Applying for Uni 2019 entry Part 4, UCAS & offers (and thinking about exams)

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

Following on from the previous thread.

I agree Shymy. Or extenuating circumstances perhaps? I hate the way underfunding has affected education so much.

SHOUTY MESSAGE TO UPPITY UNIS.

I really would not want to entrust my DC to three years in your hands if you have an attitude like this. My child is more important than your bits of paper.

I say this because the first two DCs went to good unis. who did care, they came out with decent degrees and found employment straight away.

^^
Agree totally with this. Ds is probably going to let his Durham offer go because they are so unhelpful. Other universities much better at student support (and skills for working life). Think employers are changing and going for for ‘work ready’ students from other universities

A couple of DD's friends who also looked at Oxbridge visited Durham and found it snobby and unfriendly.

What do people think of Edinburgh over Durham?

Hello again! I have been reading ..but just no informative stuff to add. !

Well ds has finally " pressed" the button 😁

Southampton then Bristol.
If you remember he was only going to firm
Southampton but then decided to insure Bristol. (Same grades) ..
I dont know why ,he has been doing my head in just to get to this stage-!.
(Looonng story ).

So what do WE ! do now ?
Student finance and accommodtion i presume.
Confused with the Bristol situation as had been off the radar till yesterday.
Did not go to offer day..only Southampton with his friend (i was equally off his radar of being invited!)

Re the finance..what do you show to prove household income ??

Sorry for so many questions..i seem to have butterflies and a hard rock in my stomach.

Sorry should say i have trid looking it up .

Chased son the other night about finance. He forwarded an email to me from UCAS dated 7th February. I think perhaps if your ds looks he may have had something.

DS (AKA Coatless Boy) has just messaged to say he's surprised how much he liked Manchester. Fingers crossed now for an actual offer, though it'll certainly make the decision more difficult.

(I didn't get invited along to DS's visit today either, Bizzey. Have to hope he found his way round anything relevant.)

Hi bizzey

Re student finance, not sure anything had to be shown (as yet). They asked for student plus parent(s) NI numbers, details of income, pensions, savings interes, details of dependants etc... and that was it. It probably took under 30 mins to do the three strands (DS + two parents).

Maybe, also do research into the best student bank accounts (extras being a bonus!).

Start thinking about 'the bottom drawer' items?

You probably need to investigate what's next regarding accommodation - different universities seem to have different ways of doing things.

Personally if the tables were turned, I'd probably be quite slow to commit, given the ££££ loan involved! I can understand that it's a huge thing for them at their ages.

Putting things in perspective, it's only five months until offers day! Yikes!

I would be interested to know why your DS liked Manchester so much Dithering.
DD didn't care for it. She found the city too big and intimidating.

NewModelArmyMayhem18 I don’t quite understand your reply to my last post. Could you clarify please?

Decorhate what did I say (hope it wasn't anything untoward...)?

Oh about the remarks? I just meant that we paid for quite a few remarks for GCSEs for DS (he was a couple of points off As in a few of his less good subjects) but he didn't go up in any. So we ended up several hundred pounds down. I'm really hoping we're not faced with having to do the same thing again.

Hope you didn't think I was implying anything snide - if I was it was only to myself!!!

Hi Tapas, I'll quiz him when he's back (in about 5 hours!), but his message said 'Surprised how nice it is, much nicer than I thought, really pretty part of the city, and we had a great discussion about Brexit and the influence of different translations on the interpretation of a text. English sounded a bit bland though' (he's applied for joint honours with a language).

Then something about an open mike night, but I think that was probably last night with friends, not mid-open day!

Ah ok. Luckily a couple of ds’ GCSE grades did go up on remark. He still grumbles that we should have had Eng Lang done too but school advised against.

I think it’s always been more likely for humanities subjects (as was the case for the girl I mentioned) but perhaps less scope for movement overall now

Decorhate I think we left it quite late to put in for remarks and not sure we were entirely strategic about it. Anyway, lesson learned. In the end those B grades don't seem to have impacted adversely on Ds's university offers, so all is well. Good for your DS going up GCSE grades though.

I will reserve judgement about A Level results and remarks until Offers Day!

Regarding Durham: I have mentioned this before but last summer Dd and I got on the London to Edinburgh train to go up to the open day for Newcastle not realising it was an open day for Durham too. It was so packed we paid £15 each extra to sit in first class - made sense as we needed breakfast anyway. Not many seats left in first class and they were filled with a parent and 6th form child. Two families next to us were obviously from private schools with ‘nicknames’ for Geography (Geo) and so forth. They were extremely loud and we had to listen about their extensive skiing plans for next year. EVERYONE got off the first class carriage, except us, at Durham. I had been trying to persuade my Dd to at least look at Durham but she said Durham was full of loud public school types. Annoying she was proved totally right. We got off with the rest of the ‘lower classed’ passengers at Newcastle.

She loved Newcastle.

On the way back we did sit next to a really nice student from Durham who said everyone finds their own crowd.

@NewModelArmy ....he is going to get all the crap stuff of mine ...and i buy new !!!

bizzey agree for some things. DS will be getting oddments of crockery and cutlery for sure. Come to think of it our sieve has seen better days.....

FWIW I still have the towels I used as a student (DM bought them new for me). They don't regularly appear in the bathroom but are still in good 'nick' considering their advanced age...

DD loves Newcastle as well Nagarem

I keep meaning to mention as a diverting story that these are genuine people i have met in my travels around the universities of the UK recently:

Dr Love at NTU (who was a dish indeed)
Dr Doctor at Hull

and Dr Dockter at Aberystwyth.

Disappointingly, Lincoln demonstrated no such whimsy.

Piggy . I've heard of the Doctor Love at NTU before, i even googled him .

You have to put on a Barry White voice and say Dr Luuuuurvvvve. Obviously.