorelai]

Following on from a thread in chat I thought I would start this so that we can hold each others' hands through the UCAS process with all its challenges.

Who's with me?

You (and anyone) are most welcome to advice yellowstone though as I have got older I realise that not everyone seeks advice, listens to it or follows it, so all credit goes to you and your DS for that mindset of success.
The local grammar school (co-ed?) is also getting something right. It would be interesting to know what they include and what they leave out of references.
I would still find it interesting to know about the daily routines, whether homework supper and bed are at set times, how the family manage work/ extra curricular commitments, how much you and DC talk over/plan UCAS together.How much 'reading around' the DC do. Whether they read much in the holidays or not. I was very interested when you mentioned your detailed debrief after interviews some posts ago.
Our household remains the muddling through variety, with all sorts of last minute social life changes, though we do have a calender up with key academic deadlines, keep commitments and take a keen interest in and prioritise learning and both the DC, being older now, have their own diaries which they schedule (dd typically sent me a facebook video of hers!).

Anyway happy Christmas to you and to everyone who reads this thread even if they didn't get offers. I love the look on my DC faces when they watch our tree with its old baubles, tinsel and fairy lights!

We have to wait till early Jan to see if ds gets a Cambridge offer. Actually that means we're not thinking about it much - Christmas takes precedence, not to mention modules looming in Jan.

We are hopeless at daily routines. When DD was at school our meals revolved around commitments such as music, often picking her up in the car and thrusting a sandwich in her hands while we hared off to wherever she had to be. Also, living in a fairly remote location, we always felt we had to put no barriers in the way of DD having a social life so we were always very flexible about lifts, staying over at friends' houses etc., as well as being as noble as possible about teaching her to drive!
Homework - I just had to trust that she was doing it. I remember DH and I wondering to each other round about GCSE time whether or not she was actually working up in her bedroom or spending her time on facebook. We got the results and decided she must have been working so we relaxed during A-levels.
We did have long discussions about UCAS etc. That was partly because applying to med school was a complete unknown but also because the whole Getting Into Uni thing is such an important milestone that you just have to be involved, if only as a sounding board.
yellowstone It's kind of you to say so and I'm very glad that any 'advice' has been helpful.

DC did hear before Christmas, rejection...

Oh no ,but that must mean she still has one outstanding and offers from her insurance.

Yes, one "not insurance" to go, seems very composed about it (and it was her favourite in theory), but at least other offers came in first. I'm a bit disappointed, but hey I'm not the one that will be going!

You don't have to say but was it Durham ,I know lots of people had rejection letters last week.

It sounds like she is being very level headed about it all .I hope she gets good news soon.

Spot on Mrs Woodentop, modules obviously not high enough.

ucas Durham is at times a law unto themselves. It may or may not have the module scores. I know when my DD was rejected 2 years ago (she was devastated unlike your level headed sounding DD) we knew of others personally and on TSR who were offered places on much lower scores. My DD asked if they could give her any feedback, they just said they had a holistic approach to allocation of places... I just think they have a very difficult job with so many excellent applications. Fingers crossed that your DD hears (with offers!) from her final universities soon.

It could be a few things, modules, GCSE scores, school report (it seemed good to me but I wonder if there were things missed out that they would pick up on), I don't think it would be personal statement as biased as I am, she did a very good one

The offer is AAA unitarian, so as good as it gets.

No clear answers funny. I have to be cautious: the eldest four may well have achieveddespite rather than due to my input.

Once they can read I don't interfere. Certainly at secondary school it's all up to them. The minutiae of the Chemistry GCSE syllabus would confound me and bore me so I've never gone that deep. I'm better at A level, but only with the subjects I know. I do go to every parents' evening though, read all reports, that sort of thing.

Mine have not made Oxford a quest and never turned their mind to it until their GCSE's suggest that they might. I've made sure they know there are good alternatives, almost as pretty (they all knew already how lovely Oxford is as a place).

Any input is pretty oblique. I go to Blackwells sometimes and buy books, I suggest placements and projects. But it's the horse and water idea: they don't have to drink.

Ecs? They all do something but they've been constrained by too many siblings and a rural life, so nothing excessive in quantity or quality either.

They've certainly also been disadvantaged by a lack of space (shared rooms, communal homework table, noise and more noise). But advantaged by hybrid vigour (east/ west european blood) and by living slap bang next to a super-selective, by accident, not by design. Going to any other school within reach - private or comp - would have produced a different result, I'm almost certain of that. At the end of the day so much is just down to luck.

Oh and the debriefs? Yes I love them. Love hearing what the tutors were like and what the other students were like, the good, the bad and the terrible questions and answers, I love it all. Then I can dwell on it for days during which the interviews seems to get progressively worse but I feign neutrality, the best position for when the phone call or e-mail or letter arrives. I love hearing their friends' accounts too.

Set times? No, nothing is set (supper? ha!). We're muddlers too, through and through.

