Ucas / Results 2014 (carrying on Ucas Forms Sent.... thread)

[Littleham]

Thought we might need a new thread for the results...

The accommodation situation in London sounds horrendous Needmoresleep. Hope your son gets his choice. I'm feeling sorry for my friend's dd who has an offer for LSE. Sounds like she will struggle to get cheap accommodation.

LSE halls aren't too expensive and many of the more affluent students wont apply. However places are limited and candidates living outside the M25 get priority. Looking back at my time there, I made many of my friends during my first year in Hall, and want the same University type experience for my son. He may well decide to live at home during second and third years, but really wants a clean break between school and University, especially as he won't be taking a Gap Year.

After waiting so long for Universities to reply in the first place, it is a bore to have to wait again.

My understanding is that Imperial and UCL have better provision, but Kings does not.

What do they go in for? My kids are in the Scottish system but I did my A levels in England. I got posted my results and my kids get theirs emailed or texted and the results usually arrive by post the same day any way. The only people who have to contact the school on results day are those who are staying on the following year and want to sort out their options for the following year.
Clearing etc is usually done by the teenagers and their parents.

Answering 'what do they go in for'.....

To get their bit of paper from school with their results on, as our school doesn't operate an online or email system, so they can share their moment with their friends, their parents and their teachers......
And so the local paper can take pictures of girls jumping in the air.....
And then they're all together with their friends so they're ready to spend the day picnicking in the local park. At least that's the way it's been for the last six or seven years that I've noticed....

And our school has teachers on hand to help with clearing choices, if the need arises.

2rebecca in my day you got sent the results too - it was a straight forward A B C D E or U. These days you get a huge bit of paper detailing each exam paper taken, the raw mark and the ums equivalent and then the grade - from this you can work out if you were 1 point off a grade boundary or just scraped a pass etc

Our school doesn't e mail or post results either, so they have to go in to find out their grades.

The SQA in Scotland sends the emails etc to the pupils directly if they register for this. The school doesn't get involved. I suppose things are simpler here with nearly all schools (except a few private ones) sitting SQA exams rather than the range of exam boards in England.
You still just get sent a grade here.

It's unfair that different school release their a level results at different times. Getting your A level results at 7am rather than 10am is a huge advantage if you are going into clearing as is having access to knowledgable teachers.

Our local state 6th form college releases the A level results at 9 whereas the closest private school releases theirs at 7.

I know ucas updates at the same time for everyone but it's hard to prepare for clearing without your actual grades.

I don't understand why this isn't standardised so that everyone has the same chance at clearing.

I agree with you ThatWasNice - doesn't seem fair. It must explain why our school is opening it's doors to those who have missed offers at 8am. They must have considered 7am a bit too early!!!

ds found out he'd got in to uni when track updated and his conditional turned to unconditional - it was a couple of hours before he got his actual results. Going in to get the actual grades from school was just a formality by then.

Had he missed out on his place, he could still have gone into clearing without knowing his exact grades but if he did it at school the school ucas officer would have been able to advise on options.

I couldn't find it but I think there are schools that give out results even earlier than 7.

We thought my DS2 might enter clearing last year so we were well prepared. He did lots of research and hadwritten out a CV and new 'personal statements' Everything was ready to go as soon as UCAS updated.

Fortunately he didn't need it but it was a bit fraught.

When & where do clearing courses get advertised?

I don't think you'll ever get everyone getting results at exactly the same time. Even with the SQA the times at which people get their emails vary, I presume the system can only cope with sending so many at a time and getting through to clearing on the phone will be part luck with timing and the order you phone unis in. For my son's standard grades he got a text at about 8am where as he checked his email at about 6am and it was there for his highers.

The telegraph do a special pull out the morning of the results and you can search for courses that are in clearing on the UCAS website. There is also a UCAS Clearing App but I'm not sure when it's released.

Thanks.

If you think your DC might go into to clearing then you should make sure you understand Changed Course Offers. (Mentioned earlier in the thread). We know two people who got these and it helps if you understand what they are and what your options are as you might have to act quickly if you want to decline such an offer.

OK, thanks. I guess that her course can't be changed too much, as she wants to study German and Italian. She has to do German as you are required to have taken one A Level language. They can change the second ab initio language though & she is quite happy to look at different languages.

Last year clearing didn't open until a few hours after track had updated. Some universities put their vacancies up on their websites in the preceding days so keep an eye out. I have kept a copy of last years lists (and the previous year) if you want to know if a particular course came up just pm me

How are the stress levels everyone ? 2 1/2 weeks until results day and only 8 weeks until moving in weekend for my DD ! Can't believe how quickly the weeks are going now - am starting to feel very sad that I won't see her hardly after she goes :( I really want her to get the grades she needs and get into her firm choice but will miss her terribly :( still got two others at home but will be very strange.

Still worried here, but reading this article in the newspaper today cheered me up today.

Might interest anyone whose child is planning on doing languages. Applications are down by nearly a fifth this year (apparently).

www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Education/article1439388.ece

DS wobble over; room confirmed, place unconditional - good luck to everyone awaiting A level results xxx

Littleham thanks for the link - DD felt a bit reassured that if she drops a grade she might still get an offer from her firm choice - not least because the professor interviewed for the article is her potential head of department !

Glad he has chosen college over girlfriend. I'm relieved my son is too geeky to have a girlfriend at the moment.
My daughter who is younger is more of a worry but seems to mainly fancy unobtainable blokes. Young love can seriously screw up your career.

Tell me about it 2rebecca! Couldn't believe that he was seriously going to choose to turn down the opportunity that he had chosen, the degree that he chose at the uni he really wanted to go to for a girl he knew for a week!

since his room was confirmed hes got really excited, pm'd someone on TSR who has just completed 1st year of his chosen course at the same uni. He is going to go and visit on Friday as its been a while since he last went as he wants to get his bearings on where the nearest Aldi, poundshop is etc!

Though, thinking about it, I think he was giving a reason for his wobble initially as when we did speak openly he did say he thought he it would be too hard. I have saved all my essays, assignments etc from uni, so he went through them, saw that despite my English wasn't fantastic and a reminder that there were workshops advertised at every open day for essay skills, grammar, spelling etc (which wasn't available when I went to uni) he did calm down and suddenly the next day they broke up!

I was very concerned at the time though as his uni will only allocate rooms once place is unconditional and they only have 3 days to accept and pay deposit or they lose uni accommodation (it was only 1 hall that he could afford) so it was time pressure on top of getting over the wobble