Exeter offers : incompetent or arrogant?

[TalkinPeace]

DD submitted her form last October
Exeter have still not had the courtesy to send an offer (the other four Unis all have)
when phoned they said

• no offers have been issued (bollocks as DDs friends have theirs)
• offers will be made by end of December (bollocks as its now late march)
• offers will be made right after the UCAS cut off date (bollocks as it was in January)
• offers will be made by the end of March ........

Exeter are arrogant liars
the word needs to go round

I don't think Littlehams experience is going to be unusual - our school has a head of year that helps with applications, but she is co-ordinating a couple of hundred applicants and kids do have to take responsibility for getting their own act together. Some parents are more involved than others, I helped DS with his PS and narrowing down where he wanted to apply to, but the rest was up to him. They will have to be standing in their own two feet after the summer after all.

And YY to teachers having a million other things to deal with, with the best will in the world they can't drop everything to spoon feed kids.

Well, I was very hands off with DD's application process (apart from PAYING for all those auditions and the train fares and the hotels and going with (not to the actual conservatoires, but to the cities - she was on her own as far as going to the places from the hotels went)) partly because I simply don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to conservatoire application and partly because I have a horror of micromanaging anything and she has a horror of being micromanaged. I certainly never saw her PS or any of her UCAS 'forms' - I have never actually seen the UCAS site in any shape or form. She forwarded me some of her acceptance emails and the emails inviting her to audition. I did read them, and I booked our travel and accom. I don't feel that I either purchased or aspired to my hands off position, it was thrust upon me by the fact that DD is pursuing something which while not outside my extended experience (many of my friends went to conservatoire) is not within either my direct or my recent-enough-to-be-any-help experience.

I never supposed or assumed that she would get any offers (uni or conservatoire) actually, so I doubt I would have got arsey if a place was slow in responding, I would just have assumed the worst.

I do raise an eyebrow at the number of people on MN who seem intimately familiar with their kids' PSs. Surely they don't have the requisite experience to be of help, since they are unlikely to have had to do a PS themselves, quite aside from the whole 'the P stands for personal not parental' thing. Incidentally DD didn't get much help on her PS from her school either since they don't routinely send kids to conservatoire. Not in living memory, actually. She did have some help from her instrument teachers but since she had to have a PS that demonstrated both academic and performing potential (because of her uni fallback plan B) that was limited too.

uthred well done on you if you were spared not having to read your dd PS and had a easy ride in your child's uni process. If your dd was at my dd's comp, I doubt you would trust them to do their best for your child as they are very under resourced, poorly trained and overwhelmed by the amount of work involved. The advice they give can be shite to say the least.. DD was encouraged to go to the local ex poly with AS grades of 3A 1B... If they had their way she may have ended up there and probably dropped out or changing uni. We encouraged dd to expand her horizons at year 12.
I don't see the OP as being overly invested, but more, giving a honest and candid review on Exeter with her dd experience so far. Nothing wrong with that. OK she may have been a bit irated at time's but I think it's understandable. Being over invested parent to me are those that make every major decision for their DC, talk on behalf of them because they don't think they can do the job better than them or they speak as though their DC are more superior than the average and so are more 'special' and precious.. so are entitled.. and do loads of stealth boast and bragging about them in doing so making our own DC look average to crap in comparison.

Well said, Coffeewith1sugar. And particularly parents who say "we". As in, "We've firmed Exeter." We?????

Or the mother on The Student Room (ds swears it's all mums on there) who asked what accommodation would be provided for them at her dd's Oxford interview in a webchat with Admissions. I'm sure the woman fully intended to go into the interview with her dd - and do all the talking.

Coffee I do not think ANYONE who has a kid applying to conservatoire has an 'easy ride'. And neither would you if you knew anything about it at all. As I noted in my last post nobody at my DD's school knew ANYTHING about conservatoire application. Both the music teachers there went to uni not conservatoire. Nobody has applied from there to a conservatoire in living memory. The school wasn't even aware that the deadline for conservatoire applications is 1 October. That's how clued up they were. Don't get me wrong, it's a very very very good school but it's not geared up for kids applying to conservatoire, and so my DD was completely on a limb on her own despite the huge goodwill she got from her teachers. In that situation I still didn't think it was desirable advisable or appropriate to take the sort of micromanaging surveillance state approach that many MNers seem to favour on the grounds that the teachers at school aren't spoon feeding their child and holding both their hands ever step of the way. Well, my DD was spoon fed or handheld either, not by her teachers and not by me. It really annoys me when control freak parents dismissively claim that anyone who doesn't take such an obsessive particular interest in basically trying to create the same sort of situation as they would get if their kid had been chipped must have 'purchased' their hands off decision. Some of us just think that it's their life (and we also have lives of our own distinct from those of our kids rather than their lives being an extension of our own).

