Applying for Uni 2019 Part 6: exams, leaving school/college (the end of an era), a long summer holiday and Results Day on the horizon

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

Just when exam season gets fully underway our previous thread has almost filled up. Everyone welcome .

And I don't know about everyone else but I have felt really lost and down as well! I feel slightly guilty about that feeling as it hasn't been me revising!

mum2eim I think mums tend to be much more involved in their DC's lives than dads (generally speaking), so we have walked the walk with them, probably for the entirety of their school careers, but most definitely over the past two.

It is a strange transition time for parents and their 17/18 year olds. Very much the end of one era and the pause before the start of the new.

They will just start chilling and enjoying the summer when it's time to start thinking about Results Day.

Anyone seen the thread on AIBU about topping up maintenance loans? Highlights may people's absolute ignorance about the system , must say! and their sense of wounded entitlement

Piggy yes I have. Don’t know what to say really. There certainly was a parental contribution expected when I got my grant. It’s not new. Some of us worked to supplement it, many didn’t. My parents simply could not afford it but had they could, they would have.

NewModek, definitely...

It feels utterly strange to me!

What is it people are finding strange? Is it the expected parental contribution or students having to work? I don’t see anything wrong with either .

I think a lot of posters are extrapolating from their own uni days experience or perhaps their dc qualified for the full loan.

It’s all very well saying the dc should work to supplement - it’s not always possible or the jobs may simply not be there.

One thing that has become apparent to dd as time has gone on is just how wealthy some of her fellow students are. She seems to think we are quite poor in comparison which I find almost hilarious.

I think a lot of the thread is the affluent (who seldom on MN realise that they are!) bemoaning topping up the loan. They just don't seem to get the 'expected parental contribution bit' .Money Supermarket guy would have steam coming out of his ears at the misunderstandings, misapprehensions and mistakes!

decor you will still get people on MN who tell you that the offspring of the very affluent are somehow worse off than those on full loans. It reminds me of when I went to uni and the rich kids wore jumpers with holes in them and smoked roll ups . Like the girlfriend in Common People... 'I want to live like Common People. I want to do what Common People do' I got this all wrong when I went to an interview at Oxford and wore a jacket and skirt (well, kilt - which got sneered at by an interviewer, genuinely). I should have known to wear rags, clearly! still bitter

Some parents use the actual or threat of withholding the parental contribution as a form of control. It is unpleasant.

'You are not going to Lincoln'

'I am not paying for you to study politics'

Gosh , I am more than sure you don't mean me, Frendo, as my DS is going to Lincoln to study... politics! Spooky!

Piggydouble whammy!

I have horrified a few posters in the past with this confession...

It is sadly true though that parents exercise this kind of pressure, verging on bullying. I see it at work with GCSE and A level choices,sadly.It is even worse when the sanctions are financial.

Yes I have @Piggywaspushed. It made me very cross, especially posts by posters trying to outdo the four Yorkshiremen.

“I had 60 hours a week contact time with the same time for study, worked a 75 hour week in a job, slept for 3 minutes night and ate once a month and still ended up with a double first, a masters and a PhD”

It’s trying to get the balance right. Dd has friends who don’t seem to work in the summer, go on multiple holidays. I understand they have an “allowance”. Regardless of whether I could afford to sub my kids completely or not, I think I’d want them to make some effort to get holiday jobs. It would not seem right for them to loll around all day whilst dh & I were working full time.

There is some good news out there. Apparently this is the cautious generation.

www.nytimes.com/2019/06/23/upshot/euphoria-hbo-teens-sex-drugs.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow&fbclid=IwAR0l5bfNp1MSkKJKCYrQLX-IG56AmgOQi8IIRbpsdD2jN1JUkYjztGQGWQU

piggywaspushed,

Coincidence :)

I picked Lincoln and politics because there is nowt wrong with either of them, separately or together.

I know of a girl who did not go to university last year because her grades were not quite good enough for her desired course at a Russell Group university - her wealthy parents said, Russell Group or nothing.

Nothing it is.

Wow. That's insane.

I know of a girl who did not go to university last year because her grades were not quite good enough for her desired course at a Russell Group university - her wealthy parents said, Russell Group or nothing.

That is so controlling. Horrible attitude.

DS is definitely cautious. We have bred the 'Saffy' generation. How prescient was Jennifer Saunders to have created the character in stark contrast to Edina.

That thread is disintegrating into looniness.

Final day (at last) for ds. The formal leavers celebration was last week & prom tomorrow.

He has no summer plans apart from our family holiday so far.

I suspect that the really loony posts are from posters who don't have teenagers in 6th form or university. It is easy to say what you would do when you aren't faced with the reality of a situation.

Yes exactly. Though as I have said many times, the culture of moving far from home for uni in England does make it much more expensive.

It is an interesting issue. Parents now and when I went ( went in 1979 with a £50 minimum maintenance grant - full maintenance was £900 a year and my parents made it up to the £900 - no fee element of course). However I knew they were not obliged to do so and I was glad they did. It is the same today - no legal obligation on thep arents at all many of whom may not approve of university or not have the money or rather spend it on themselves and as it's their money their choice and fine by me. Just like parents who decide to spend their money in their lives on them and not choose to leave any to their children. Entirely their choice.

However the system leaves an unfairness because of that - some parents may choose to make it up to the full sum those less well off can borrow and others will not whch exactly as in 1979 leaves some students in a better position than others if they don't get the biggest maintenance loan.

How are students supported in other countries? I know that in many places they just go to a local university, but that isn't going to happen here.