Work experience for Politics degree - Boffinmum/anyone else know??

[mumblechum1]

DS wants to do either Politics or Politics & International Relations at Uni, starting Sept 2013. He's probably going to get AAB, going on current progress, so aiming for non-RG, such as Goldsmiths, Leicester, maybe Nott Trent.

Question is about what should be on his PS regarding work experience. He's done a bit of labouring, waiting on, and has done a one week Army Insight course, in which he scored v v highly.

He's also just started in the Territiorial Army (he wants to be an Army officer after graduating). He can put down stuff like teamwork, discipline, problem solving on his application, but he hasn't done any direct politics work, eg working for an MP as a volunteer. Do you think he should do the latter?

The other thing is he's going to Washington, Philly and NYC in Oct, in the week before the election - would that help?

What else would admissions people be looking for?

Wow Mrs WT, your ds did well! Presumably he got AAA? I'll suggest to ds that he sees whether he can get in touch with our local MP.

He doesn't want to do politics as a career, he just finds it very interesting, but I presume that the Uni looks at work experience linked to the course, rather than the career?

The Washington trip is run by his Politics class so there will be a heavily political bias.

Watching with interest.
DD1 starting Goldsmiths this September doing exactly same course. She is aiming for a career with the UN. Watching reples

Hi Crazynanna, what grades are Goldsmiths asking for?

Hi Mumble

DD1 is a mature student....and for a million reasons' left school with hardly anything. She is 26 now,married with 3 dcs',and had to do one of those Access courses. She feels a bit anxious as she knows the AC is looked upon a bit 2nd rate..but she has worked hard and got all distinctions' and got offers' from Queen Mary's (?),SOAS and Goldsmith's...but chose Goldsmith's due to the course is exactly what she wants.

Good for her! I think QM and SOAS are RG, so she's done fantastically well. Are you going to be babysitting for the next three years, then?

As for the voluntary stuff...she is involved in a charity in Jamaica for Child Survivors' of Abuse...and goes there as much as fund raising is allowing her to.

Maybe a little! Her DH is a wonderful man...who will work shifts around her and the dcs'. We found a diamond when he came into our lives'.

I'm new to all this so forgive me if this is a dumb question; when they fill in their UCAS forms and personal statements, does the Uni base its offer on their AS results only?

No ,it's not as simple as that ,most University courses will have a standard offer ,some will have a range for example AAA to AAB.The details will be on their websites .
When assessing the application they will look at GCSE results AS results (if disclosed,not all schools cash in the results)the personal statement and the school reference .How they actually decide who to make an offer to is a bit of a mystery.
If your ds goes to some of the open days this summer ,many run sessions on the admissions process and that should help him,also school should be giving them lots of advice at this stage.

Mumblechum, don't cut out RG universities for politics. The majority are asking AAB. Look at UCAS website, course search option. This gives you all universities that offer politics degrees and the entry requirements. I only found that Bristol, Exeter and Cambridge were asking higher than AAB.

Oh, right, that's helpful. I must admit he was writing off Russell Group unis because his GCSE results were a bit rubbish; 5A, 5B, 1C.

When I looked at SOAS, LSE, UCL etc they seemed to be all looking for 3As, so I just assumed they all would.

Will have another little trawl (ds is off at an Army camp this weekend)

Those GCSEs sound fine ,certainly not bad enough to rule out places like Sheffield,Notts,York,Newcastle,UEA,Lancaster Leeds,Birmingham ,all RG .

Thanks again Mrs WT. DS school acted like it was a big tragedy when he got his results; it's a high performing grammar where some people got 11 A*/As and the expectation is that anything less than 8 As is a failure.. He was definitely towards the bottom of the league as it were.

