Applying for Uni 2019 Part 5: UCAS, offers and exam season looming

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

New thread started. Here's the previous one

DS is at an Indy so if he retakes it will have to be at another school or a local college. But like you New we continue to remain optimistic with one foot firmly on ground. Exams start 20/5.

Piggy hopefully he will be motivated nearer the time as things starts gather momentum and all his friends are talking about uni. Of course there’s nothing wrong in taking a year out provided he has a clear plan.

Shimy DS was at a private school for 6th form and he can retake the exams there they just wouldn’t let him go to lessons.

We couldn’t find any schools/colleges that would let him just do a year and retake.

We are one year futher on. Ds is finishing year one at Lincoln.
But we had plan b,c, d and z all the way through from year 10.
Had a chance of job as maintenance fitter but 65 minutes from home, apprenticeship on welding, A levels to lead to chemical engineering etc.
Ending up doing A levels but not engineering. Became a police cadet year in summer between yr 11 and 12. Wants to do police/terroism/prison or offending team careers. So needed degree.
Looked at policing or criminology degrees. Had terrible As results, looked at starting again in year 12 at fe college, but promised he would improved, dropped a subject, learnt criminology in one year, half of it, got a C at A level with only 45% learnt.
Eventually chose Lincoln on an UiF offer.

Even a month before results day, Ds and us, where still looking into apprenticeships, foundation degrees anything really.
Then he met an old rugby team who was also going to Lincoln, they met up a couple times before heading off and talked vis messenger. Ds suddenly engaged. Was suddenly on fb course and uni pages.

On results day he came home with massive smile on face, he got his predicted 3 C's and a D. He suddenly felt like he deserved to go. He was on accomm pages, knew his 5 flatmates before heading off. 5 out of 6 are in a house for next year.
He says going to Lincoln is up with his best choices. He pays rugby league with all year 2 and 3, met people from the Se, Cambridgeshire, Cornwall, Devon and London plus Barnsley, Wakefield, Peterborough, Leeds and Lincoln he would never had chance to meet. He from Hull is most northern on his degree group.

Sorry long, but I hope that proves anyone can get where they want

Sorry, but this from a comprehensive, which has never been rated good, had no headteacher from summer term year 7 to christmas term year 11.
Was rated 4 for all of sixth form. He lost 35% of geography lessons in year 13, 50% in world development.
Regularly had 3 changes of teacher. Think 10 english teachers in year 10 was record.
Plus spent 2 years under CAMHS.
Also non verbal until 7 and predicted D and E in year 8 for GCSE.

So to piggywaspushed and shimy and newmodelarmy and anyone else there is light at the end of tunnel.
It can just be a very long tunnel

We have all sorts of plans here.
Plan A - gets grades and goes to York.
Plan B - drops a grade and goes to Liverpool.
Plan C - if drops too many grades pick up phone and talk to Bangor who will take her with BBC.
Plan AA - if exceeds York grades, log on to the special clearing that morning and see if Cambridge will find room for her.

I'm hoping for A or B.

Wow DrM you have a plan and a half.

I dont know what we will do if DS doesnt get his grades for NTU as he didn't want any other choices and refuses go to UoE which is his insurance. He wont discuss alternative options yet as it's just me 'being negative'. I will wait until he has finished his exams and then have a chat with him as we will have a sense of how they went. In the meantime fingers, toes and everything else crossed for NTU

My friends son didn't make either his firm or his insurance and ended up somewhere he didn't want to go but that would take him. So I encouraged dd to look at a wide range.
Currently predicted A*AAA but who knows what the actual exams will bring.

Itscold - it’s a boarding school so not sure how retaking would work.
2Boys - Your DS is certain,y driven! With all the different things he tried his hand to he must have picked up so many skills and reallybroadened his understanding of careers. It certainly seems like a long tunnel.

