‘Autism is worth a grade’

[Extracurricularfatigue]

Sorry, this is a bit long.

DS is year 12 and has late diagnosed ASD (15) and ADHD (17). He is very bright to talk to and in his freestyle written ideas but wasn’t able to cope very well with the GCSE structures or revision so has a mixed bag of grades. He has continued to struggle at A level. He’s currently predicted 3Bs and we’re waiting to find out what his AS grades will be with no great optimism for much higher.

He has refused to engage at all with university courses until the last week or so, however hard we’ve tried, but has now finally got interested. He has decided he wants to study physics, with maybe computer science. This is a turnaround as until now he’s only ever wanted to do computing. He got a 7 for Physics GCSE.

Obviously none of these grades is bad in themselves, but he is refusing to accept reality. He wants to apply for universities like Durham and Imperial, which are looking for A*s and As. He won’t engage with the reality of things, and says a friend has told him ‘Autism is worth a grade’ in offers.

I understand that a good interview and reference together with his diagnosis might lead to a contextual offer which may be slighter lower than standard. But I really doubt he can bridge the gap to the extent required, and I’m so concerned he will end up putting enormous pressure on himself and failing to get in anywhere.

In my day back in the last century, physics courses went into clearing even at Russell Group because they were so undersubscribed. I don’t know if that’s still the case but I assume he would be fine in clearing regardless if it came to it - particularly if he did end up with 3 Bs. But it would be so much better for his mental health to apply for places he has a realistic chance of getting into, wouldn’t it?

Oh, and contextual grades are often for post code and school results so the student is considered disadvantaged. Do look up lowered send grades but of course he has to be aware the courses are very hard. Even if he gets lower offers, how does he think he will manage? University can not replicate school.

@My0My In my experience universities are often better at offering support to students with SEN (not send) than schools are since they are dealing with much higher numbers. Support varies but might include organisational support/ dedicated buddy support/ IT support/ special arrangements etc all to enable students to complete their course.
One of my DS1's friends struggled at school with patchy support, but really excelled at uni.

The D is disabilities. So for quite a few students it does need to be SEND. I think support varies a great deal and autism support is not quite so easy to supply.

Really interesting thread. My DD is 18 and only had a diagnosis last year. She struggled with the final year of her GCSEs due to social anxiety (no support from school as told it was normal for teens) She didn't get the results she needed to do the A levels she wanted to do. Again no support from school. Her only option was to move to local College, her social anxiety increased. After her first year of College her social anxiety increased and she decided that she wanted to study online. Then she was diagnosed with autism and everything started to make sense.
Whenever we ask her about her studies it is met with a stone wall.
In many ways she is immature and not ready for Uni, however until today she has been adamant that she will go in September. However today she has accepted that she will sit her exams on Autumn due to being a private candidate.
It's really hard work to get through to her and breaks my heart watching her flounder.
Hoping that as she gets older, things will become easier for her

And so good to hear that Uni offers support, very frustrating that schools don't... Rant over

Ypu may have said above but what are his AS or A level subjects other than physics? I ask because he may be set on going to a good university and may be one of his other subjects might be easier to get into. Eg my daughter who is now a London commercial lawyer read ancient history at Bristol and although she got AAB which was good (in days when there were no A stars) she was not so sure she would have got in for law so it was a good subject (which she liked anyway) and helped her career and meant a good university she liked. My other daughter, also a London lawyer, did mostly science A levels as she wanted to keep medicine open as an option and was equally good at all GCSEs and then found physics and chemistry very hard and went to Nottingham for a BSc (geog). Now that might be that she was just better at arts than science but did not know it at 16 but certainly some subjects are particularly hard at university. My father read physics at Durham and after the degree then did medicine - so still doing exams until he was 30! He found physics okay so may be you either have a thing for it or not.

Bristol allows you in with lower grades if you go to any of the 40% worst schools in the UK - which is a bit unfair - i bust a gut for 30 years working full time and pay school fees and I find a child in my son's year who lives near us who lives in a £3m house !!!! who got a much lower offer because they gamed the system in a sense.

Although not a bad idea for the majority of kids in those schools, who probably don’t live in £3m houses?! But let’s not go there.