Well my ds got 4A*5As and a B and got 5 offers but he had a bit of a hiccough with his AS ,now rectified with resit so he didn't disclose them just went with predictions.If you look at the stalking pages on TSR you can see some of the GCSE grades for people with offers .Certainly As are preferable but good AS results and a strong personal statement seem to be able to see you through

DS2 wants to do Politics. Unfortunately, his GCSEs were not good - 7Bs and 2Cs. He is dyslexic/dyspraxic and does exams on a laptop but has very high verbal skills ie. he's got a big mouth and expresses himself very well, good in debates and arguments. We really did not know what would happen in 6th form with those GCSEs, in fact some schools would not have let him do History at A level with a C at GCSE.

Ok, so he took 3 AS modules in January and to everyone's shock got 81% in economics, 79% in politics and wait for it, 98% in History! He may well be en route to high enough grades for some of these Politics degrees. But will they even contemplate giving him an offer with those GCSEs. I've told him to wait for predictions and maybe he will have to take a gap year and apply with A2 results. I also don't know whether universities will look at GCSE grades once he has A levels.

The best thing to do if you're unsure over GCSEs is get them to ring admissions and ask. In my, admittedly limited, experience, admissions only look at GCSEs for courses like Medicine. They may look at them if there's a huge discrepancy between GCSE grades and predicted A Level grades. If they have their AS grades when they apply then they're not usually likely to look much beyond them.

A close friend of mine is currently studying Politics and Philosophy at a RG university with only 2 GCSEs (Maths and English). Whilst he may be a bit of an anomaly, universities are often a lot less bothered about GCSEs than they are made to seem.

Oh, and work experience, local MPs, councillors and youth organisations of political parties are all good. Also, getting involved with organisations like Amnesty and keeping on top of current news.

Would there be an opportunity to do something politics related whilst in the states? Perhaps starting a political blog (now) which could be updated whilst in the states commenting on the run up to the elections?

The main thing admissions tutors always tell us they look for is passion and genuine interest in the subject. They'd rather have someone who loves the subject and has never seen a musical instrument than someone who doesn't really care but plays the violin, piano and bagpipes

There's a few things that need saying here:
a) Politics work experience isn't necessary by any means. It won't do any harm to an application, but politics is an academic and not a vocational course, so they don't place any significant emphasis on work experience, as they do with (say) medicine. However, if your DC wants to volunteer & get WE, then campaigning in the mayoral referendums / local elections would be a very good option. Probably the best way to go about this is writing to the local branch of the party they feel most closely aligned with.
b) With AAB, he should be looking at Russell Group unis. Manchester, Birmingham etc. all only ask for AAB. That said, he would do well to apply to a couple of unis that only ask for ABB.
c) Some universities place more emphasis on GCSEs than others (and not necessarily always the ones you'd expect). However, having good AS grades, A2 predictions at / above the standard offer, a decent personal statement (have a look at thestudentroom.com - they've got an excellent, free PS review service) and a supportive reference will mean that the GCSEs will be ignored, so long as he has a C (sometimes B - it will say on the uni's website - in English Language and Maths)

Boomting, tghat's very helpful, thanks. He got As for English and Maths at GCSE so no problem there. His 4th subject, which he's dropping, is a major messup (Chemistry), he's probably only going to get a C in that, but I guess as long as he gets As in his AS History & Politics, and a B in Biology he'll be ok.

He's gone off the boil with revision over the last week bites tonge

I have an MA in International Relations and am just about to send off a proposal for my doctoral work! I work at a United Nations organization in Geneva. Contact me and I can probably give you some suggestions.

I may just do that Jenny..on behalf of DD She starts at Goldsmith in Sep doing International Studies

Whatever I can do to help! I'm trying to be a good ambassador for the subject LOL Goldsmiths is one of the places I'm considering applying for doctoral work :) I need to persuade them I'm SO brilliant I can do it from Geneva and just pop over to the UK occasionally LOL I doubt it'll work :)

However, Goldsmiths has a great reputation for the subject so congrats to your DD.

Goldsmiths has a great reputation for the subject so congrats to your DD.

That is so good to hear,as she had offers' from SOAS and St Mary's and chose Goldsmiths as the course is what she wanted.

She is a mature student who has entered via an Access course...so we are really proud of her as the rest of us are a bit thick

Thank you...will tell her you are available for advice.