Ds’s Insurance also offers a foundation degree so that’s another option if both firm and insurance fail. If he doesn’t get on the foundation, we’ll look at what’s available in clearing but it’s got to be somewhere he actually wants to go and then meets the course content he’s looking for. No point just taking whatever pops up in clearing. Failing that, It’s retakes.

Mineswine - I know what you mean by being accused of sounding ‘negative’. Personally I like to have. A backup plan so we’re not running around like headless chickens on the day and if all goes well, then we just ditch the plans b,c,d.

One of DD's friends didn't make his firm or insurance either, but loves where he ended up. He doesn't even want to come home for the holidays.

DS was very particular about which universities he'd even consider, so not sure that he will consider Clearing if he doesn't get the grades for Durham or UEA. Minesawine, think your plan is a good one. I would be tempted to suggest an apprenticeship with a view to considering university at a (slightly) later stage, as a close friend's son has done.

All will be revealed in due course.... I expect the second half of the extended summer hols (once Results Day has been and gone) goes by really quickly?

2boys well done to your DS, lovely to hear that he is doing well at Lincoln. I do think really wanting to go makes a massive difference and it sounds like his rugby friends really helped with that.
Many DC just seem to go along with the flow and then are unsure about if they are doing the right thing.
I think that’s what happened with my DS he just didn’t know what he was aiming for, as I don’t think he was really ready for university.
A year can make a big difference, especially if you are no longer in a school setting.

shimy that could be tricky then, mind you DS has very little contact with school, but he is entered for the exam.
I couldn’t find any other way for him to resit other than crammers in Cambridge which cost £££
I don’t know what he would have done if school hadn’t said he could do the exams there?

Hopefully you want have to worry about such things 👍

‘Won’t’ !!

Tapas - Hope ds’s journey if he goes into Clearing turns out like that.

Itscold - I totally agree with some kids just not knowing what to do yet and just carrying on the tread mill. DS likes familiarity and is not entertaining the idea of a yr out at all u fortunately.
Hopefully we won’t have to worry about all this but if we do, I’m sure there’ll be another thread .

My DS is hoping to get to NTU (offer is BBB), if he doesn’t get in his insurance offer is BBC; if he doesn’t get that we have identified a Uni that seems to take students with quite low grades so hope he can get in through clearing although they did make him an UiF offer originally which I half wish he’d accepted, we had a very good visit there but it didn’t seem quite so academic as NTU, great accommodation though ... just hope they wouldn’t refuse him via clearing if he turned down the original offer, it’s all so complicated .

Not sure he is driven. He is like another 19 year old. Playstation, phone and late nights in nightclub can come before study.
Just unlucky we think. He had an apprenticeship lined up at local manufacturing company, after yr10 work experience. Then company stopped recruitment due to Brexit.
He was only 17 so the job 65 minutes would have been 2 hours by moped, and was shifts either 0500 start or 2350 end. So had to decline. The welding apprenticeship also had no permanent jobs attacthed that year. He didnt get the B in maths for A levels so chemical engineering went.
Luckily his mum got him into cadets. He loved it and was good at it.
New horizons opened up. But degree needed.

He has played rugby league since been 9. He always played for teams who lost more then they won. Broke his leg when about to start under 15 with professional local team, lost chance. Was national champion school team in year 9, lost final in year 10.
Went and had 3 years in union, won a league title and lost 3 finals.
He is only one of original 35 kids at under 15 still playing league or any rugby.

I think he just learnt you have to pick yourself up and start again, no one else will or feels sorry for you.
Thats why even now he has asked his personal tutor at uni what happens if he fails/has to resit etc.
He sadly just believes he will always have to do it the hard way.

We, as parents, are awfully jealous of the people on here and in our family and friends, who kids just turn up and everything goes to plan.

