Waiting a year to reapply for university - it's a bad idea, right?

[lidlpony]

DS has only received 1 offer so far, from his least favourite option. He is gutted he didn't receive an offer from Oxford (he had an interview). He's waiting for Durham, Edinburgh, Reading and UCL. He is now saying that if he doesn't get an offer from Durham he wants to take a year of and 'work or something then travel' and reapply. Durham are very slow I know, so I'm still hoping he'll get an offer and put this idea out of his head.

How on earth could it help to reapply next year? It can't possibly be a positive to have deferred without a place (I'm not talking about a gap year with a place in the bag) and it won't be any less competitive.

Can anyone help me with information on this option? Obviously he's not massively receptive to input from me what with me knowing nothing about anything etc.

Fogin not moaning at all, I would imagine it is a massive task dealing with the deluge of offers and must be very difficult to process them all!

not offers I mean deluge of applicants sorry

A number of universities are quick to decide about who they want if the application is received in early October. They know you are Oxbridge. They can then decide, quickly, and some do, or put these applicants in with all the later ones. I also think some applicants really stand out and get early offers. Others are subject to compare and contrast scenarios. I think we all have to accept that each university department is different but offers coming in during March is not unrealistic and is normal.

Fogin, we know how it works and are quite happy with the system. Some unis give early offers to outsanding applicants, whilst putting other early applications (borderline or better, without being outstanding) into the large pile that continues to grow until mid January.

At Imperial I'm not sure how it works... last year for Computing, I had an outstanding early applicant wait until the end of March (having got his application in for the 6th October), while another less exciting student (who got his in on the 14th January) heard in the space of two weeks.

Most of our Durham and UCL students have heard now, but not all.

My DS received an offer from UCL yesterday, but is still waiting for Durham, so the offers are still coming. Having heard nothing at this stage is not necessarily bad news.

Sounds similar to my DD1. She failed her Cambridge interview last year and had offers from other places that she held on to up to results day. Once she got her results (which were very good) she had the confidence to decline her offers and reapply and this time went for Oxford. (She also reapplied to all the other places so she would be sure of a place somewhere). And she was delighted to get a place at Oxford. So she's ended up having a gap year, but not a planned one exactly. She is earning money in a temp office job and is going to do a bit of travelling in Europe in the summer. She doesn't have a wild social life(!), but was definitely more confident reapplying post A levels - she had her results and was just a year older. I would say wait and see on results day. A lot of applicants to Oxbridge do better post-results.

Pls help.
Do you need A level maths to do computer science at Uni? If he does A level Computer science at sixth form, why does Uni ask for Maths A level, isn't A level Computer science at sixth form enough to get in?

I don't know what the A Level Computer Science curriculum is like but my guess it that it is not deemed a facilitating subject by many unis. Many schools would not offer this subject & most applicants for science based courses would have A Level maths.

I'm sure there are some uni courses out there that won't require maths though - I know someone doing a degree in something like Computer Gaming for example.

Might be a good idea to start a new thread though so you get more replies to your specific question?

I've just had a look at my local university and they don't require A Level maths. They say that specifically. Where have you looked already?

Computer science - depends on the likely university. As a rule of thumb the better universities, will require Maths. They will also ask for A or Astar grades. A university that ranks 100th in the league tables on the other hand and only asks for three Cs probably won't care about the lack of Maths.

I won't to thank you all for responding. He's still in yr 11, I know that for sixth form physics they had to do maths as well. But they never said they had to do maths with computer science in sixth form. I'm really disappointed the school are hard toget hold
of, they never call back. I've been so worried that I'm not feeling well.

I did it. It was a very popular course I wanted to do and didn't get in the first year so took a year out and did tons of relevant voluntary work before reapplying.

I didn't get in the 2nd time either. It was a tough and very popular course (vet medicine). I ended up doing a completely different course that I ended up loving and getting a good job at the end of it. Probably wouldn't have done that if I hadn't taken the year out.

Lonelycher What are his reasons for not wanting to do A level maths? I think he would find any science degree easier if he has taken maths.