Applying for Uni 2019 entry Part 2, UCAS & offers

[Decorhate]

Here we go!

We had a really early start to another one we went to. Dd had to elbow me as I started snoring in the very long lecture they gave on the open day. V embarrassing but the lecture theatre was packed, warm and humid.

DS's university, Lancaster, is consistently in the top ten UK universities in all three guides, often outranking many of the institutions mentioned below, but has a massively down to earth vibe. I'll try to dig out the stats of what proportion of students are from public school but I bet the fact it's not RG puts some off sadly (or maybe not, depending on your outlook).

I think DD was just unlucky that the two she looked at weren’t places she’d go - they were both too isolated and campus-y.

Lancaster was considered! But ruled out for being a small town and the her ideal course wasn’t properly offered. Two of her friends are there and do love it, but one (the year above her) dropped out after first term. She didn’t apply all RG - she applied to Manchester Met and Northumbria as well as Manchester, Newcastle and Durham. She’s torn because she knows she’d probably fit in better at one of the normal universities but should really go for the higher ranked institutions with her A level grades.

Glasgow is definitely not posh! I think it has become more so over they years but it attracts a very different body of students from Edinburgh. I myself would never have thought Manchester or Newcastle attracted particularly public shcool types : that has always been associated with Durham, Exeter, Bath, Bristol and then, to a slightly lesser extent , Warwick, Nottingham, Birmingham and Oxford Brookes (or so I hear).

Funnily enough I would have expected ones near London (eg Essex, Sussex, Surrey) to be very southern and middle class but apparenlty not so much. UEA was pretty down to earth , I thought. And Swansea and Cardiff take a healthy mix.

We did Birmingham and Warwick open days. Birmingham, we both loved. Everyone we spoke to seemed down to earth. Warwick by contrast was the complete opposite. And I went there, albeit in the nineties somI was shocked by the changes...

For both Glasgow and Edinburgh what course you do, whether or not you are local, and where you are on the posh scale yourself affects how you would perceive them hugely. I suspect this is probably the case for most of the large high tariff City based Unis.

There is a long tradition of private schooling in Glasgow and most of these pupils stay local. An English person may not pick up on this at first as posh Glasgow accents can be deceptive to the untrained ear. Edinburgh is very similar but operates the opposite deception whereby even the ordinary people manage to sound posh. Very few posh Glasgow students go to Edinburgh and vice versa.

Nagaram, and others, all the chat about different types of unis attracting different types of students is very interesting! DS's gf has gone to Durham and definitely doesn't fit the white MC description, but seems to have made nice friends - will find out when she comes home in a fortnight!
She likes the quieter vibe there, but it's very easy to get to Newcastle where there's plenty going on.

Pancakemum, are the offers the same? Can she firm one and have the other as insurance?

DD was very worried about being stuck with a load of public school kids at Bristol, but she went for city centre halls and avoided Stoke Bishop, and has made a load of "normal" friends!

I know : I am from Glasgow! I would say that Glasgow private schools are themselves more down to earth than either Edinburgh private schools or many English fee paying schools.

I went to a private Glasgow school (disclaimer! couldn't get in to local state school! Had a full scholarship!) and quite a lot of my cohort went to Edinburgh. But that was aaaaaages ago, and in those days, the one no one from Glasgow applied to was St Andrew's.

I have tried and failed to find a link for the HESA list of state school participation (and the more interesting list that separates out grammar school students) but it contains no surprises!

Oxford Brookes is the interesting one: 24% of its students are privately educated which is more than Birmingham, York, Warwick and very close to the likes of Durham, Bristol etc. It's no wonder they get away with charging so much for their accommodation!

Have had dealings with ex-pupils from almost all the Scottish private schools and would beg to differ on Glasgow ones being more down to earth. I also wouldn't say Edinburgh private school pupils aren't down to earth. It is more a matter of impressions on first meeting.

For those familiar with Glasgow and Edinburgh Unis, can you please comment which may suit my DS better for his personality type as I worry about him not fitting in.

He's applied for Law and has already exceeded the standard entry requirements for both, so is hoping for an offer.

Although he is quietly confident and not especially shy, he doesn't go out and has never even had a drink (his choice). He is reasonably sociable at school, but is a home body at heart and feels no need to socialise outside school. He is Scottish and he comes from a nice home, in a nice area, but is state school educated. He is used to (posh) English people as our families are from the South East and his cousins are such, so this should not phase him.

I worry about him fitting in socially and isolating himself. He is very musical which is godsend as I imagine he will happily join musical societies.

Big thanks for anyone who feels they can comment on his suitability to either of these institutions.

