UCAS forms sent - just the waiting game now !

[snowyowl70]

My super organised DD1 has had email today to say her forms/reference have been received and should be at her chosen Unis in the next 48 hrs !!!!! So the waiting begins - to those seasoned parents who have done this before can you remember how long they had to wait for their first responses ? At least 2 out of her 5 may call her for interview (MFL) so am guessing these might be fairly on the ball ?

Should add that there were a lot of decent courses at decent universities in clearing last year.

I don't know whether that has affected offers generally this time, or whether we'll see the same situation.

Good choice for DD2 Littleham :) Oxford's application process is rather more challenging though, in that it requires the HAT. It's not a complicated process, but it does have that extra aptitude test the result of which will whether your DD will get an interview. In terms of reassurance though, this year's DS is at a state school, the school gives no guidance at all for the HAT, he simply followed the advice on the website and his result was (very surprisingly) off the scale.

His older sister was a history undergrad there too and is still there doing a masters and next year will be doing a fully funded PhD. She's been very happy with her lot; I hope it turns out equally well for your DD.

Sorry: the result of which will determine whether your DD will get an interview.

Thanks for that amazing story wordfactory. I bet that Mum needed a triple whisky at the end of clearing.

What the devil is the HAT ventura? Is it an IQ test? Would she find it on the Oxford website? Do Cambridge do it as well? This is a whole new world to us. In our family only three people have been to any university (no one to Oxbridge), so this advice is invaluable.

HAT = the history aptitude test.

There's info about it on Oxford's website

Should have said, it's not a test of knoweldge but a test of skill set IYSWIM.

Found it thanks. She will probably take one look at that and change to one of the others! I'll tell her that your son did well in it ventura.

The important thing is that he managed to do well from a state school which gave no classes or guidance - so don't let her be put off too easily by thinking she'll need loads of help: she won't.

Littleham I would point out to your daughter that if she is enjoying studying History at A level, and especially beyond the syllabus, then she will already have those aptitude skills being tested by HAT, and be using them, and is likely to do well. Motivation follows aptitude. I would present it to her as the university giving her another chance to provide objective evidence that she is right for the course and that will mean that when it comes to interview they will already know a little more about her, which can take the pressure off, a little Pre testing is in any case something she will encounter a lot when applying for jobs, often many stages of pre tests, telephone interviews etc. etc.

ventura there you go again, no one else is entitled to a different opinion, in this case only a slightly different opinion . I wasn't slagging anything off! I just ventured the opinion that there are other excellent departments with different approaches and specialisms that prospective applicants might want to consider according to their own interests and what is important to them. They are all excellent, I never said they weren't. The specific ones we have discussed are generally regarded ahead of a field of approximately a hundred (unless you are after a particular specialism), quite a few others are also excellent. Unless venturing the opinion that the History course at Oxford isn't "best" judged on the basis of every possible measure or set of students needs is slagging off

Every opinion I have ventured I have offered in the context of my experience, direct or otherwise, ( whilst trying to keep it from descending into boasting or dreary exposition) and people can place a value on that opinion as they wish and according to their own perspectives. Whether anyone choses to believe me is of course up to them, I may of course under guise of anonymity be a childless old woman who has never been near a school or uni sat at a Formica kitchen table in a lonely bedsit with ketchup dribbling between the bristles on my chin as I type out bile about everything that matters to you. You might also be. Obviously the reader will weigh up the evidence and decide what weight to put on any post on mumsnet.

It is just I have never felt the need to air that thought process online, obviously debate objective facts and opinions, but demanding concrete proof via names and places of someone's credentials , which effectively implies you think someone is lying, and then decreeing their point of view invalid without that, it's a touch of guilty until proven innocent isn't it? And unnecessarily personal? And not really what mumsnet is about, on this thread anyway, it is surely for sharing opinion knowledge and experience?

I am glad your son is enjoying the History course, that's the important thing.

Thanks Shooting - I'll pass your advice onto her. dd2 is going to look at both options. Will be interesting to see if she enjoys the Cambridge master class. We really like the look of York too, so there are plenty of other places.

All of the advice is really valued - doesn't matter if you have conflicting opinions. Everyone has different experiences of the same system.

By the way, I noticed that Durham is handing out a few more replies now so they may be getting through that pile.

Has your DD got a Durham offer in the latest batch Littleham?

DS hasn't accepted his offer yet Shooting, so he's enjoying nothing :) As I said, he's still waiting for a reply from Durham :) Anyhow, agree completely about your horses for courses thing, but I did think it was worth countering your very negative opinion with a rather more positive one, that's all.

