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?

Tears today after a Chemistry exams. Sense another retake coming up .

Oh dear ,sometimes though hard exams yield better results ,best to just put it behind you and move on.Easier said than done though.

Mrs Woodentop, I've been on this thread way back and my dd is also interested in Leeds - has a conditional offer (3 As for Law). She too had a History exam - she's trying to up her A* chances by re-doing the paper with the less fantastic teacher! The course and experience sounds fantastic. Sort of thing I can see dd2 loving in a cople of years.

It's too stressful - I'll have this 3 times in 4 years!! Dd has 5 offers now, but lowest is AAB. Others are AAA and one A*AB. She's now wishing she'd applied for a couple more prestigious places - King's London for eg. Mind you, they let me in.....

Hi going mad ,ds has 4 offers all AAB,he is wishing one had offered ABB,one was meant too but upped offers at last minute.

Your dd has dine really well ,where is her first choice?

funny 97%? My eyes are watering....Surely no-one gets 97%?

Perhaps it was 97th centile. They ranked the candidate's marks and put them into a gaussian distribution. Not sure whether it was 97% or 97th centile.

DD swears by bananas for calming nerves - a trick she learned from her music teacher. It settles the stomach and gives a shot of potassium to the brain, I'm told. So she took a banana with her on interview trips.

adamschick DD was in a bad state over Chemistry this time 2 years ago. Don't despair. She ended up with an A* but we didn't know that until August.....

Was it Salters?

The chemistry exam was Salters. Unfortunately, it wasn't so much that the questions were hard more timing issues.

adamschic yes, my DC sat this and said much the same.

Seems like many have struggled with it so lets hope the grade boundaries reflect this.

Dd's tossing up between Leeds and B'ham - liked the feel of both but Birmingham doesn't have the opportunity to spend a year abroad, which she thinks she'd like to do. She's relieved with her offers as she did rather badly in Physics AS last year (she's dropped it).

Can't believe the offers are so high nowadays. I was lucky because I did mine before applying. Also can't believe they don't interview - surely it's important for law!

goingmad interviews aren't any more important for Law than they are for any other academic subject. The vast majority of those who read Law end up practising it, but that's secondary to the study of it at university level, which is purely as an academic discipline.

If Law tutors were going to interview they wouldn't care two hoots about an applicant's soft skills, they care only about their ability to reason.

To be on the 97th percentile is still massively impressive funny, did he get a very dull passage at interview which threw him, or what? Somewhere along the line he must have had very bad luck.

Wondered if you'd be here mrswoodentop with the history source paper resit this week. dd said it was OK, better than last time but who knows?

Well done to ds on the Leeds offer. dd has Leicester and Birmingham for History. ds2 went to Ottawa for his 2nd year and had a fantastic time - that's a fab opportunity for your ds hope the interview goes swimmingly

Yellowstone, that makes sense. Also, dd didn't have to go through yet another hoop!

The next topic of discussion here is post-offer visits. TSR seems to suggest most parents go with their children. I'm of the opinion that it's to do with being independent and would assume dcs should go alone to get the most out of it. What are you all doing?

One of us is going to Newcastle ,simply because it is impossible to get a train from here that would get there in time,I think he will probably do others on his own but not yet decided

saggar history went better I think ,he at least understood where he went wrong last time ,which helped .It does depress me how formulaic the whole thing is ,how little room there is for flair ,ds was shown a paper with the same mark as his and was appalled ,it was in felt tip pen with text speak but it got the marks from using key words/phrases etc but showed very little real understanding of the period,ds was the complete opposite so lost marks ...bizarre

We didn't do any post-offer visits with ds - we'd gone to the open days and he'd made his decision anyway. Not sure with dd - she will probably do at least B'ham on her own. Leicester more difficult to get to on the train.

mrsw - dd exactly the same - I think we said before. She put too much of 'herself' into it. Glad to see the back of it TBH.

A million years ago when I was applying for universities my parents had no involvement at all and we would all have laughed ourselves silly if there had been any suggestion that parents should come with their teenagers to interviews, open days etc. However, times have changed and it's not just because we're all helicopter parents now. Most students have far more financial support from families, apart from anything else. I think it's useful for the student to have someone to compare notes with - not essential, but it is after all a massive decision to make when you're only 17 or 18, because of the financial implications.

We went with our daughter to a UCAS day at Reading because she has Asperger's and wouldn't really have been able to get there on her own. We found it very illuminating. The department laid on some joint talks/tours and then session where parents were hived off for a talk aimed at us while the students did something else. The assumption seemed to be that most students would have one or both parents with them, and that was certainly true of our group.

(She didn't go to Reading in the end - but not because of the UCAS day, which made a very good impression. She's studying part-time at Birkbeck instead and living at home, which is working out well. We went to the pre-application open evening there with her as well, and saw another young woman accompanied not just by parents but also by grandparents!)

Son is off to a UCAS day at UCL soon and his dad is going with him, as much out of nosiness as anything (we both went to UCL, but we didn't do History).

I didn't go anywhere with our 3 (who all graduated fairly recently) and they mostly didn't bother to visit the places in advance at all (their choice) and had I think mostly no interviews at all.

Our next lot won't be going to 5 years

We took DSS1 (Year 12 equivalent) to look at London universities (King's, UCL, LSE, Imperial) in November, including a guided tour and short talk at LSE. He was fascinated and it really opened his eyes.

I've been with DD to all but one open day, one offer day and one interview.

goingmadinthecountry I went to one post offer day with ds at his request - it was the strike day so we'd have been slightly anxious relying on public transport even though it was fine in the end. It was quite interesting and I enjoyed it (having not been to any open days I was curious), though I imagine they are all fairly similar and I wouldn't want to do too many. I certainly wasn't out of place - most if not all dc there had a parent in tow but it wasn't obligatory. It will be his insurance choice so I'm quite glad I've seen it - if he misses his grades I will be able to point to its positive aspects (assuming he doesn't fail spectacularly and miss his insurance too) and hopefully mitigate the disappointment to some extent.

As far as independence goes that will come soon enough when they leave home, so if they want you to go along too to give a second opinion then I would oblige if it's feasible for you. OTOH if they want you to keep your nose out of things then I'd respect that too.