Things I wish I'd known last year when my child was applying for uni

[ICantFindAFreeNickName]

I thought it might be useful to put together a list of things that may be useful for parents going through the process this year.

These are the thing that I wish we had known.

1. Although it is not meant to make a difference when you put your UCAS application in, an early application can have some advantages. With some uni's you can apply for your accommodation as soon as you make it your firm choice, so an early application could mean you have a much better chance of getting your 1st choice of accommodation.

1. There seems to be a trend of more uni's offering unconditional places for certain courses. These students are then given their accommodation before students with conditional offers. Which is great for kids with unconditional offers, but means those waiting for their A level results will have less chance of getting the cheaper accommodation. Might be worth asking the uni's what their policy is.

1. Do renew your kids passport even if there is no chance of them going abroad during the year, as it makes applying for student finance so much easier.

1. Durham has a reputation for keeping kids hanging on for a decision, I would ensure your kid really wants to go there before putting it down as choice and managing your kids expectations about how quickly they will get a reply.

1. Don't spend ages investigating what accommodation your kid wants, as the chance of getting what they chose seems pretty small (or is that just my ds and several of his friends).

1. People on mumsnet often have more idea about the whole process than your child's teachers.

That's all I can think of for now, as you can see accommodation is on my mind at the moment.

If your DC needs additional support, ask to have a chat with Student Services on open days - with some it's just drop-in, with others an appointment. We found them all really helpful and full of good advice/suggestions and the support DD has had from her chosen Uni in applying for DSA, arranging learning support and finding the accommodation most accessible for her has been excellent - and building a relationship with Student Services early on has taken a lot of anxiety out of the process.

The offer percentage must relate to the conversion rate - the fraction of those offered who will accept. For really top rated courses - I'm guessing Economics at LSE, if you get an offer you will very probably take it, so they can't afford to make a lot of excess offers. For many courses students will get two or three or more almost equally attractive offers, and will be deciding between them, there may be an almost equal probability that they will choose a particular one. Then the university can make two or three offers for each place, safe in the knowledge that a lot of students will choose one of their rivals. Universities have an idea of the conversion rate they expect and make offers accordingly. Occasionally this goes wrong and they overshoot or under-recruit.

I'm reading this through a haze of toothache, ibuprofen + codeine and paracetamol, so may not make much sense.

The stats are quite hard to unpick, aren't they?

For each course it might be useful to know for at least the previous year:

*Number of places available

*Number of applications received (broken down by EU/international) and some idea of the range of predicted/achieved grades at point of application

*Number of offers made + what the typical offer is, or what the range is, and what determines who gets a high offer and who gets a slightly lower one + what the typical expected A level results are for applicants getting offers.

*Number of offers accepted as firm

*Number of offers accepted as insurance

*Number of firm offers actually taken up and what these students achieved at A level

*Ditto for insurance offers

*Number of places offered through clearing/adjustment/after 15th Jan deadline

A lot of the above is available from Oxford and Cambridge. I don't know how much you can get from other universities.

But of course even with all that information in hand, things can change a lot from one year to another.

That's what I thought, but it still does not make sense with the example I looked at, nor indeed the one eatyourveg highlighted.

Economics at the LSE and Warwick have very similar reputations, though offer very different student experiences. LSE may appeal more to London and EU/overseas students, Warwick probably more to other UK students. I would expect their conversion rates to be similar. (Warwick waited till March and then rejected DS, or rather offered him a completely different course, despite a 4 A* prediction, a good subject choice and plenty of reading round his subject. The surprise for us was just how strong the competition was.)

Ditto Exeter is a really popular campus. DN missed her offer by 2 UMS three years ago and did not get a place. I can't imagine they hand out 98% offers for English.

Warwick have a very transparent policy in Maths admissions. If you are predicted Ain Maths and AFurther Maths you will get an offer. The offer is always the same. AAA and grade 2 in STEP or A*AA and grade 1 in STEP.

mumslife I don't think you would be encouraged to apply for different subjects unless they were closely related. You only get one Personal Statement on the UCAS application and this goes to all your 5 choices. It needs to reflect why you want to go on the course in question.
I would ask advice from both her sixth form and the uni admissions departments.

Secret, the pain then is that STEP is used as the filter. Not only do the results not come through to August but there is a huge variety of support available in different schools.

Experience is that competitive engineering courses are able to differentiate applicants via a mix of A/S UMS and sometimes STEP, so process quite quickly.

It's subjects like economics, accountancy and law which seem to cause the heartache, though some Cambridge colleges now require STEP for economics. Universities will have their own priorities, its just from the outside you don't know what they are.

So glad its over. Just No.2 to go.

Watching with interest

Make sure they start the personal statement early and get lots of input into it. Engage with staff at school/college but also realise that they dont know everything about everything.

DD had input from a number of people but eventually realised that within the school she was going round in circles a bit. One member of staff would say one thing and the next one would change the changes made by the previous one and so on!

At the end of the day it is a personal statement so the student has to be happy with it.

We found that if the University really want you they tend to reply fairly quickly if you put in an early application. They think you are Oxbridge if you do this. You can get refused on an insurance if this looks too low and has happened to friends of my DD. Quick responses seem to depend upon subject and it may be because some subjects have less applying so they want to grab the good ones, e.g. languages. Or reject the ones they don't want where heavily over-subscribed. Bristol seem to be later with offers.

Definitely choose a university for where you want to live and a suitable course. No-one keeps going home from Bristol all the time, for example. Reading weeks make a good time for work experience! Ask if you can visit if you can't make an open day. Someone will be there to help you.

