Sadness of Open Days

[Gemauve]

So on the stand this morning at 0905, I was approached by a charming woman and her keen, enthusiastic daughter. It's the first university they're visiting, in fact the first university that either of them has ever been to, but they're really looking forward to ... and they reel off a list of good places. Daughter really wants to do our subject, and has clearly checked out the top places.

And what A Levels are you doing?

Ah.

Well, you can't come here, and for what it's worth, we're slightly more relaxed than the other places you've named and I know that you won't be able to go to any of them to do our subject or anything even vaguely related. I didn't say "and on past experience from when we were even more relaxed to the point that we might have admitted you, you would almost certainly fail, and the last cohort where we did that less than 5% of them made it to finals". Sorry.

"My school said these subjects would be ideal".

They're catastrophically wrong. Did you look at any prospectuses before choosing your subjects? No. And off they went, their hopes destroyed by 0915.

What the fuck are schools playing at? Why do they let children who don't have middle class parents get into this situation?

Exeter is not a post 1992 university.

I know. But Plymouth is, and it's a joint venture with Plymouth at least an equal partner.

Gasp that article is 10 years old. Interesting but I'd like to see one that has up to date data.

If you've never been to university you don't know you can phone or email admissions tutors. It's an incredibly daunting thing to do if you have no experience of it, and your teachers have all been to university, they should know better than you surely.

Yes the child of the care assistant maybe should consider medicine rather than nursing, but again it's a massive hurdle for someone from a low socioeconomic background to think they're good enough. Easy for MNers to say they should aim higher (excuse pun), not so easy if you're the one that's actually got to do it! But their kids will.

Oh and by the way Informed Choices isn't widely available to everyone - my dc's school has never handed it out and careers services are non existent these days!

Surely a child who has parents with aspirations that child will go to Uni is demonstrating they do actually have middle class values; social class is these days measured through values as much as earnings and profession.

However going back to Gemauve's original post, a child with talent, without teachers or parents able to support that child adequately through their A-level choices has little chance of achieving their goals and social mobility is thwarted at the first hurdle.

very interesting and useful thread, thanks OP and subsequent PP!

word factory are you able to elaborate here re the below from your post upthread at all?:

_

There are IMVHO a number of institutions and courses that are not good enough full stop. They exist to part students from their cash and little else.

The fact that they are full of students who can ill afford the time and money they are wasting, is a disgrace.

Sorry but the italics function doesn't seem to be working.

But * Gasp * Exeter is RG, so it must be good.

Gemauve Plymouth really isn't an equal partner.

Exeter paid to become RG members! It is good though, no denying that.

I think the problem is that when A-level choices are being made, the majority of youngsters have little awareness of the university application process and many would only have a vague idea they may want to go or would not be considering what course or how high they can aspire. Until they get their results from their first couple of modules not even be sure at what level they are working towards.

The difference between GCSE and A-level is quite vast and students are understandably nervous whether they can work at that higher level, so do opt for subjects they feel more confident about. I guess this nervousness is also felt by schools, who will guide pupils to those subjects they feel are more attainable. The consideration about University prospectuses just does not come into the equation.

This is the key to the difference in aspiration between ordinary state schools, high achieving state schools and the private sector.

We are perpetuating a two/three tier system because of this.

Could universities do more to engage with schools directly to improve this, I wonder?

I imagine A level law is a bit like, say, a "vetmed" A level would be, if they ever invented one. A moment's thought would make you realise as an adult that this could not help your DC as a pathway to study vetmed at uni - it would probably be positively unhelpful. But a DCs on the other hand would logically think "wow that sounds interesting and useful"....

That's how law is. It's all very counterintuitive and absurd, and unacceptably reliant on insider knowledge that those who have take for granted.

It's interesting though, the way other subjects seem to be able to break through the barrier. I was surprised, for example, to discover that politics, economics and psychology - all on a par with law A level in terms of status 30 years ago - now seem to have become acceptable.

I strongly suspect opening a Medical School for most universities who don't have them is such a complex and costly process that it is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

As all medical schools have to turn out qualified Doctors trained to the same standard, and all existing Medical schools are vastly over subscribed, I cannot see that creating new ones will make places any more easily attainable.

I think that's a big advantage of the Scottish system over the English as 5 subjects are studied in 5th year (6th year secondary in England) and then 3 at more intensity in 6th year (or many students do more highers but English unis want 3 advanced highers)
It means you have an extra year before you narrow it down to 3 subjects.
Scottish unis have an extra year as well to allow for many students going in just with the broader based but less in depth highers and the degrees tend to be more flexible with more dual subject honours.

Keele is a fairly new medical school and it wasn't a university when I applied for uni in the 1980s, not sure if it's post 1992 though or what the significance of 1992 as a cut off date is..