I suppose at mine howabout it was the proud tradition of having once been a direct grant school... my frineds were mainly the children of doctors, lawyers, academics , media types, rather than wealthy business people and footballers ... although we did get a smattering. I will admit to basing all my impressions of Edinburgh schools on hockey fixtures and debating competitions! But I never met any firghtfully sneering public school types until I got to university interviews (an uni teslf) in England and all the ' what school did you go to?' chat started. My forend - from an ecclusive private girls' school in Edinburgh- literally had her back turned on her by another student when she realised she did not mean the 'right' St George's! The entitlement reeked from some!

The thread is making me remember my first few weeks at Bristol, back in the 1980s. I was a grammar school girl from the West Midlands and had no idea that it had an enormous public/private school intake. So that was quite a shock.

Of course, I quickly met loads of people from state schools and - I may say - knew lovely, lovely public school people too. I absolutely loved my time there.

aurea I don't think it'll make a huge difference. He'll meet nice people whatever. Law has phenomenal reputations at both places!

The not drinking thing worries me a bout about my very shy and stay at home DS, too : but I accept he may well change.

Music is good : He'll meet people that way.

Instinct would tell me that Edinburgh is a smaller place and maybe a bit less garrulous? Glasgow has an attitude! I love its sass and its defiant air, but it's not for everyone!

Whereabouts are you at the moment?

He should be fine at either Aurea, especially if he has music as an "in" to the social side.

You would never know I actually check my posts for typos before I press post message!

See: that's Glaswegians! Always in a rush!! except when they have an opinion to share

Application went in 3 weeks ago and we now have 5 offers which is great but unexpected. Now the applicant day invites are coming in and a couple of them are clashing with mocks which we do after Christmas break. We went for 2 RG, 1 highly ranked non RG, 2 lower ranked but good for subject uni's so there is a bit of a variety to chose from. One has asked us to apply for accommodation already for next year which I found shocking.

These universities seem in such a hurry this year! I ahve a creeping dread that this disadvantages later appliers : perhaps most especially to the high ranked universities , typically used by Oxbridgers as insurance.

Many many students aren't dragging their heels : the process just takes longer at large schools, on the whole.

Hopefully, this is not a first come first served system!

Thanks howabout and piggywaspushed.

Conversely, my son is a confident public speaker and heads the school debating team. He does however find small talk a little tricky but that will come with practice, I guess.

We live in a village outside Aberdeen, so there is plenty of affluence here.

He's also applied to Oxford and Durham but has had no offers as of yet.

I really hope all Mumsnetters DCs are successful. It's such a stressful time for all.

As I've said before, there are two universities that DD really liked on paper, which she really didn't like once she actually visited. One was my alma mater, LSE, the other, Bristol (she wasn't too leen on Reading, either, but that was a last minute addition to our Bristol trip, so no big deal). I wasn't bothered about the first, since I had already gathered from what I had read on TSR that it wasn't necessarily the place it was in my day. Her opinion of Bristol, however, I did find rather disappointing, but at least she told me she disliked the university before I'd actually got our house on the market and broken it to DH and DS2 that I was moving us 200 odd miles westwards.

Without the open days, those would have been two completely wasted slots on her UCAS form. True, we are in the fortunate position of being able to afford to fund open day visits, but I don't actually regard discovering that one doesn't like a university as much as one thiught one would as necessarily being a negative outcome

You're not worng there frogs but we are now in a position where DS has only put down one uni he has visited (cost aside, the distance was too much for one 'choice' and family stuff does get in the way,too, plus I am genuinely at the point of exhaustion with one day of my weekend vanishing constantly!) so I am hoping he won't hate them. I think what this will lead to is him accepting an offer from the one uni he has visited : so I really am not sure what the point is of the other 4 choices! Ho hum.

I think it’s the confidence that scares DD - she struggled and for years with grammar school kids (not even private - she only knows one person from private school!) at extra curricular activities because they always seemed to have that extra air of confidence (and perhaps intelligence - they talked in a way her friends just wouldn’t). She feels the same about a lot of people she’s met from the south - even little things like their accent intimidates her! She’s sort of learnt to not let it bother her but at the same time it takes her a lot longer to build connections with people from those backgrounds. She’s naturally drawn to more ‘normal’ (for want of a better descriptor) people.

Are students doing applicant days even if they visited on open days? For all offered? I don't think DS is planning to revisit... He went to one with school, 2 with me, one is where his gf is so has already spent a few days there, probably won't visit the 5th as it was really just to fill the form.
DD visited 3 on open days and 2 on applicant open days/to see bf...

I am not entirely sure how I would get mine to an Applicant Day!

PancakeMaker lots of kids from
'Down South' go to pretty normal state schools 😁😁. The accent is just something they are stuck with. Mine at Uni with loads of private school kids and she hasn't really noticed much difference. Except she's used to large classes and having to be independent.