Applying for Uni 2019 entry Part 2, UCAS & offers

[Decorhate]

Here we go!

Oh and BigTilly she already has grades in hand so no firming/insuring! Whichever she firms is where she’s going.
I’d say if the applicant say isn’t going to add anything I wouldn’t bother. Durham do an overnight one that DD might consider but other than that I don’t think she plans on going - I don’t know anyone who goes to more than one or two.

Will do both front runner applicant days (York and Lancaster). One is unconditional if firmed, the other offering a dropped grade if firmed. Both were favourites before offers came in so it may come down to the applicant day to make the final choice.

I would like DS to go to any offered , simply because he needs to learn more about what uni is like. But since DH and are both teachers, I can't see how it will happen.

Universities are obliged to consider all applications up to a certain point equally piggywaspushed. I think last year the date was Jan 15th or something. Most places will make all their definite yes and definite no decisions at some point before that, but with plenty of latitude so no one is disadvantaged by, say, applying in early Dec.

mumsneedwine oh I know that, it’s just because it’s such a dominant accent in the media and kids up here mock it and think of it as posh. DD can’t help but view it that way and be intimidated by it - one of her good friends has a very southern accent (“bahhhth” and pronounce their Ds and Ts etc) and they all find it funny... (she also is quite posh which doesn’t help their stereotyping - grammar school educated with doctor parents!). And re Londoners, life in London just is different from everywhere else - so many more opportunities and social mobility.

She absolutely doesn’t rule them out as friends - there just is a background bridge to gap so it takes a little more effort/time and leaves her feeling unsteady for a while. She works in a very white and mc town just out of the city we live in and it took her about a year to properly befriend her colleagues, because while they’re all state school educated it’s very much a leafy green state school in a “naice” area. It’s more about social group than educational background for her.

kids up here mock it and think of it as posh. DD can’t help but view it that way and be intimidated by it - one of her good friends has a very southern accent (“bahhhth” and pronounce their Ds and Ts etc) and they all find it funny...

I have to say I find this a bizarre attitude. Imagine reversing it and someone talking this way about how they think everyone with a northern accent sounds hilariously common - can't think it would go down too well.

I'm very glad my very southern DD who is at Newcastle uni doesn't seem to have encountered this attitude (or perhaps she has and they've ignored her and she hasn't noticed). She lived in a house last year with 8 other people - some from her first year flat, some extras - and apart from her, the most southerly home town was York. So perhaps she's been accepted

I would like DS to go to any offered , simply because he needs to learn more about what uni is like. But since DH and are both teachers, I can't see how it will happen.

Would he definitely not go by himself, Piggy?

I really think they should go to offer/applicant days by themselves, no parents. The days are much more structured than open days, and I think the prospective student will get more out of it having to talk to other people than having a parent tag along. Also it's a good chance to consider whether you'd actually be happy doing that journey.

That said, ds's invitation for his Manchester visit says it includes sessions for parents, and plenty of people do go. My daughters went to theirs alone, and ds will be going to Manchester alone - neither dh nor I can easily take a day off with a fortnight's notice for a start!

He wouldn't be able to get there by himself without many intricate changes of train! One of them is Aberystwyth...

So if he ends up there, will he never come home under his own steam?

Hopefully Uni will show your DD that accents mean nothing. People are just people regardless of voice. And London is a pretty diverse place to live, and mostly populated by non Londoners. You'll hear every accent, see every colour and learn a few interesting words in different languages on the tube.
However, I do agree that if I said I found Northern accents weird I'd have my head chopped off. Quite rightly. I love a Liverpool and Geordie accent me. Means nothing about the person except they grew up there. Us Southerners get a tough time !

I think you may need to bear that in mind as to whether accepting an offer there is logistically viable. With planning can he really not do it alone?

And my DD didn't go to offer days as would have meant more days off college. She'd already been away for 7 for interviews (most required overnights).

Atia it’s just the culture up here - it’s surely related to context of power. Most politicians speak like that, as do newsreaders and most actors (except when encouraged to put on a regional accent). I’ve never heard anyone of note (other than one pop star and a local MP, who incidentally faces a lot of backlash for “not being able to speak properly”) with the accent the kids around here have.

And DD’s been mocked for her northern accent before anyway at a York uni taster day, and her friend at Durham says he knows he’s won a debate when people just repeat back what he said in an exaggerated northern accent.

The classic southern accent is intimidating to children around here because it’s inherently associated with social power.

My dd1 went to 4, but one was at a weekend, mostly because she was keen to have as many days off school as possible! She knew she definitely wasn't interested in one and went anyway. Not a conscientious student, that one.

Dd2 just went to the two she was trying to decide between, I think.

Ds won't go to anything that's not basically compulsory - so he will do the Manchester thing (and Cambridge if offered an interview) and as long as that results in an offer from Manchester I can't imagine he'll go anywhere else!

atia, it might as well be steam!

