Looking for a University

[Georgieporgie29]

My DS is just coming to the end of his first year of A Levels. Should we be looking at universities now? He doesn’t know what he wants to do after college and even if he wants to go to uni. I feel lost and not sure if we should be looking but then if he doesn’t know what he wants to do then how do we know which uni’s to look at. What would you suggest? Is there a tick list of uni’s we should go though?

As he’s sporty he’ll want to check out the sports facilities too then. Some unis have much better ones on site than others.

Thanks for that, hadn't realised. What a shame.

I think geography can lead to either very specialised niches (the most out-there example I've heard of - literally! - is research on features of other planets ) or to many of the more generalist roles, or law conversion etc.

Yes, there's only the very specific Cambridge version left now, I think.

Iirc, one of the ussues was that people had difficulty understanding the ins and outs of it and where it differed from Clearing etc, especially the bit about having to have met and exceeded the existing firm offer, probably.

His school should be giving him plenty of advice on this! Check out the UCAS website for help.

What are your dc's best subjects? Projected grades? Do they really want to go to Uni?

I think it would be helpful to look at some Uni’s just so he can feel inspired or actually know he’s not interested. As people said there’s all sorts of courses although my experience is that studying without a career in mind is a too risky for the amount of debt.

How about something like the armed forces? He’d like the sporty side but also get some excellent skills and a reasonable wage. Logistics or intelligence might fit with his A levels.

And one thing to know is you don’t have to have always done an a level in a subject to do a degree in it. I’d no idea I could have done a law degree, wish I’d known that! I thought you had to have done law A level.

Did he miss all this in school? They should have made a big fuss about applying before last Christmas (the deadline is in mid January but 95% of schools complete the process before the Christmas holiday)

He is not too late to apply(yet) but his options may be much reduced the longer he waits, if he is not sure about what he wants, he may be better off taking a year off.

He’s in year 12 so will be applying by Jan 2023, plenty of time. Tho now is a good time to be thinking over his options for sure.

Hi, OP -

I am that rare (and, in my case, former) STEM admissions tutor who believes that gap years can be an equally fine thing in our fields as in other areas. I joined in to warn you that if your DS were interested in STEM, then much as I personally disagree wit it, there is a widespread though not absolutely prohibitive fear of gap years.

Then I saw his AL choices. I don’t know where he is interested in applying, but if he wants to study Economics I think it would be prudent to check with the admissions tutors about their views on gap years. The reason is that the fear in STEM is based in forgetting your Maths, and some Econ programmes are heavily Maths based.

If your DS is intent on a career in Finance then Econ is a much better choice than Geography, I think. However I would prefer to see him follow his intellectual interests! I believe Geography is one of those fields that can flexibly lead to various really interesting careers. Best wishes

DD took a gap year @poetryandwine. She asked a couple of admissions tutors if this would be detrimental, they both replied that all students forget what they have studied at A level anyway and a gap year would be no problem.

She is just about to graduate from studying a STEM degree.

One idea might be just book in to whichever is your local University. Some young people are enthused after visiting a University and talking to students there, and looking round. There is absolutely no commitment to doing anything after that. In fact, I seem to remember that my ds's school took them to the local University to an event (I don't think it was the normal open day, it must have been specifically for local 6th formers - but I know I went to a parents' talk there in the early evening).

dc3 (and I for that matter) found about about all sorts of subjects we hadn't specifically heard of / she hadn't considered) on a couple of visits we did. Subjects that aren't studied at school.

Take time out. Unis don't care if you're 18 or 25 when you apply. And working actually looks good on the application.

Don't let him spend £50k doing a degree when he doesn't know which one to do.

@RampantIvy I hope people are becoming more flexible. For one thing we cannot attract mature students with the fear I mentioned. But it isn’t that long since I was on the wrong side of many 3-2 or even 4-1 decisions concerning well qualified gap year or mature applicants to my School.

And we attracted some wonderful gap year students I thought belonged at the COWI institutions. My sense a few years ago was that most gap year students in STEM were ending up about half a level down from where they belonged. (Of course that wasn’t true of those in exceptional circumstances).

Are you on WIWIKAU OP? That's a really helpful site too

I’ve spent today sitting with Dd discussing uni options, it’s non negotiable for a degree ax she wants to go into teaching.

They are 15 months away, do they have any subject they are interested in, mine wants to do history..

Weve made a shortlist of options which she’s happy to go to, mainly vities about 2 hours away that she feels she’s get the grades for and offer the course content.

Her reluctance beforehand has meant we’ve missed open days.

Thank you for all your posts, they are really appreciated.
we have a bit of a plan. He would like to go down the Economics route so that’s what we’ll be looking at. We were going to sit down this weekend and make our list of universities, however, he has Covid and I’m cev so we’re staying apart at the moment. We will be doing this next weekend instead. I spoke to his college last week and they said there will be trips in sep/oct he can go on to look at universities and there’s plenty of time yet 🤷🏼‍♀️
he’s predicted b’s in his a levels at the moment with scope to do better if he starts knuckling down.
thanks again for all your advice, any recommendations for good uni’s doing economics? 🤪

Her reluctance beforehand has meant we’ve missed open days.

Have you / she already looked and none of the ones she is interested in do? Many universities do have open days in the autumn. Even if not, you can usually at least book campus tours, which often continue over the summer.

any recommendations for good uni’s doing economics?

If you have a look through old threads in this section I'm sure you'll find some on which are the best for Economics although I suppose it might depend on what he wants to do with his degree afterwards

If he's sporty then Loughborough is worth a look. www.lboro.ac.uk/sport/sports/

Thanks, I’ll have a look through old threads and at Loughborough too

I recommend the Facebook page WIWIKAU

what I wish I knew about university

It's for parents mainly and full of ideas, advice and others doing what you're looking at doing.

He needs to start researching and possibly going to open days.

It's a very good page ☺️

Thank you, I’ve joined 😊

@Georgieporgie29

Good website we looked at was 'What Uni'' and if your DS knows what he wants to do then its great. It will provide courses, or courses close to it.

Not sure what he wants to do?
www.whatuni.com/degrees/courses/ scroll down to what course shall I do, and you pop in your alevels, and see what pops up. DD is in year 12 and is choosing zoology/animal behavior and is going to some unis in July, september and October and November.

Once you put the course in the search it brings up all the unis that do it, and by clicking into the course it also brings up a breakdown of the modules, and grade requirements, and student satisfaction :)