Year 12 and making your mind up

[MarianneSolong]

My daughter is finding the whole UCAS thing hard. She's just returned to school after study leave A/S levels. Both teachers and fellow students are talking about applications and open days.

Her situation is that she is interested in studying Politics but not 100% sure. They are just starting the A2 syllabus, and the different topics studied mean that she's less sure than she was about favourite subjects.

She worked very hard for AS levels and didn't really want to divert her energies by thinking a lot about open days. So some of the ones she was interested in are booked up. She's in a bit of a spin about the relative of virtues of 'old' universities (possibly snobby and in small towns vs new (big impersonal cities.)

One of the drawbacks for her is that she thinks about things very throughly, seeing the pluses and minuses of everything. And she would also find it easier to leave the whole process until after she's got her AS results. (I suspect that these will be very good indeed, but she's not the over confident type i.e. - she'd rather not think about the most sought-after universities until she knows it is likely she would get the grades.

I have said that her father and I will try and talk things through with her at the weekend. We are happy to visit some of the possible university towns and cities with her over the summer, if that helps.

Just wondered if others had had similar experiences. (Neither of us are micro-managing parents, and our daughter doesn't take that well to being micro-managed. It's more a matter of giving her the tools to help her move forward with something she doesn't find that easy.)

[senua]

I can't find it on the UCAS site but TSR says "If you apply to fewer than 5 choices initially it is possible to add extra choices (until you have 5 in total) at a later date."
There used to be a school of thought that said it was an idea to apply to Bristol, Durham etc after the October deadline or else they would get grumpy because they knew they were playing second fiddle to Oxbridge.

[Slipshodsibyl]

Yes that is correct. You can apply at separate times, adding a university at a time if you like. The Oxbridge/Medicine/dentistry/vet med/ deadline is 15 Oct. The usually accepted deadline for all others is 15 Jan, but you may apply after that, right up until Summer, but you risk that courses have filled up.

[creamteas]

The usually accepted deadline for all others is 15 Jan, but you may apply after that, right up until Summer but you risk that courses have filled up.

There is a brief period just before the A level results come out that it is not possible to apply, but it is actually possible to do your application during Clearing if you really wanted to leave it to the last minute!

[OddBoots]

Has the school been good with careers guidance? I think my view is a little skewed by having had very poor guidance myself as a teen but I think it would do most young people a world of good to spend quality time with an independent expert in careers.

The school my y1 ds goes to does the minimum, if his sixth form is the same I think at the end of Y12 we will pay privately for a careers adviser - I've got 'adviza' in my bookmarks ready!