I'm not sure if you are London based but transport is tricky in the sticks. His GPs are in Wales, so coming home may become a staggered thing. I suppose I am coloured by the fact that I never came home !

I took trains everywhere as a child, but he is not used to it. It will have to develop. It is actually only two trains from us to get there , via - believe it or not- our tiny tin pot local station, but it is a 6 hour journey. The hardest one to get to/ from is Hull. And , bizarrely, Colchester! Which is three train changes even though it is about an hour by car! There's a direct train to Nottingham which is another thing in its favour.

Not London, but admittedly very lucky with transport. (Although saying lucky makes it sound like we ended up here by chance, which isn't true, lol.) I'm not saying he should be able to get there though, just that it is something to think about for the next few years, not just offer days. But it's probably the least of your higher education worries atm!

Indeed it is!

Tbh DH is encouraging NTU because of proximity. This has made me think, though, and I think I might see if he will change Hull and Portsmouth to Derby and DMU. I don't think there is a huge difference in quality between these institutions (in theory, Hull is superior but it has terrible student satisfaction scores). Personally, I'd love to do the Derby course as it is Joint Honours with Diplomacy and they can spend a year in The Hague! But the Aber course sounds so good so it will stay!

mumsneedwine this area doesn’t have one of those nicer northern accents that are more widely accepted by the media. I’m trying not to be too identifiable here but we’re in a city where the accent is relentlessly viewed negatively and is not at all represented in the media or positions of power (except negatively). It’s not a Manchester/classic North Yorkshire/Scouse/Geordie accent.

I’m also not saying these are my opinions - I went to an RG uni and am now a teacher, and while I was the first in my family to go to university I was fortunate enough to get into a grammar school (which I’m fairly sure is the only reason I got to university - my siblings who didn’t get in suffered massively). I have an Irish accent (also mocked relentlessly by my own DC and their friends!). I am merely attempting to express the viewpoint of a lot of underprivileged working class children from a poor northern city that faces terrible media representation. My DD struggles with identity anyway because our family is somewhat middle class (I am a teacher) and almost 100% white. She has been through the care system, is mixed race and went to a school where 91% of pupils didn’t speak English as a first language and almost 70% received FSM. Wherever she goes university is going to socially challenge her, and me pretending background is irrelevant would be totally naïve.

(As an aside - they also find the Scottish girl in DD2’s class’s accent funny.)

My DD's application has been with the school for 6 days now. They have sent it back today asking her to add her BTEC on to subjects currently studying. It's on there, they need to scroll down a bit. Frustrating!!!!

As a forriner I still am fascinated by British attitudes to class & accent after 30 years living here!

In my home country students tend to go to their local university so it all seems more democratic in some ways. I knew people whose parents were captains of industry types and equally people whose parents were long term unemployed. People were judged on themselves not their parents.

Piggy the Oxford Brookes data is interesting. I know someone from a posh background who was sent to a secretarial college in Oxford. I suspect so she might meet the right sort of husband! She sometimes talks about her time at Oxford implying the university... Perhaps it's a similar thing with OB!!

I suspect so! To be fair, it is a lovely city - but the cost of living is extortionate.

That's a lot of challenge for your DD pancakemum. A lot. DD has a broad Yorkshire accent, it appears to have bypassed DS and attached double of itself to DD.....

No one in our family has gone to university in our family until this generation. I did A Levels, DH left school at 16. The school sends few students to Oxbridge.

Last December the Head of Year forwarded an email from Oxford about a summer school to the year 12's. The only words on the email were something like 'this might be a good opportunity', no other advice or encouragement. I didn't even know about it until I found DD over the Christmas holiday, filling out the online application (which is very like applying for a uni place, you had to write a PS, forward your GCSE grades etc, get a school reference etc). The differentiating factor was the UNIQ course is only for state school students, and contextual data plays a part, albeit they have to have high grades too at GCSE.

Dd got a place and had the best week of her life with people that were similar to her, at Oxford. She won that place fair and square, and she learned a lot in her subject area, but the biggest thing that week gave was the belief that yes, she was as worthy as any other candidate, she gained this place on merit, and was absolutely the type of student that should consider applying to their institution, they really drummed this home, even in the correspondence they sent to sent to parents.

So, she's going to have a bash at trying for a place. All her work is submitted. If she does manage to get an offer, it's her having a go that time over Christmas I reckon that set the ball rolling.

But I'm not sure I could have given her the confidence that she was their type.

I'd actually like the spotlight to focus more on the RG universities mentioned, not just Oxbridge.

Piggywaspushed, does your DS have any friends who are applying to ythe same universities, to travel with to applicant days?

Not that I know of! he doesn't really have any friends

Good luck to your DD just. She sounds fab!

And I agree with your last sentence : Oxbridge try hard(ish) comparatively.