@sandwiches77 it is so hard to watch them set themselves on a difficult course in life isn’t it? And late diagnosis means they’ve already gone through the mill too.

Thanks for the replies. We had a chat this afternoon and I think he had genuinely decided that all offers for autistic kids were automatically lowered. So it was a definite wake up call.

He is doing maths, psychics and computer science. His fourth AS is further maths which I think he will drop this year by mutual agreement. His only 9 was in maths but he has found FM a real struggle. After years of being set on computer science he has now decided physics is for him, or at least a joint course.

It’s good to hear support is available - I have been impressed by some of the websites I’ve already looked at in terms of SEND offer. Nothing like my own experiences.

He hasn’t picked his other three unis but declared yesterday that he intended them all to be aspirational as he thought he would do so much better than his predictions. I think seeing the school’s definition of aspirational was a bit sobering - obviously he hadn’t bothered to read any of the material when they sent it to him originally.

There’s been some great advice, thank you.

If he finds FM too hard then you have an added reason to give him not to apply to the top ranking universities. Let him know that the maths in both top ranking physics and mathematical CS courses will harder than FM from the first year. Also although he may not much like coding at the moment, physics will require coding.

This is the sort of course that might suit him
www.lancaster.ac.uk/natural-sciences/

Well, he is doing two facilitating subjects which is very good - maths and physics so although not all universities have that concept etc it remains a good idea to have at least 2 of those traditional and harder A levels. I can see keeping on the further maths is popular at some universities - eg www.trin.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate/applying/a-level-subject-combinations/

My 5 children tended to follow what the school said and had a distinctly easier back up just in case although one son was so sure he would get good A levels he didn't really have an easier one on the list (and he did get his grades for Bristol - none of my 5 tried Oxbridge and indeed may well not have got in). Last 2 are about to finish their final year now....end of an era other than post grad.

At least he wants to apply and is determined so probably best just to let him pick his very difficult 5 of them and then if he doesn't get the grades he can look in clearing. We just don't know yet ow his year will be - there may be loads of people applying because this year's lot decide to defer due to CV19 or may be it will be a lot on line then too so everyone is choosing not to bother going and trying to get jobs instead (I doubt that).

Do we know if he will have actual exams next summer or whether there still might be grades based on mocks and that kind of thing? I suppose no one knows.

Asd is very varied so there is no blanket rules. Dd excelled at gcse but struggled at a level because of the change in school and poor teaching (ironically the school she was at for gcse was in special measures but they really had the right support for her).

As to which university, they vary in teaching style and support for asd students. She stayed living at home because living away would have cause extreme anxiety, halls are her idea of hell. Some universities have small group teaching eg Aston, 2 of my friends kids are at Warwick doing physics and both hate it (they both have asd, no support they say). Dd stayed local, slightly less prestigious university but course in top 10 in the country and the asd support is amazing, fortnightly meeting with her asd support person, university counselling service for 10 sessions per term, special area of the library with tea making facilities and chill out area and support worker if it gets busy on campus etc. We live close, walking distance so an easy choice.

Op: do you have a university he could commute to? Would this be an option?

I think the gentle message has to be that aspirational can mean all sorts of universities to different people. He might be willing to move away from wildly aspirational if you could look at on line prospectuses etc? What might excite him about a university not in the top 10?

My take on this would be to be really supportive (which you sound like you are) and enthusiastic and keep reminding yourself and him that there are always options. Lots and lots and lots of options. Look at the numbers of kids who get into Uni with clearing! It's huge. Also it's not unusual to switch courses or Unis.

He sounds like a really intelligent lad - there will be something for him out there even if it takes him a while to find it.

The not taking notes thing is infuriating - two of mine didn't and it used to drive me crazy (I didn't let them know) It was made worse because the other two made beautiful annotated cross referenced perfect notes. It was such a contrast.

They have all graduated now and it didn't make any difference to anyone's outcome.