Dear yellowstone that's interesting. It sounds like there is quite lively conversation and cross fertilisation of ideas at that homework table. I wonder, too, if your DC have supported each other. How do you know what books to get from Blackwells, what projects and placements to suggest? I think books and placements helped my DC a lot but also there was a cashless time and I felt disadvantaged not being able to buy them as many books as I would have liked.

I worry about not enough books. I suggest they set aside adequate money for books from their student budget.

I still think those debriefs are interesting. Would love to know what your DS got asked. No special reason. Just curious. No need to answer.

Congratulations again, the household must be very happy. Perhaps thats another secret, to know what will make one happy. So many think of Oxford/good universities as 'hard work' or 'rah' and aren't really sure they would be happy there and I think that affects the mindset.

With an offer of AAA yellowstone I doubt if he needs an insurance. Will he still bother with an interview at Imperial or Bristol if/when invited?

DD's been checking her timetable for next term. 20 lectures a week and rising to 25 but she's loving the work. I miss these chats when she's away.

I pushed the boat out and gave DD a copy of Grey's Anatomy (the book, not the TV series) on A level results day. She was really touched by that and I'm delighted to see it is getting a lot of use.

I think he'd have liked Imperial very much indeed unitarian but he's sold on Oxford now, has the prospect of a lovely college and would have to decline the place immediately really if someone else weren't to miss out (Oxford says plaese decline by mid-Jan at latest).

He hasn't heard anything at all from either of the last two yet.

Please, not plaese :)

MN has been swallowing my replies, so I'll stab this out quickly and hope to confuse it.

We know cashlessless too funny, it's a real problem. I've been on familiar ground with History and Law but with Medicine I just idled around the Norrington Room, looked at the display table and read back covers and recommendations, very amateur really. I bought a few books to start him off and he then snooped about and bought more as the months went by, his EMA helped. As for projects and placements, I just make suggestions, it's up to the DC to follow them up. That's just a common sense thing: a cross between what's desirable as experience and what might be possible.

I like the idea of cross-fertilisation. That's a bit too romantic. It's a good deal more mundane than that here (eg. who's going to have the radiator seat and why has siblingx been on the computer so long :)).

The interviews? Out of the four he had (two at each of his college of preference and the one randomly assigned by Pre-Clinical Admissions Dept.), the bulk of the questions were purely scientific and based on photograhs, graphs and tables. The questions aren't easy to replicate because of that but ranged over viruses, smallpox, immunisation, sodium channels, breathing, kidney function, something about glucose and about cancer too. I didn't have a clue about the substance of any of those but could pretty much work out whether or not he had come unstuck or managed to work his way through to the end of a series of points. I was a bit less glazed with the more ethical questions and the soft Hello type questions. These involved asking him about his job: were there any difficulties ever? How many hours a day did he do this work and when? He was also asked how would he timetable his extra curriculars around the heavy workload that medicine imposes. And which group would he exclude from NHS treatment were he the Sec. of State for Health? And which event would he erase from history were he the historian of humanity instead?

Oh and in one interview they did have a conversation about the books he'd read too.

Quite a gruelling Yellowstone! Nobody from DC's school got into Oxford this time, not sure what that signifies, apparently the two 'hottest' contenders have are waiting to hear from Cambridge, so we'll see how that goes. I do wonder how well they are briefed.

Thanks for that feedback yellowstone I love hearing about parents and children and that interaction is so special - heartbreaking when it goes wrong and great when it goes right! I hope everyone is having a nice time with their families. Wishing all had a happy Christmas and wishing you all and your DC a very happy new year with, as this is a ucas thread, success in their applications!

goinggetstough 'a holistic approach to the allocation of places' is a fairly meaningless soundbite. Durham doesn't seem to be helpful at all with constructive feedback. For the past few years Durham has managed to restrict its offers at our school almost exclusively to those with Oxford and Cambridge offers, in the Arts at least, and then gets huffy when it's held as an insurance. Last year it circulated a long and detailed survey asking why it was held only as insurance.

Asking prospective History students for an A specifically in History is one of the tallest orders around. These A's in Arts subjects can be elusive at best and capricious at worst. There's definitely scope for the department missing out on results day. Not great for inclusivity either but perhaps they'll have at least enough sense to waive that requirement for students from less good schools.

Sorry to hear about your DD ucas, I hope she fares better with her other top choice.

yellowstone totally agree it was a meaningless soundbite but it was all they offered! I think it would be better to give constructive feedback or none at all! I suppose Durham receive a great number of applicants and can therefore do whatever they like with regard to applications and feedback.

Ds got his last offer from Bristol in on 21st, so it's decision time now. I think he will choose Oxford as his heart seems to be there, but he does have another very attractive offer from Southampton, which he also liked, who will pay all his tuition fees (ie 9k per year for up to 4 years ) if he gets 5As at A-level (which he probably will). Not easy to work out the relative economics of that choice, and the mother hen in me wonders if he might be happier on a slightly less pressured course regardless of the economics. It's kind of annoying that Ox want their decision before the Jan module results are out too.