I think you need to find a special Conservatoire thread, Uhtred. Most of your (or is it your dd's?) experience is unique and most of us plebs can't really get what you're on about.

ulthred I would have loved to have had your experience and peace of mind of being able to let your dd "go and get on with it". Whether that's because your dd is a very confident self assured child and is good at making her own decision or that's because school don't know what they are doing and so it was thrusted upon her to have the DIY approach. But you having little input or effort on the uni process worked for your dd. I'm not saying your dd had a easy ride. But I'm saying 'you did' as you were able to let go and let things be. What I'm highlighting is that many of us can't do that if we wanted to because school just can't cope with the amount of uni apps and give poor advice. Many teachers at dd school think uni are all the same, you get a degree and that's it. So its wiser to go to a uni that has low grade requirements, less stress and almost guareenteed to get in if you did well at AS they see it as cleverer way to go about things. But as we know it's not like that in reality, uni aren't all the same. So it comes down to parents to help out, doing a lot of research so as not to give our dc poor advice as well.

Rhoda most people in this thread don't know anything about Exeter either. I do, since I have a family member who works there. So I think I'm fairly entitled to be in this thread - also, the comment I was responding to - which was about the over engagement or not of some parents in micromanaging their kids' applications was generalist not just about Exeter. And my DD DID apply to universities as well as conservatoires as her plan B so it's not like she hasn't had exactly the same experience as everyone else, she just had additional experiences.

Coffee and how will your kid cope when they have to do their own research once they are at uni? Or will you do that for them too? Will you be proof reading every essay?

uthred my dd is doing very well at the moment as I have said and thanked mum's who have helped me out on advice last year. DD didn't get into her 1st choice bath but went to bristol insurance and is enjoying the course immensely. With advice from others about getting internships and work experience on last year thread as a ways to getting herself more employable, she took that on board and has both. Advice is advice I don't make her do things she has to put the effort in.. I'm quite enjoying my life not having to do the uni process thing and also empty nest... I can live a bit now and also hopefully give other mums advice who is going through similar things...

Don't you think it depends a lot on what your dc is like? (whatever type of school they attend).

One of mine might waft around in chaos for rather too long without a kick up the backside, some advice & a get your act together talk.
Another is so hyper organised she practically arranged her own ucas advice centre to help friends and got her own application in very early.

Maybe this whole conversation is just parents of hyper organised children not appreciating that some people need a bit more help. Doesn't mean they won't cope later.

(Also think the whole offer thing varies as my two got early offers from Exeter and later ones from elsewhere).

Surely the extremes of parental involvement are to be avoided - micromanagement or total laissez-faire. But in between it depends on a whole range of factors - how much support school gives, confidence of dc, how clear dc is on what they want to do and where they want to do it etc etc.

DS1's gf would have been horrified by any involvement from anyone - she knew exactly what she wanted to do, where she wanted to do it and what hoops she needed to jump through to get there. DS3 on the other hand isn't sure whether to do physics or computer engineering and he's considering places from Bath to St Andrews. Having been to the latter why wouldn't I discuss the pros and cons with him? And why wouldn't we discuss what we've picked up from his brother going to uni (even if he is at Exeter ).

And also, uni is a huge financial investment so who can be blamed for wanting to make sure their dcs are taking the right info into account when choosing?

My rather attempt at an acronym for the MN education forum equivalent of SMOG

SMOOSED = Smug MNetters Of Organised Self-starter Education-lucky DCs

Not to be confused with 'schmoozed' or 'snoozed' (definitely not the latter if you don't want to miss some pertinent educational advice).

How about Smothered

Smug Mothers Of Those Highly Effective Responsible Educated Darlings

...alternatively, for the parents with less dynamic teens we could have

SPOILT - Smug Parents of Indecisive Lackadaisical Teens

Is Smothered the acronym or an item on your to-do list?

I need a different one for my secretive MI5 candidate as I don't know what she is up to! She could be working or she could be hacking the Pentagon.

Mmm, I've got two of the MI5 variety too. Everything's on a need to know basis and mostly they don't think I need to know.

I have quite the variety bag with my kids so I've decided that their foibles are of their own doing and I'm not to blame.

Not really relevant, but one of my friends studied Asnac, and it looked like an absolutely fascinating degree :) (He was a very, very geeky and obsessed ex-state school student who I'm absolutely sure didn't see it as an easy way in - I think he went off to be a lowly paid academic IIRC, haven't seen him in years.)

Quook yours is defintely better

Don't you think it depends a lot on what your dc is like?

Oh, that's far too simplistic

Six months ago I could have told you the exact proportions of modules etc of ten or so MFL courses. Oddly enough, this was not because I was personally interested! I also then had to be involved with many "this uni or that" conversations. Saying, "oh, you just make your mind up without talking to me about it" wouldn't have gone down very well, lol.

I've got one like that. We have no choice about the matter as she goes into every little detail. Everyone needs ear defenders.

Next one along is so secretive that we are re-naming her 003.

Do not ever get too hung up on modules! Lecturers go on maternity leave, go and work elsewhere, go and write a book for a year. All those favoured modules may well change. All three of the above happened to my DD over 4 years at university. The detail a young person goes into needs a health warning! What will they do when "that" module x 3 disappears?

Good advice bojo. Best not to overthink some things.

I'm sure if those 3 modules do disappear they will cope, have faith they're not that fickle. My dd looked at modules a lot during her hunt for the right degree course for her. More to gage on the flavour or direction that might be available. I don't think the world would cave in for her if she found out it was no longer available. I'm sure youngster's can adapt to changes.

Oh, I didn't mean actual options, not that daft, just percentage of language modules vs 'culture' modules. There's a surprising amount of variation! (Please don't ask for details, I have finally forgotten them )