Don't apply for different courses at the same university. Try and apply for the same course everywhere because it makes personal statement writing a lot easier and shows you can make decisions rather than hedging your bets.

Universities in London are a very different experience. Cost and mix of students. LSE, for example, is a very unique place to study these days and it will not be for everyone.

If grades are not going to be top drawer, decide if you want the best university you can get into and be flexible on the course to suit your grades or be certain about the course and be less ambitious for the university. You would be amazed how many people will read a not very employable subject at a top university just to say they have been there. Sociology, Arch/Anth, Rural studies etc. Universities that want AAA for everything usually have courses where they don't want this level of grade. So if you must go to Newcastle, see where you might be accepted. Not a suitable ploy for lots of people though.

Worrying about statistics will drive you crazy!!! Just be a bit ambitious and a bit realistic! Know where you will like to live; in a city or the middle of no-where, campus or not, and go from there. Most people have a good time, graduate and make the right choice.

So boys3 how are A* grades calculated and is it the same across all exam boards?

ds1 says you have to get an overall average of 80% (ie an A), but 90% in the A2 - second year - modules. ie the marks for AS really don't matter and there is no need to re-take a module with a lower mark, unless it's really low. Is this correct?

Agree with ICantFindAFreeNickName -

Treat the Firm choice as though it is a lovely possibility (that may not actually happen) and the insurance choice as the one your dc is more likely to end up at! Have some back up options to look at through clearing. It is really easy to drop a grade at A2 through random chance / government mess up / weird exam paper.

MillyMollyMama - what do you mean by:

LSE, for example, is a very unique place to study these days and it will not be for everyone.

Roisin, yes, that's the way I understand it to be. Apparently maths is slightly different, I think needing 90%+ in C3 and C4.

Roisin, yes that is how it works. The 90% or more is averaged at A2 so if two papers each worth half of the A2 total a 100% in one and 80% is the other would give a 90% average to meet the threshold. Conversely 98% average at AS followed by 89% average at A2 would only be an A overall.

I'm not sure I'd quite agree that AS marks don't matter; certainly as long as they are not too bad a stellar A2 performance can deliver an overall A. However strong AS are important to many Uni's, much more so than GCSE's, so are advantageous. Plus if an ultimate offer is AAA (so no A needed) then strong AS results take a lot of the A2 pressure off, equally strong AS take a lot of the risk away from choosing an AAA offer as insurance.

There was a really useful link to exactly how it works in the fine detail a few months back, I'll try to remember which thread it was in.

Maths is slightly different at per Mindgone's post.

Thanks all: I had no idea it worked this way.

Ds1 did A level Maths a year early and fell foul of this. He got brilliant marks for all modules, except C3 and C4, where he got 90% and 80%, so he didn't get his A* and is disappointed. He thinks he can re-sit just the C4 and get it, but I don't think that will be allowed when the qualification has been 'cashed in'.

Roisin At the moment most universities place much more reliance on actual AS grades than predicted A2 grades. In Maths as with other A level subjects the A2 modules are a step up from AS in the same way as AS are from GCSE.

Someone posted this on another thread but I think it worth repeating

If you work at the same level for A2s then you can expect to get a grade lower than in AS.
If you work harder for your A2s then you can expect to maintain your AS grades
If you work your socks off for your A2s then you may improve on your AS results by one grade

Roisin, I think it's probably worth it for your DS, but get him to check with school. A friend of DS1 has just repeated C3 and C4 to try for an A*, which he really felt he could get. And he got it! He told me that he would be issued with a new certificate reflecting the new mark.

thanks: that's helpful.
Secretsquirrels, an admissions tutor from Oxford told us they look very closely at GCSE grades, but aren't very focused on AS grades. Cambridge on the other hand want to know exact marks for each module at AS.

Having said that, apart from the C4 hiccup, he got brilliant marks (almost full marks in Biology for example!), so he should be fine.

Go back to their first choice places a couple of times to check they'd be happy living there for several years. Encourage them to go and wander round alone. Let them have some weekends at home alone before going to get used to being on their own. Encourage them to think about extracurric stuff, look at the timetables for their course from the previous year.

boys3 - May i ask you another question about A level Maths re-sits?
Ds1 got 90 for C3 and 80 for C4 (after a disastrous paper); the other modules were all very high.
For an A* you have to get average of 90 across these two units.

He's been told he can re-sit and he wants to re-sit both C4 and C3. He believes that his "next" A level maths qualification will include the best C4 and C3 mark out of the two attempts and if this is higher than 90, it will count.

Is this correct? (It seems very generous if it is.)

I would prefer him (to ease the pressure) to just re-sit C4. I also wondered whether a possible scenario might be 85 in C3 and 94 in C4: and if they just count the new re-sits, that wouldn't equate to an average of 90. But just the C4 on its own would have been enough.

Am I making any sense?

My top tip is to be open minded when going to open days. ds had a fairly limited choice as he wanted to do quite a minority subject so he decided to visit all available to him (5 in total). Pre-conceived ideas were blown out of the water!

rosin - sorry although you are making sense it was all humanities subjects here, and thankfully no AS resits to contend with. Hopefully someone else on the thread will know the answer.

Thanks anyway boys3.

If your dc has dyslexia universities will often ask for a post-16 diagnosis before the student can access the support on offer. Best to check this with the university and with respect to all additional needs, contact the university early on to see what is on offer and make those needs known.