York replies very early too Littleham, which is nice.

vent freind's DS got an offer from Durham this morning .

So they're still coming in ...

Actually, I don't know the offer actually came in today, might have been yesterday ot tuesday...definitely hadn't heard on Monday when I last spoke to her!

Thanks wordfactory. Which subject? Was it History? Still nothing here. DS still has two other close friends waiting, all for the same sort of subjects.

Psycholgy, I think.

But not gospel certain.

Nothing for us yet from Durham, but as she is probably borderline, it doesn't matter. It was a contextual punt - we thought why not take a risk with just one? Think she has done well to last so long! She really loves Warwick & Bristol, so she is very happy.

I do like the sound of York giving early offers. Gets my vote.

Cambridge has just sent a letter to dd2 asking her to apply for a History summer school. Do they send these out a lot & should she apply? She only has about four days to get an application in.

Littleham Most offers seem to come before Christmas. Exeter also write and say when you will get an offer and why it will be in February. Even Oxbridge is known by early January. That is why it is hard for those still waiting for offers now, and that includes almost all medics, and obviously now from needmoresleeps experience Economists, but it would be very rare for a good applicant for almost all courses not to have offers by Christmas, and from places like UCL, York, Bristol, Leeds, Nottingham, Birmingham etc. Durham seems to plough quite a lonely furrow in keeping some candidates in almost all disciplines, regardless of the strength of their application waiting, having made the experience extra painful by handing some offers out at the start

My experience of the UCAS process across the years is that universities generally - apart from Durham arts, humanities and social sciences - are generally giving earlier replies, part of the package of recent strategies designed to persuade top applicants to firm them rather than insure or reject. I agree that most strong applicants can expect to have at least one offer before Christmas, but probably not all - it varies wildly across subjects and unis, even now. UCL definitely seems to have shifted its dates. The two you can rely on for certain are Oxford and Cambridge, with set centralized dates, or near enough. I've certainly noticed an increase in 'courting'. The current DS has just had a hello and would-you-like-to-ask-any-questions phone call from Bristol, which is very new (in this house at least), but a big shift up from an e-mail.

Why would she not not apply Littleham? Might be very useful in deciding her one way or the other.

We have had the same phone call from Bristol! Just had a letter from Bath too - another one providing lunch (call me shallow, but they always get my vote ).

Durham could learn a lot from this approach - even if it is a call to say, 'sorry, we will send your reply by.....'

As soon as she got home from school I showed her the summer school letter - little Miss Efficient has already filled it out and sent it. Not sure how many applicants there are for each space, but worth a shot.

She has also had a look at the HAT and is going to chat to her History teacher about it. She didn't seem fazed by it.

My Ds had a phone call from Bristol too, last week. Do you think that they phone everyone? He was very impressed, and by the post offer day that we both attended yesterday.

I thought it was a nice touch from Bristol. I think the more welcoming approach rather than the aloof we're-so-sought-after approach is refreshing. All credit to Bristol for constantly trying new approaches. They're clearly being more flexible with offers too, rather than sticking with a rigid A*AA offer, which is what DS could have expected.

Durham did one year of trying to outclass Cambridge when the A* had been going for a year, then had to do a rapid climbdown. The long wait is ok if you're completely happy with your other offers, but desperately hard for those who've set their heart on Durham and where there's a big gulf between Durham and their next offer down. I think Durham may end up losing some in the former group though, who simply get fed up but might have firmed over Durham's rivals, had Durham got a move on earlier than March. Still, Durham's loss.

Bristol may be taking a bit of a risk. It was previously thought of a AAA type of University yet many of their offers this year seem quite a lot lower. The question then is whether, if you are confident of achieving mainly As whether you want to go somewhere where you might spend some of your first year waiting whilst others catch up, say in maths.

Bad news on our front. Another rejection though this time saying he can have a place to study an unrelated subject in a different department, absolutely ruling out any chance of post graduate study in economics in the future. Bizarre. And unfortunately from the University he thought he had best chance of getting a place at.

So combined wisdom please. And I don't mind if there are varying opinions. Is there a problem reapplying to the same institutions post A level? He has now decided to resit a couple of his AS papers and is optimistic he will come out with a set of grades at least as strong as his predictions, which in turn were comfortably above standard offers. Does it help to have grades in hand, or if they don't like you once are they unlikely to like you second time round.

Then any good ideas for economics type things to do in a gap year. Any good one year courses overseas etc? Or unlike other competitive subjects like medicine, would they not worry what he did. (I remember work experience was supposed to be something that would suggest continuing interest in a subject. Is a gap year the same?)