Uni applications and choices advice please!

[questioner123]

Hi everyone,

Another request for some much needed advice please.

DD has just started year 13, and needs to send off uni options soon. She is bright and hard-working and predicted A*AA. She is naturally a writer, more humanities subject student rather than science, but is taking biology and psychology a-level.

DD’s plans were to apply for uni this year, defer her offers until 2020 entry, and apply for vet med next October (2019), whilst undertaking a one year intensive a-level course. So we have just discovered (never even thought of this possibility beforehand!) that you cannot have a place deferred and send off new applications at the same time- I’m very new to all this. So it would be a gamble of getting an offer for vet med and an A grade in chemistry a-level, with no back up plan for that year.

Question is, DD had her heart set on the possibility of vet med, but felt safe with the idea of a back up plan (her deferred offer) in case she didn’t get the A grade in chemistry. Now however, as that is not possible, it is a choice of:

1. Applying this year to universities for law, accepting any offers, and then waiting until next year after results day (and more time to think about vet med) and either go to uni or decline the place and risk applying for veterinary medicine, which is competitive in itself, and rely on getting an offer and an A grade in chemistry.

The thing about this however is a) if you decline university offers after results day will they ever accept an application again and want to give you another place?, and b) if an A grade was not achieved/no offers received, DD would have no plans for uni that year, and be another year behind her peers (in total 3 years behind, so would be going to uni at 21 at the earliest).

Or not applying at all this year so we don’t decline places and see how chemistry a-level goes next year and then make our choices.

1. Or give up on the veterinary medicine dream and do something more sensible and interesting, and one she would be good at, which is the law degree that she is very interested in and was going to be her back up option (yes they are very different, she is genuinely interested in both although vet med really is her dream!). She is fearful of the potential regrets and ‘what if’ she could experience if she never gave chemistry a try.

1. Or do a scientific degree e.g. psychology or biomed to keep open the option of vet med in the future, but isn’t as passionate about compared to a law degree which she genuinely would be interested in?

So really what I am asking for is some advice if you were in her/our situation as we are having endless conversations that are not helping and getting more confusing.

Also, how hard from your experiences would it be for an A grade GCSE chemistry student, with a B grade in GCSE maths, to achieve an A grade in chemistry in one year?

Thank you all for reading this and any advice you have would be so appreciated!

Why not apply to Cambridge instead incidentally? Then if your DD gets a place at least she could talk to the tutors about wanting to try for vetmed at the same uni, when results are in. Unless you get an ogre for a tutor it might be much easier to discuss options and get helpful answers rather than at Oxford which doesn't even do vetmed.

Is she planning to be a barrister of she goes down the law route because if not going to court hearings will have no bearing as to what goes on on a day to day basis in a law firm.

goodbyestranger, thanks for all your help. She hadn’t really considered Cambridge due to the distance, but that is definitely something to look into. She hasn’t read many law books yet but has some on order. The thing she is most worried about is the LNAT, have you got any tips from your DD’s experience? Also her grades at GCSE aren’t the best for Oxford, but they said they are more interested in predictions, personal statement and LNAT score.

The LNAT does not question them on law but is a general opinion essay eg. One year one of the choices was writing about Big Brother

The LNAT is (or was) multiple choice plus an essay. My two DD's scored highly on the LNAT but to be honest they signed up independently, went to the test centre and I knew little about it so I'm not much use I'm afraid. It's aim is to test logical thought process so no prep is required, or very little. Their tutors were absolutely clear that there was a cut off below which applicants wouldn't be interviewed and also that GCSEs (in particular the contexualised A tally) were crucial, since they're regarded as a reliable indicator of future performance. One college has an unofficial cut off of 9A for interview for Law. The personal statement seems to be useful only as a jumping off point at interview for some colleges (others don't seem to use it at all) and predictions are important in that they need to be at the standard offer level or an application will be binned. But the LNAT and GCSEs are the two key things for securing an interview.

The DDs had a book which they used for the LNAT, bought online. It will have been the most mainstream one whichever that is but I remember it being around. So they did some test papers each, which were contained in the book.

I'd strongly recommend reading a couple of books about the philosophy of law or politics of law or some particular ethical aspects of certain fields of law sharpish, so that she can say something about one or more of them in her personal statement, assuming that she finds something which interests her.

There are only nine unis that now use Lnat, they are all slowly moving away from it,

University of Bristol*
Durham University*
University of Glasgow
King’s College London*
University of Nottingham*
University of Oxford*
SOAS
University College London*

My daughter did shit in it,but was above average oddly, I think the scores tend to be quite low on average, It seemed irrelevant though in her admissions process. They seemed to be more interested in her results. I got the impression it was more of a tie breaker thing but am not too sure. If I recall right it's not something you can really prepare for.

There's an average score across all applicants and then there's the score for getting an interview at Oxford which is higher and then there's the average score for getting an offer which is even higher.

Some of the unis have been using the LNAT from the first year of its development and are still using it now. I don't see a 'move away' especially, although not all unis use it but then they've never used it. On the whole, the stronger ones do, although Cambridge and the LNAT only had the briefest of encounters.

I am slightly at a loss as to why she doesn’t apply for a more scientific undergrad course and do the GDL afterwards. Not that there’s anything wrong in going for Law of course but it does seem a bit unplanned and panicky given that we are in September. Is she not interested in any other Stem undergrad course?

Bubbles she'd be in a better position to apply for Biology at a top uni with Chemistry, which she doesn't have. I'm assuming the third subject is a humanity.

You say she's a writer, more of a humanities subject student. And that she has farm experience.

Has she considered Agriculture? Or something like a course Reading offer: Agricultural Business Management which, given Brexit looming I'd suggest might be a useful degree subject for future employment prospects, whether in Farming or general business management?..

I was thinking of maybe Psychology?

She may appear muddled in what she wants to do but perhaps, if she really wants to put in an application this year including the now very tight deadline for an Oxbridge application, she should consider combining her different interests in more multifaceted courses.
For example www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses-listing/human-sciences?wssl=1
This integrates the types of subjects she has been studying in humanities and sciences including genetics and animal behaviour. Or perhaps think about an Arts and Science BASC at UCL

I am not convinced from what you say that she has done enough background to be persuasive and clear in a PS in approx 2 weeks (assuming that her school will have internal deadlines for PS submissions) about her interest in law for a credible law degree application at very competitive universities. That is not to say that she may not in the end gravitate to law as a career or even as a degree with a bit more time for experience and reading.

Also going back to the original OP to add to list of possible science degrees as alternatives a degree like this would be another possibility
www.surrey.ac.uk/undergraduate/veterinary-biosciences
to keep vet medicine or law as future options.