I only post to show there is another way and not every child is born to leave school with straight A*/9's and 4 A+ at A level. Even below average( crap) kids can survive and do okay

Plan A, she gets the grades and goes to Sheffield to study modern languages
Plan B she misses the grades and gets into insurance, Edinburgh Napier to study English lit
Plan C she gets halfway in between the 1st and 2nd choice and we get on the phone for clearing places.... or she misses insurance grades and we get on the phone as well.
Plan D if she's miles off, she has a year out and retakes.

I think he just learnt you have to pick yourself up and start again, no one else will or feels sorry for you
Dd is the same. Dogged by bad luck. I really think it makes them stronger people in the long run but I know what you mean about just wanting things to be a bit easier! Good luck to your ds he sounds like a good kid.

Wow - lots of messages today!

It's all feeling very close now. DS has worked really hard this Easter holiday and is starting to feel cautiously optimistic.

Plan A - 38 Points and heads to Nottingham
Plan B - 35 Points and heads to Loughborough.

Not sure what happens other than that! Not even sure how you re-sit IB modules and if it can be done. Hopefully we won't need to find out!

Back to school tomorrow. I imagine they will be doing revision sessions and past papers in class. It will be a good indication to DS of how much he knows / still needs to know!

Dd has more mocks this week so hopefully we will be clearer where we stand. If neither firm or insurance are met (insurance being a couple of grades leeway) then we know that the uni which narrowly missed being her insurance went into Clearing last year and was accepting slightly lower grades. However if she has reached that point it may be that a rethink is in order anyway.

Itscoldouthere, DS1 chose Birmingham from the four (out of five - on second viewing, he decided against Warwick altogether) possibilities which he liked more or less equally in terms of course (Biochemistry), campus and city. In the end, he decided it came down to Birmingham and UEA having the most attractive campuses and Birmingham the edge when it came to the course. Both were offering an unconditional if firmed, but the certainty this gave was a bonus, not a deciding factor.

Not only is the Birmingham campus attractive (although it seems rather tidier and less quirky now than it was when he started, now they've knocked down and rebuilt a few bits), but there are lots of places in the vicinity for visiting parents to go - the Barber Institute of Fine Arts and the Lapworth Museum of Geology on site, Winterbourne House and gardens just across the road and the Birmingham Botanical Gardens nearby. Not to mention the Edgbaston Cricket Ground (sadly, I have never managed to time my visit right for a Warwickshire at home) and all the other things to do in and around the city. And a climbing wall in Walsall, I think he mentioned, but that's definitely not my thing.

When she visited back when DS1 was only in first year, DD liked Birmingham enough to suggest that all three of them could go there, so it was always on her list of places to consider seriously. I'm not sure that its version of her course is 'perfect', but she's happy enough with it. She also has an unconditional, but the certainty of the place is tempered by the probability that her offer of accommodation will be made while she is several thousand miles away with no internet access...

Thank you MarchingFrogs I’m pretty sure DS is going to firm Birmingham with UEA insurance he’s doing Biological Sciences.

Birmingham is a bit of an unknown to us, don’t know any DC who have attended so it’s good to hear positive outcomes.

My DS isn’t very social so isn’t looking for bright city lights, but he liked the campus and the department staff he met and the course is his favourite.

I quite like the idea of spending some time there, I’ve only every been to the NEC and airport 😂

Birmingham is a fab uni, my DH went there (Biological Sciences too), a long time ago . He is sometimes invited back to speak to students & also has some work connections there too & is impressed by the high standard of students. It’s a very good campus & a great city too. Our DS went there for an open day but didn’t choose it as he would have been extremely unlikely to reach the grades required.

If plans A and B fail here (ie firm and insurance), I think the only Plan C DD has (and possibly can have as she'll have to have a massive rethink) is a gap year - she's on a sixth form scholarship so can't stay on there, and there are only four unis in the UK offering her course, three want AAA and one ABB (and obviously she has the ABB as her insurance), so nothing around with lower grades.

As with many of them, she should at least meet her insurance grades, but nothing is guaranteed.