A level Results - 18 days - anxiety rising....anyone else??

[Poppledopple]

Maybe because it is August tomorrow - but seems to have come round quickly. Had a nice break not thinking about anything since last exam and after full on year choosing, applying, getting rejected, getting offers etc....

Might as well switch off and try and get distracted for the next 18 days....as either way it will be v busy few days/weeks after results to get started on next phase of his life.

PFB -- any old hands out there want to give me a slap?

Could the last minute unconditionals be for Scottish applicants who have recently had their results through?

Only just found this thread! DS very stressed here; he needs A*AA and he is convinced he has messed up his physics. His confidence in the results seems to drop as each day goes by - yesterday he was worrying about getting a D!

Just looked on the clearing link and his course isn't in it, although the same course was in it last year.

I don't remember anywhere NEAR this kind of stress when I did my A levels.

Hi everyone in the same boat DD waiting for results on Thursday too. Tensions are high! She is happy with her first choice however feels she will not meet the AAB grades needed. She is very stressed as she has really gone off her insurance choice. Can she reject it and choose a different course through clearing? The course she is most interested in have actually already made her an offer earlier in the year, however she rejected it in favour of her first choice and her insurance choice.

I wish DS's offers had changed to unconditional! We've been looking up clearing courses in case of disappointment on Thursday, and getting info on applying for accommodation for his insurance just in case.

He's also been looking up the best bank accounts, seems to be Santander so far, but he's waiting until Thursday to decide whether he'd be better off with a railcard or cheap coach travel.

I told him the universities had already received his results, which made it all seem very real.

I wonder if this is a tactic to ensure the uni/course doesn't appear in clearing, especially if the majority of firms have achieved their offer grades.

I can't bear to think about it whilst at the same time it's all I can think about! Exhausting.....

Two more days.
DD is back from her holiday and the stress levels are rising rapidly.

DD's course has appeared in clearing, apparently for the first time ever, though not at her unis. She's not sure what this might mean, if anything, as they have a strictly controlled number of places (unless Jeremy Hunt has lifted the cap).

Trifle My DD has also gone off her insurance choice. I think they can get in touch with the Uni on results day to ask them to release them so they can go into Clearing. I hope it doesn't come to that as I'm not sure I can cope with the stress.

Plan today is to research potential clearing choices just in case, and find out what needs to be done for accommodation. I'm working all day tomorrow so no time then and then it will be D-Day. I feel quite sick already. I'm sure it wasn't this bad when I got my very crap results.

Apparently last year (according to UCAS) only 40% of students actually achieved their predicted grades or better but 72% still got accepted by their firm offer Uni.
I think the waters are being muddied by all the marketing and positioning of Unis that happens these days causing a lot of (hopefully) unnecessary stress.
That said, DD will be formulating plans B and C today.

Can I just say a big thank you to the academic MNers who pop on here with nuggets of information when they must be snowed under at work! It's very helpful and generous!

Warwick are now showing their clearing places and ds's course isn't on. Assuming that means he has to hit the grades. His insurance Exeter is in clearing, but they were asking a grade higher so that may not be helpful!

What I would give for an unconditional to float in now!

LessSressy. I'm guessing you are talking about Medicine at St Georges. It has the same grade requirements for clearing as it does normally. I'm curious about the details - I wonder if they are genuinely expecting many students to come via clearing. I presume they don't like to drop grades. It's all very interesting .

Diglet, I can't see why a medical school would need to drop grades. There will only be a small number of places, and my understanding is that each year up to 60% of medical applicants won't get offers. A good proportion of these will get places on reapplication, so why not see if you could pick some of those up now rather than accept lower grades from those who have firmed. Medical schools have targets and can get penalised for taking either too many or too few students. Presumably this move is informed by data on how students with dropped grades fare once they start a demanding degree.

This time 48 hours we'll know the worst (or best)! Having collected DS1's GCSE results as he was away, I swore I would never do that again and yet here we are two years later with me going in to school to get them while he goes to work!!! The fact that I should be at work myself is apparently irrelevant. Slightly different this time though as they apparently get their grades emailed through early in the morning and (hopefully) confirmation of his uni place as well. He is deferring for a gap year so at least we don't have to think about clearing.

NeedMoreSleep. I wasn't suprised they weren't dropping their grade requirements. I can see it's a way of them being able to fill any spaces with top notch applicants.

When DC1 started his medicine course a few years ago they were told that the people that find it hardest and who tend to drop out are those that 'just' scraped in. I don't know if that's true but I'm sure that St Georges Medical schools have looked at all the stats.

Can you imagine the phone lines at St Georges on Thursday morning ...

DS has an unconditional so the grades aren't quite as important.

But he/we are still keen to find out if his hard work ? paid off.

Even delayed my holiday for results day even though he won't let me go up to school with him

Diglet, I agree. So much about about getting a place is tactical. DDs friends who did not get a place were probably "too ambitious" and did not include one of the smaller medical schools amongst their choices. And so much is about performance on the day, either with UKCAT, BMAT or MMIs.

DD though one interview went really well. She aced a couple of MMI stations (she can read upside down so saw her score) but struggled with one. The interviewer looked like Jeremy Corbyn, which she found off-putting, and he mumbled so she could barely hear him. That station must have been a complete fail as her rejection arrived a couple of days later.

DD got her place, assuming all goes well on Thursday, but was equally prepared to reapply. So would have been very interested in what St Georges and Peninsular are doing.

Her Plan B (Biomedical engineering - ironically the same University that rejected her for medicine) is in clearing. Lets hope she is not blacklisted there.

I've just realised that DCs doing the IB or in Scotland get a few days head start on the clearing vacancies. That doesn't seem fair to me.

I dont think this is the case. They just have their results earlier. Clearing vacancies have been online for a while now, which everyone can see, but you can only apply thru UCAS from 3pm on Thurs.

Applicants through UCAS with the IB do have more time to formulate a clearing/adjustment strategy. And some universities enter into conversations with EU applicants (eg French bac, whose exam results are published in early July) well before A-level results are published.

If the uni clearing depts are verbally confirming clearing places ahead to IB students before Thurs then that does n't seem fair - but I suppose for them it is bums on seats/bird in the hand approach as they are a business.

For the anxious A levelers is there any merit putting in a call ahead of Thurs for consideration on strength of AS, predictions, PS, GCSEs etc to a couple of targeted unis....registering interest/getting to the front of the queue in case of grade slip .....or would this call not be entertained at all...or in fact wind them up so much that they end up at the back of the queue !!!!

Popple, I think they are under a legal obligation to treat all EU applicants equally. So though they may talk to IB, Scots and others early, it will be in the context of what they expect from their A level applicants. there was a pioster a few weeks back who said Durham were refusing to confirm her son's place based on IB results slightly below his offer, because they need to see A level results first.

The big difference though is that others may get a head start on accommodation.

I know of applicants who have had a place confirmed in July at a university that was neither their Firm nor Insurance choice.