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Higher education

Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

Original poster

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

999 replies

Poppledopple · 31/07/2016 13:31

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?

OP posts:
Coconutty · 04/08/2016 16:14

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

flyright · 04/08/2016 16:27

Can I join the anxious waiters? There's been some very helpful advice on here. Sort of reassuring and sort of worrying Smile. Seems like you just don't know really. You may well get away with dropping a grade or two or you may not if its popular or everyone else has done well.

DD needs AAB and is worried she'll miss it. She worked hard and I do hope she does well

Terrible to hear of all the communication implying success being false. Awful.

homebythesea · 04/08/2016 16:48

flyright that's what my DS needs too. He has a fair bit in his back pocket from AS (he can afford to get B's in the A2 in 2 of the subjects and still get A overall ITSWIM) but he's concerned the likely B will be a C which might knock the overall points score off target.

Tokelau · 04/08/2016 17:00

I was in your position last year, and it was very stressful! DD did brilliantly at her GCSEs, but found A levels very hard. She'd never struggled at school before. She was convinced she didn't have the grades she needed. Results day came, and she had an email from the university to say that she had a place! We went to school to get her results, and she didn't get her grades. Her grades were much lower than expected. She was devastated, but we kept telling her that she was on her course and that was what mattered.

It was a strange feeling. Although she had not done as well as she hoped, she still got in to do her course, and it is a course where most people get jobs as soon as they graduate, and there are good career possibilities.

Some of my friends didn't get their first choice of university, but have done well since.

Good luck to everyone, even if they don't get what they hoped for, it can still work out.

flyright · 04/08/2016 17:24

homebythesea its good to have something in the bag already, well done him - at DD's school they did both A1 and A2 this year so we no idea how she did in either Confused

Grausse · 04/08/2016 19:28

maybe they accept dropped grades and avoid clearing
I have heard that some unis would prefer to take someone with a dropped grade who has shown that they want to go there by putting them as firm, than a clearing applicant who preferred somewhere else.

Original poster
Poppledopple · 04/08/2016 21:18

14 big sleeps ...!

OP posts:
impostersyndrome · 04/08/2016 22:09

eatyourveg thanks for the link. It's extraordinary. My DS course is listed there, though it requires an AAA. I really don't understand how. Is it that they haven't had enough accepts, or what?

Very nervous here, mainly as DS thinks he's done well and we're worried he's overconfident - or its it we're superstitious about somehow being too complacent?

That horror story over the misleading emails from accommodation. Goodness! Poor you. It's helpful to know not to read into anything that hopes before the 18th though, so thanks for sharing...

IthinkIamsinking · 04/08/2016 22:49

Pressure building here. DD needs A*AA. She isn't that enthused about her insurance offer as she has her heart set on her firm.
She was very down about her exams...... she is having a gap year so if it all goes tits up she can withdraw from UCAS and re-apply in the autumn

homebythesea · 04/08/2016 23:23

flyright so they did AS and A2 exams all together? That must have been gruelling, never heard of that before! Having said that quite a lot of DS friends retook some of the AS papers this year to get better grades. DS retook just one paper in which he had already got an A which seemed bonkers to me but what do I know!

homebythesea · 04/08/2016 23:24

grauuse that's my understanding too, hence the faith I have in the fact that DS went to the offer day etc

flyright · 04/08/2016 23:32

Yep. All done this year. Lots of exams!

hellsbells99 · 05/08/2016 00:50

DD needs A*AA but is fairly certain she has missed her offer.
She received an email today from her firm choice that included the following:

hellsbells99 · 05/08/2016 00:51

Sorry only half a post there!
Basically said they prefer to take near misses if they have spaces left rather than clearing applicants

Headofthehive55 · 05/08/2016 07:06

Yes my DD was told that they take near misses first. However that wasn't the case. I think they do whatever on the day.

No she's never really settled coconutty we are now counting down to finishing - hope things improve then.

I'd say to everyone brush up on the re mark protocol, dates etc. We got a paper photocopied to see why she'd dropped marks. Some of the questions were ambiguous - correct answer but not the one they were looking for hence no mark. You need to act fast.

hellsbells99 · 05/08/2016 10:35

Headofhives - I agree. DD2 has her fingers crossed. Both my DH and DD1 think my DD2 would be better at her insurance choice and as DD2 also likes it, then hopefully she may get an offer there if her physics went as bad as she thought praying for low grade boundaries

haybott · 05/08/2016 10:52

My DS course is listed there, though it requires an AAA. Is it that they haven't had enough accepts, or what?