Thanks again for this thread DD was given the diagnosis and we were all left to pick up the pieces... Hardly any support for her or us. She has black and white thinking and we find it hard to get through to her (plus of course she is a teen) She will not consider any other options other than the 3 a levels other than Maths, Further Maths and physics as online study. Her maturity is lacking in some areas, so I'm pleased that she has come to the decision to sit her A levels in the Autumn as I don't think she has matured enough yet for Uni (accepting though that Uni will help her grow up)

Keeping everything crossed that it works out for her, meanwhile I'm super stressed

My sister managed to nudge her ASD middle child towards a university better suited to her (campus, not too far from home, not top for the course but still good). She's loved it. Previously like your DS she was only considering aspirational courses some of which were in places not great on student support. Sister took it slowly over a couple of years even arranging visits to particular uni cities on days of open days to visit family/friends and suggesting they pop to the open day for an hour. Sister was a bit sneaky in that she arranged trips to the aspirational unis at the busiest times (niece hates crowds) and signed them up to tours around catered halls and shared rooms (another big no). When niece actually applied she dropped 2 out of the 3 original aspirational choices and added two of her own choice (which my sister had nudged her towards). She got an offer from her one aspirational choice but didn't firm it (not sure if my sister even had to nudge)

When I studied physics (at Cardiff, so Russell Group with entry requirements AAB/ABB) Maths at A level was rated far more important than Physics (they actually accept students who haven't taken a Physics A level provided they have A* maths), and anyone who hadn't achieved at least an A had to do an extra module to 'catch up'. If he's finding Further Maths difficult or not enjoyable now then it might be worth having a look at course modules and work examples so he can see just how much maths is involved.

My first year compulsory units were 2 core maths modules, 1 mechanical maths module, a computational skills (data handling using python) module, and only 2 (still maths heavy) modules and labs which your DS might recognize as Physics from his A level. Each of the maths modules was higher level than AS further maths.

I dont mean to discourage, just make sure hes aware before going in that it's going to be very different to Physics lessons hes done at school. A lot of people do drop off these courses because it's not what they expected.

Xenia - universities dropped facilitator subjects in 2019.

Yes, but it still remains a good idea to have at least 2 facilitation subjects and they are a good indication for parents who may not know some A levels might be better regarded than others. Anyway this person is doing maths and physics - two very good such A levels so it is all good.

You can still apply to Cardiff to do Physics without Physics A level but it ups the maths grade required.

DD is planning to apply for physics and I've contacted a few uni admissions departments to ask specific questions about the a levels she is doing ( yes I know she should contact them herself but hey ho).

York and Leeds replied v quickly... still waiting for others.

Interesting what Ironoaks said about Bath dropping its offer in clearing to BBB . I spoke to a young woman representing Bath at the 6th form evening and asked her specifically that question- if they ever dropped their offers for physics..... 'No, we never do, we want the As and A stars only..' yeah , right...

Don't forget clearing for Bath might have been around single figure places. You cannot expect that to happen every year. Universities do find it harder to fill science subjects so many are not that choosy. However, does Bath have a track record of places in clearing for Physics, or was it a one off? Have they now reduced the number of students they take or have they continued with the bums on seats model of BBB in clearing?

As autism is a recognised disability many universities (including Durham) to make allowances. I would suggest letting him do his research and apply. The very worst that can happen is he doesn’t like it and wants to change to a different type of degree at the same uni - that’s not a big deal.

Are the "allowances" a meaningful reduction in grades required or practical help when the disabled student has been accepted though?

It can be both. I have a nephew with autism who is studying another subject there - he was given a reduced offer and support.

@Extracurricularfatigue firstly I apologise as I haven’t read the whole thread.
My DS has Aspergers, started university last September.
In my experience he was only given one contextualised offer with a grade drop (Reading) no others gave lower offer due to his ASD.
He didn’t get his predicted grades and his first choice uni (Birmingham) did not accept him, he went to his insurance uni.
My DS is a gamer as well, I hate to say this first year has not gone well. He stopped going to lectures mid second term (we did not know).
He now has to take several units again in July/August to try and pass the year, it’s all very stressful.
He’s had very little support at university.
In hindsight I wish he had put Bath as his first choice, (they may have accepted his lower grades as his course was in clearing last year) as they are much more supportive and have a proven track record for students with Autism.