Figment a useful analogy.

For a parent such as myself it would seem so counter-intuitive, having no experience of Law. If I was faced with a DC interested in reading Law, my first thought would be to suggest they do Law A-level to ensure that they know it is an area they are sure they wanted to pursue. And if not they then have an impressive sounding A-level to use for other courses. I like to think I would have checked a few online prospectuses if faced with that question, like I did for Medicine, but not totally sure I would have.

Come to think of it some of these more vocational subjects eg business studies will probably be very useful in life well beyond the use of some of these rigourous academic subjects.

Earning loads of money and having a high flying career is great, but all that hard work will be wasted, if one does not know how to make sound financial decisions, manage money etc can easily end up bankrupt spending like crazy and not even thinking about investment and retirement. Makes me wonder wether some of these new graduates they will be earning very good money but will they know what to do with it wisely.

Keele most certainly was a university in the 1980s! It's one of the plate glass universities (post war expansion). The post 1992 universities are the polys. (My iPad wants to correct Keele to Kaled. This is presumably because it pays attention to what I normally write about! Or because it too has never heard of Keele).

Keele's medical school was opened in 1998, Sussex opened their's in 2002. So with Penisular, as well, looks like I was wrong there are a number opened in more recent years.

Still no truly post 1992 Uni's though.

Keele is a fairly new medical school and it wasn't a university when I applied for uni in the 1980s

Don't be silly. It got its royal charter in 1962. It's that slightly unusual beast, a plate glass university whose charter predates the Robbins report, which was published in 1963.

Lancaster opened its med school recently and UCLAN apparently has a school of medicine and dentistry which among other courses offers MBBS but it's only for self funded and international students which sounds a bit odd.

I imagine A level law is a bit like, say, a "vetmed" A level would be

Someone on another thread a few weeks ago had a horrifying account of a story claiming GCSE Health and Social Care would be food for people wanting to be doctors.

The post 1992 universities are the polys.

And a variety of other things. Worcester, for example, was never a polytechnic, tracing its roots back to a post-war emergency teacher training college. There's a list of them here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_universities#Post-1992_universities_that_are_not_former_polytechnics

which has some fascinating and storied institutions, including the fabulously named Bishop Grossteste.

It's all petty snobbery anyway. No-one rational gets snotty about Aston, Loughborough or Surrey, all of which were Colleges of Advanced Technology (the polytechnics of their day, mostly being funded by local authorities just as polys later were) which got their royal charters in 1966. The behaviour of the redbricks, most of which had been university colleges (usually of London) until the 20th century, towards the ex-CATs and later the post-92s was a shocking case of new money being snobbier than old money, for fear of people reminding them where it came from.

Oh and by the way Informed Choices isn't widely available to everyone

Precisely. It's trivially available once you know it exists (www.russellgroup.org/InformedChoices-latest.pdf), but how would you know it exists?

gemauve a dear relative, a teacher, who had a role doing career specific presentations at a sixth form college very kindly sent me a copy of his power point presentation when my son was first considering medicine. I was totally shocked by the inadequacy of his advise, and yes it included a Health and Social care GCSE being as useful as either Maths or Chemistry at GCSE .

Vocational courses are an important part of our Secondary Eduction system, but pupils are being misled if they are being told they will also be helpful if they select an academic path. It concerns me that they are being foisted upon pupils who are not potentially A* achievers but could still obtain As & Bs at A-level and have spoilt their future options at an early stage.

Teachers and schools are not objective or disinterested advisors of young people: they have their own agendas and their advice needs to taken with their perspective and possible bias in mind.

Making "informed choices" is a hugely complex life skill. Most of the time people make decisions using incomplete data and faulty analysis.

The best message, as always, is that lots of personal research done in good time is the best protection against poor decisions.

DS did A level law and really enjoyed it, he did not want to be a lawyer though, he went on do a Physics degree as he also did Maths and Physics A levels. He also chose to do Double Science instead of Triple, another big no no on MN. None of this appears to have held him back though.

I agree that teachers' opinions should be taken with many grains of salt. They range from the well-intentioned but uninformed, through the "all qualifications are equal" groupspeak, to the chip-on-shoulder who-do-you-think-you-are pieces of "advice".

I've posted a number of times (such that other posters have noticed!) about sil being hauled over the coals for objecting to a very able student being advised to take Health & Social Care over French when she had ambitions to do Medicine. Sil was bawled out for not following the "All Qualifications Are Equal" mantra.

That being said, as I posted upthread, girl I know did A Level Law and Drama and went to an ex-poly and still ended up at a Magic Circle firm. Unusual perhaps, but just shows that someone didn't know the secret entry code and still triumphed.