There seems to be a big misconception on this thread that universities have set numbers of students per course. This used to be the case before 2012, as overshooting target numbers would be penalised by HEFCE. It is no longer the case.

Universities can take as many students as they like for courses (excluding courses such as medicine). They are limited only by their own facilities. Meanwhile fees have been frozen since 2012 while costs have been rising at 3% per year so there is a strong incentive to take more students, to cover costs.

Many AAA+ courses will be in clearing, not because they don't have "enough" students but because if they can get more strong students in clearing this helps the funding of the course and of the university. A course which is particularly popular and has easily filled its target numbers with strong students may well be sent into clearing and adjustment by university management to pick up extra students.

It's also interesting to bear in mind that different universities have different strategies. The top universities such as Oxbridge are never in clearing. The near top universities like UCL have expanded student numbers but again are (almost) never in clearing. Amongst other top 20 universities some are looking to expand numbers more than others i.e. some want large student numbers (at the expense of entry tariff) while others are looking to retain high entry tariff (so won't be taking many in clearing).

flyright · 05/08/2016 13:23

thanks Haybott, good point

it seems to me its pretty clear we wont know until we know Grin

our kids may get away with dropping a grade or two but they may not - it all depends
their course being in clearing now means nothing - they may want more students but that doesn't mean they don't want their original applicants as well - it all depends
at this point emails from their chosen university are not connected to the chance of receiving a place

we know nothing, can find out nothing and just have to wait.

that's pretty much isn't it???

the saving grace is that there's proof in this thread and elsewhere that missing a grade or two doesn't automatically mean you don't get the place. That's reassuring at least.

Roll on the 18th!

BaconAndAvocado · 05/08/2016 13:35

Greetings Waiters!

My PFB has also chosen to identical grade requirements for his firm and insurance offers!

He needs AAA for both...........

His firm, Manchester for Chem Eng, told us that they never accept less than AAA!

Cherryburn · 05/08/2016 18:39

Signing in to join the waiters now that results are less than 2 weeks away.
DD needs AAA for her firm, indeed her only choice (she didn't think she'd get in and was fully expecting to apply again next year).

She took 4 A Levels so can afford to mess up in one. But then again, there's always the danger that she spread herself too thin (she loved all her subjects and didn't want to give any of them up at A2).

Time will tell. In the meantime I shall drink Wine

impostersyndrome · 05/08/2016 20:13

Thanks haybott that's reassuring. At least I know that being in clearing is not necessarily an indication of a less attractive course, for want of a better way of putting it. Only 13 days to go!

Headofthehive55 · 05/08/2016 21:18

Do remind them though that it's a whole new ball game after a levels. My DDs friends have had a mixed bag of fortunes since a levels and it's not related very much to how well you do in those exams!

Headofthehive55 · 05/08/2016 21:20

even if it doesn't go as well as you hoped you can still be just as successful as those who get better grades.

Abraiid2 · 05/08/2016 21:32

My son got a fantastic place at one of the top Russell Group universities, one he had already rejected, when he missed his grades for both firm and insurance at two other very fashionable RG universities, having been extremely ill during AS levels and never really recovering from the 'lost' marks, even with the 2 or 3-% special consideration. On results day, having heard him burst into tears because he hadn't got a place we jumped into the car , collected the results, saw that we were just two points off the insurance offer. They wouldn't budge.

So we just rang the university that would have been his second equal or third choice if this had been allowed, which had offered him the same as the insurance. But perhaps because they had his academic details on their system, they gave him a place immediately for a very competitive subject.

My advice is, the night before, do a spreadsheet with all the details of universities you are interested in and who might take you through clearing, with all the phone numbers. Make sure you have several phones, charged and ready to go. We sat in the school carpark with three of us ringing the university.

It worked very well and he has been extremely happy. Almost providential?

Preparation and a calm head from a parent go a long way to turning around what can be traumatic for a teenager, missing out on a place they wanted.

flyright · 05/08/2016 21:37

excellent advice I'm sure - best to be prepared for everything

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