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

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

New thread started. Here's the previous one

Shimy - he told me his dream job is with a company in New Zealand who did all the Lord of The Rings modelling work.

Looked at the list re DS2 good to see his choices Birmingham & UEA still doing well, not so good for Reading for his course, they seem to be going down.

Brilliant news, itscold.

Piggy - York is 5th for English, though, and Warwick only 18th...

Oh good-o dangling ! Must be really shit at some things, then! DH always enjoys telling me it was a place for thick people to do maths, in his charming fashion. coming from the man who scraped a 3rd

Itscoldouthere that's an amazing ambition for your DS. Think DH should have done something similar - his twin loves are JRR Tolkien and model making/painting. It really does sound as if your DS1 knows what he wants which is a great motivator..

The new table doesn't make great reading for UEA overall or for Geography 🙈

Itscold - This is the advantage of taking time out from studying to mature a bit. Your ds really sounds focussed and has clarity on what he is doing and what he wants out of it. He has big goals and i hope he achieves them. I didn't even know you could do a degree in model making, its why i was thinking Art before.

Newmodel - does you DH do Warhammer 😊
It’s taken DS1 several years to get to this place, it’s been really tough at times, I don’t expect it to be easy for him at uni either, but I do think he may have finally found his thing, but I know from experience that Art College can be rather crushing at times if you are feeling vulnerable/unconfident.
He’s very dyslexic, a perfectionist, and very opinionated, which makes things very difficult at times, as I’m sure you can imagine 🤣

Son been doing model making for A level. Two burns from superglue stuff, another injury from something else. It is very difficult and time consuming. I admire the skill of these young people.

Bath looks amazing on that list cant believe she'll get in. Swansea is up but still 30 something

Fascinating league table!

Interesting that Birmingham is about 20th for entry standards (ie points on entry), above a number of other highly regarded univs - despite its use of unconditional offers. (probably oversimplifying the data - I know points are not that informative - but just throwing the comment in to the ongoing "are uifs the terrible thing that we are all told to think they are" debate)

Ah, once I had sorted by course then bath is 7th and Swansea 14th. So a better position for Swansea

@Itscoldouthere Hertfordshire is the one I was thinking of!

Decorhate - he’s got an interview for that course next week, but it’s only 30 miles from home and he’d like to be further away, but worth going to see.

I think I was mistaken when looking at the league tables UEA isn’t doing as well as it was. Bath is doing really well.

There will be other tables...... Mind you, I was pleased to see my alma mater Lancaster storming in at 7th 👍

"I wish they would write a short commentary on what has led to the rise or fall alongside the rankings. It would be more informative."

I would like to know as well. The university that one of DD's friends is at has jumped 23 places! The one DD will go to has remained the same.

I don't understand the entry standards thing. DD has several friends at Glasgow, and the block of flats that they are in is full of students who got in through clearing, and I know that they achieved significantly fewer UCAS points than the entry standards publicised.

Tapas, the notes following the table say that the entry standards column shows the tariff points actually achieved by students. So it should be a better guide to entry standards than the offers made. Though not wholly straightforward to interpret as some will have tariff points from other quals and some will have done 4 A levels.

So my point about Birmingham was just that it looks as though students get relatively high tariff points - higher than at some other well regarded universities even though uifs are supposed to lead to students dossing about, not turning up to lessons etc. (Tbf I think Birm have made the point before that in their case students who accept uifs tend to get good results - unless I am misremembering.)

Bangor University news www.thebangoraye.com/medical-students-to-study-in-north-wales-for-the-first-time/

Blimey medical schools seem to be being created left, right and centre at the moment.

newmodelarmy law schools are a dangerous precedent here - in my day there were only about 5 places you could do the compulsory postgrad solicitors exams (fewer for barristers) which was a natural brake on numbers entering the profession. However the Law Society went on to licence gazillions of providers and we end up with large numbers of unemployed would-be solicitors. More medical schools might end up with the same result?

VanCleefArpels I would think to agree with you. Clearly the move is to address the shortage of doctors (which could worsen with Brexit) but long-term it might lead to a surfeit of medics.

You have to wonder. The two medical students I know are planning to hop to Kangaroo country as soon as qualified which is years away for both. I do wonder how many doctors Australia needs and for how long. Especially if all these med. students have the same idea.

So my point about Birmingham was just that it looks as though students get relatively high tariff points - higher than at some other well regarded universities even though uifs are supposed to lead to students dossing about, not turning up to lessons etc. (Tbf I think Birm have made the point before that in their case students who accept uifs tend to get good results - unless I am misremembering.)

I have previously posted (on this or another thread, incipient brain failure here) that from a conversation with an academic in DD's 'department to be', the criterion for getting an Unconditional if Firmed is a prediction of AAA or above and in their experience, people who accept the offer usually meet their predictions. Which statement would indeed appear to be borne out by the info on the league table. The non-UiF offer for DD's course is AAB and the 'entry standards' level is 151 points, or just under A* A A.

Invisibleiink I think I am being a bit thick here, but the tariff points actually achieved by the students who went there through clearing (all English) were significantly lower than the ones published. Maybe the Scottish students are higher achieving?

Do you think they have lower entry standards for English students because they bring in tuition fees? Not being cynical or anything.

I really don’t understand the tariff points on that league table. Eg for my ds subject, the top universities are showing points which are far in excess of 3 or even 4 A*

How is that possible?

Decorhate I don't either. A few of them had in excess of 200 points! Grade 8 music is, what, 12?