University, where do we start?

[schoolnut123]

Hello. I’m looking for advice I have no idea where to start. So my child is in his second year of A levels but is completely clueless about what/how to apply for universities. I assumed this is something they would be doing through college? College say they’ve given him info, so I assume he needs to start applying directly to universities himself? I’m sorry it seems like a stupid question but I really don’t know how this process works (never had the opportunity myself!)

"We have no clue when what the college deadline is"

He will have been told. Unless the college really is that useless.

xenia : that is quite obviously a selctive and I amguessing quite small?) school. The issue at your 'average' school is that exact lack of focused (other fish to fry etc) and bespoke support. My DS's school has had parents' evenings and does more than my own school with and for parents and students but it all stopped in the middle of year 12. Now, when parents really need advice most, there is nothing. Thsi three layer checking of personal statements is extraordinarily helpful ,and very unusual .

I still don't belive, even in a selective school, that all students know what path they want to follow before they have finished year 12.

Piggy, it's probably because I paid school fees (the boys left last year) and if that help was not provided parents would be up in arms. Also I have not had children in a school where just about everyone goes to good universities and appreciate that is not the case in many schools and that plenty of children have other plans.

Most schools have a teacher such as Head of 6th form whose job it is to oversee university applications. It’s not an unusual role and this teacher will be senior management. Look at the staff list.

Deadlines were spelt out to my DDs but this was at schools where most went to university. However I know my friends’ children had similar talks in less academic schools and parental engagement too. Again, look on their web site for info or a power point talk.

Academic schools start early due to the sheer number of applicants they have. My DDs were at smaller schools and PS were to be worked on over the summer holidays if you wanted the early application deadline. Others were given more leeway. This spread out the references and Work required by the school. Fair enough.

DD started her personal statement in year 12. I think you may be right Bubbles about the number of students being processed. Although in DD's school I think they wanted the students to concentrate on their A levels in year 13 rather than university applications.

It paid off because they had the best results ever, with the highest number of A/A*s achieved.

I don't always think it's laziness, some teens just find the whole process about what to do next a bit over whelming and stick their heads in the sand.

Neither of my DDs spent a vast amount of time on their ps’s though! All open days were done in y12 and choices made. So y13 was fairly clear apart from the actual application and the final ps. Both of mine still did huge amounts of extra curricular and that was far more time consuming then university applications with an early deadline.

bubbles I do know this and I certainly don't wish to start any sort of row or debate but' oversee' does mean different things to different people and in different schools. My school, for example, has 450 sixth formers . That is a lot! Our HOSF also is not Senior Management he bloody well should be so has a significant teaching workload and lots of other issues to contend with. DS's school has a bit less of an excuse. It's a bit smaller and has some excellent mentoring systems set up, and only has sixth form in his annexe... but they still have far less push and intensity about the whole thing. I do think it is no wonder that students from selective , expecially private and smaller, schools have for so long been so 'advantaged' (lucky ) in this whole process. It has thrown it all into rather stark relief for me. I am not on sixth form team at my school but if I were , there is much I would like to change!

And sandy, I agree. the fatal thing is that so many schools dismiss this form of anxiety as laziness.

schoolnut123 I get it. Your DS has allowed any information to drift past him. Mine would probably have done the same. He went to a huge sixth form college with 2000 students so they have a well oiled machine as regards uni applications and a whole team of none teaching staff who oversee the process. In spite of that I still had to "oversee" the process. I didn't go to uni myself and so I researched the whole process (thank you MN Higher Education for loads of useful info).

One suggestion I could make which those with more pro active DC would throw up their hands in horror at. Get him to show you / log you into his school web account. You will probably find everything you need to know on there that he hasn't noticed.

I would follow this list
1.Find out what career he wants -eg if medicine, law etc there are preferred degrees.

1. If he has no idea next look at his GCSE results - good or bad and which university he is likely to end up based on those by looking at which grades they accepted last year and in what subjects so he has a rough idea of what he is aiming at - eg Oxbridge, Durham, Bristol kind of universities or middle ranking or the much easier to get into ones.

1. Then go for the hardest to get into one which he has a chance of getting into and work from there having picked a subject he likes and is a decent university subject rather than advanced knitting, not that there is anything wrong with knitting if you want to be a knitter.

Thanks again. We seem to be making headway now. Yes he has let all of this information drift past him but is now getting help with his person statement having asked college for it! A few open days coming up so fingers crossed. I had to phone the college careers dept to find out their deadline is Early Dec!

Piggy: In my area the grammar school funding per 6th former is the same as the 6th former funding at a secondary modern. The more 6th formers, the bigger the school’s income. The oversight of university applications, importance attached to the role and effort made are down to each school and their priorities. However it is remiss of any school not to have someone whose job it is to give all the details to students and parents about university applications. Whatever teaching role they have, they will also have this duty. It might even be a deputy/assistant head. Most decent schools take it seriously. It’s not hand holding or pushing students - it’s information giving so dates are hit and choices are made.

What makes Grammars and independents different is that the parents do the hard slog first anyway! They expect their child to go to university so do the prep with them. Any school that knows they don’t have the most informed parents needs to inform them and get everyone up to speed. How any 6th form can number 450, but school leadership makes poor provision for university info and prep, is not a management decision that can be defended as it presumably leaves many children unsupported and possibly not fulfilling their potential.

Glad there is impetus now op. Early December is so the 6th form tutors can get references done over Christmas for submission of the application early next term - usually mid January. However, I would try to get it done before then if he can. A final ps ready and choices made after half term maybe? The school should have standard advice on writing a personal statement. Mostly it should be about why you want to study a subject and what relevant things you have done to support this ambition. Hope it goes well.

You may find the Unistats website helpful

Thank you! x

I am a parent and I am doing hard slog, too, bubbles but I feel under informed. And what about PP and disadvantaged students? Not all parents know about university.

At my school, our careers adviser was 'let go ' last term. We have a huge sixth form, many of whom go on to university. This is honestly a black hole, which from a grammar school perspective you may just think is down to inefficiency or lack of aspiration but I do think there are also other issues. The job does exist at my school : it is the head of sixth form (but, for example, this week he has been dealing with year 11 entires to sixth form and Open Evening at the same time as Oxbridge. he isn't an ignorant person : he went to Cambridge himself) and there is a UCAS person at my DS's school so perhaps I am just missing things. But DS's school has gone from a school that sent out lots of newsletters and info last year to a void this year ponders whther it is because OFSTED have come and gone

At least one thing is that DS's school does appear on some university contextual application lists, so - if he ever gets his application done- he may have a fighting chance.

But , on another note, the sixth form in my school definitely needs more dlegation and better organisationa nd communication! But the kids get to university so they will think all is fine...they just aren't getting quite the level of in school support that your DCs are getting.

For one of mine I think uni is definitely out of the question now, which is fine, there are other options but I just hope she won't regret her behaviour now when she sees her sister and friends going off to uni next Sept. But as a parent we can only do so much!

Visiting a few more with other DD in the next couple of weeks. She loved Birmingham. Lincoln this weekend. Personal statement almost there 🤞

I think it's useful to compare what schools do. However at the end of the day it will be your grades that count more than how well you describe your enthusiam for the subject on the UCAS form and picking 5 universities you have a chance of getting into should be possible for anyone considering university even without help from school, given the resources on the internet. I was just surprised at the lack of a kind of formalised programme at schools with deadlines like our children have had in fee paying schools (4 different ones).

As someone said above it can be just a simple note to the parents with dates on that keeps parents involved and knowing what has to be done when. Eg that oxbridge applications go in in October or whatever that if you have never had a child at university you may not know.

I can't even remember exactly what my sons' school did as I tended to leave it to the boys and the school although I did want to see and was sent a draft of the PS as I just wanted to be 100% sure there were no typos. I do remember two meetings about the whole process - evening meetings with slide presentations, one main teacher talking and another two there and the head milling around after to chat in lower sixth and then a note home at the end of that year about the process and dates. I suspect some parents were more involved. There was a parents' evening where we were told their predicted grades and could discuss them which sounds silly to me but I suppose it was just to enable a discussion about what grades they might get, chance to tell someone your child is going to get CCC so the chance of Oxbridg 2 A stars is not likely and they need to set sights lower (or possibly the other way round) - I don't want parents to have an input on predicted grades. Only the teachers really know.

Then I did leave it to the school and my sons although we had some discussions about which universities to put on there so there was at least one that would be a good back up if the grades were not as good as expected.

I am shocked by the amount of support some schools offer for parents. My DS went to an 'outstanding' state school sixth form. They held a uni info evening for parents at the end of Y12 but I didn't know about it until saw mentioned as a success in a newsletter in the autumn term of Y13. I checked all old newsletters, texts, emails from school but no mention of it in advance and Head of Sixth Form could not tell me how it had been publicised, only that the other parents 'knew'. I asked for a copy of the presentation. ...not possible due to size/content from external provider. To be honest, I suspect DS was not considered uni material...lowish predicted grades). For the rest of Y13 uni assemblies , DS and a few others who had not applied to uni were asked to sit in a separate room and given careers advice/lectured that they did not know what they were doing with their lIves, 'unlike the uni applicants'. DS did achieve 128 UCAS points from 3 A levels (plus more from AS, EPQ etc), so could have applied for some degree courses.....just the expectation was not really there from the sixth form leadership team. He is now doing aother year of FE while we find out more about uni (no uni info from FE provider as yet either, so I'm shocked to find open days are almost over!). I think the support schools give can be unintentionally selective. Some pupils need more encouragement and schools should make the process more transparent for all parents.

If anyone is interested, there's a very supportive group on Facebook run by parents and students- with many topics regarding University discussed..from applying to Uni, finance, accommodation, student health etc
What I wish I knew about University (WIWIKAU)
www.facebook.com/groups/488235648182391/
Your more than welcome to join in ...I have/had 3 dcs at Uni so know what a minefield it can be, and how unsupported you can feel

There is also a very supportive group on MN, most of whom have opted out of the Facebook group.

If they really want to go to university, I think we have to put the trust in them that they'll do what they need to do at this age - not easy for us parents worrying on the sidelines though.

DD has first draft of her PS ready, tutor assigned to her looking at it today, also she's asking another tutor (relating to course subject) to check over. She's chosen three unis and seems to want to apply for five at once, so still needs to decide on two. The school's deadline for submission to them for checking is next Tuesday. She'll get it done though as she really wants it.

In many cases I think schools/colleges ask for draft personal statements to be submitted early because they want to see what students' thoughts are about what they want to do and why they want to do it. If a student at the end of year 12 wants to go to university but really doesn't know what she/he wants to study then the summer between year 12 & year 13 is when she/he should be finding out what options there are. The university probably won't read the personal statement but it's still valuable to go through the process of thinking about & writing it.

People who don't decide until year 13 are quite likely just to pick something they've done at school, rather than looking for things that may be more interesting to them and/or may lead to specific types of career. Most students won't have done law at school, for example, but quite a few might find it's a worthwhile subject to study at university; no students will have done biotechnology at school but it might be the most appropriate subject for them to study at university to follow a particular career path; etc.