University applications for 2023 entry

[Thepaintedgarden]

Is there a general thread already? Please can someone post a link if there is and I'll get this one deleted. I couldn't see one.
My dc2 is applying this autumn.
Currently Bristol, Leeds and Manchester are definitely on the list and the other 2 look as though they will be between Exeter, Nottingham and Birmingham.
Not even started personal statement yet but I think they think it'll take half an hour 🙄.

@ Silverfalls:
Great geology/geoscience at Bristol and Exeter if going west, Imperial and UCL in London. Then Southampton is good in south, Birmingham and Nottingham in the midlands.

Also Plymouth and Royal Holloway (the latter in particular really punches above it’s weight in earth sciences and might suit your son if he wants a gentler campus closer to home).

Very quiet here as DS is doing some of his EPQ reading and notes. He’s applying to uni this year: politics/ international relations/ Asian language combination.

Short listed for far: Manchester (both), Sheffield, Aberystwyth, Aston, Oxford Brookes….

Not to mention, choosing a university for all the famous academics from there you keep seeing and whose research you keep hearing about in the media leads to an awful lot of disappointment when you discover that they spend 99% of their time doing the things you keep seeing / hearing about them in the media for, and the other 1% nowhere near an undergraduate either

Ha, yes, I've been banging this drum for years, @NoNotHimTheOtherOne and @MarchingFrogs. Quality and quantity of research at a university are almost entirely irrelevant to a teenage undergraduate. It's a worthwhile consideration at Masters and beyond, where you might actually be working with one these renown academics, but not for a first degree.

Furthermore renowned academics are quite likely to want to focus on their own research and if they lecture/tutor at all it might be grudgingly. The majority of undergraduates would be better off with someone who wants to teach, but is in higher education because they prefer to work with older students.

@Delphigirl thank you for this. Currently on his list are Bristol, Birmingham, Leicester, Southampton and UEA. Nottingham no longer does geology/earth science. Will look again at RHUL. Would you let university rankings have any sway or is accreditation more important?

Favourite course so far are at Bristol and Leicester. Bristol could be a problem as he disliked the noisy and busy feel when we went for a walk around the city. He has much preferred the campus type at Birmingham and Loughborough.

He is also a classical musician so music scholarships and orchestras are really important and just add another factor into a diminishing choice 😀

Hi silverfalls - I’m not an expert, I just looked very closely at this when my DS was thinking about geoscience (he decided on oceanography instead which is sort of like natural sciences of the sea, plus added geology!). Yes I have heard Leicester is v good and I might have meant Leicester when I said Nottingham. Sorry! But I can’t advise re accreditation. Hopefully someone else will be along who can.

It is really important that he feels happy in the place, but I would also say that from what I have seen geoscience depts are usually small enough, and students get thrown together on field trips and labs right from the start, that people get to know each other well and become quite a tight cohort. So although Bristol the uni and halls are busy and possibly individuating, the city is small and great and the sept is close knit. I have another son at Birmingham and he really likes it but the scuzziness of Selly Oak (where they all live in 2nd and 3rd years) can get him down. So it’s swings and roundabouts I guess.
re music - Southampton and RHUL have fantastic music departments (RHUL probably top 5 in the Uk) - Cardiff is full of music - Bristol and Brum should be good for music opportunities too. I don’t know much about Leicester or UEA.

Intimidating, not individuating whatever the hell that means!

@silverfalls RHUL does music and orchestral scholarships for those studying any degree
www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studying-here/fees-and-funding/undergraduate/scholarships-and-bursaries/scholarships/music-scholarships/

I have no drum to bang for RHUL they are just v good at geoscience and music and seem possibly to fit what your son may be looking for - worth a look

@Delphigirl Good to know about the department sizes. Hoping Bristol will have another open day later in the year as the September one is full. I know what you mean about Birmingham, loved the campus but cannot see my ds thriving in a city environment. A quiet campus with quick links to a bigger city seemed to appeal more. He really liked Loughborough but no geology and the music opportunities are smaller, lots of sports though!

Glad to hear your son is enjoying oceanography, is he at southampton?

Gap year - he didn’t like the city of Southampton and so will go to Plymouth

Edinburgh is changing it's admissions to attempt to increase diversity in the RUK group.

www.ed.ac.uk/news/2022/student-admissions-change-to-increase-diversity

I'm in! DD is looking to study Politics with International Relations and is particularly interested in a year abroad. Currently considering:

Kent
Sussex
Brighton
Bristol
Bath
Canterbury
Surrey

and randomly - Hull

Fair few visits coming up!

@silverfalls If I can help - please ask away - have DS1 who now works as a Geologist finished degree in 2020 and Masters October/November 2021. We visited Leicester, Portsmouth, Keele, Birmingham, Cardiff, Royal Holloway, also Exeter Penryn unis. What were his A levels and what is he doing at college. Think all of these fit with your rules around unis.

@Fruitygal we have now added Cardiff and RHUL to our visit list. Liked Exeter but the lack of music is a no go. He got an A star in geology above his chemistry and that is making him look more into the geology/geoscience courses. College courses are in law and business for a year to strengthen his essay writing after science A levels.

Did your son find that masters was necessary for a job? We are currently looking at the Bsc and Msci 4 year courses (with study abroad) and can't quite make out the difference apart from a research project.

Does he feel that there are enough opportunities to move around in the field as he progresses?

DS2 is wanting to study Chemistry, possibly the integrated masters over four years and is considering York, Liverpool,
Nottingham, Lancaster and Sheffield.
Hasn't started his PS. Very laid back about the whole thing.
DS1 heads back to Notts next weekend. Absolutely loving his time there.

.

@silverfalls i wouldn’t recommend MSci especially as he’s a bright able student given his geology grade.

Universities love up selling the MSci but it’s not a degree and a masters it’s a way of guaranteed 4 year income for the uni.

If you are able and choose a top five uni you will probably get a good job with no MSc but the MSc shows a strong research skills strength and gets you the interview for job. DS1 got a £3000 award towards his MSc from his uni as he had performed well. Not tying into one uni with MSci means you can move for your masters to a place that might have better research lecturers to support your particular research area. Masters can be a taught masters with taught modules and a research project OR a research masters with only research but much more involved.

If my DS1 was doing this again we would have advised a BSc or BEng with a placement year. Often job in placement gives you a job offer at the end then you can return for final uni year and make up mind either to take job, do a MSc and defer job or take MSc and find a different or improved job when you finish.

Can I join in? Daughter has just started Y13, and I could do with some advice. She wants to do maths, and her predicted grades before the summer were A in maths and further maths, A in chemistry, A in physics. She did an AS in further maths in May, and got an A, which is the highest grade at AS, and she was a fair way over the grade boundary. However, her maths teacher has decided he's only going to predict her an A in further maths for UCAS, rather than an A. I can't work out his reasoning behind this? He just says it looks bad for the school if they over predict? None of this would matter, apart from she'd quite like to at least try to get into Oxford - I don't think she'd be massively disappointed if she didn't get in, but she would like to have the opportunity to at least try. Her other choices are Bristol, York, Bath + one other. I could see her being very happy at Bristol or York.

She's in a real quandary about it. She's got mock exams at the end of this month, and her teacher has said that if she gets an A in the mock, he'll put her predicted grade up, BUT if she carries on with her Oxford application, she needs to get her personal statement finished and revise for the entrance exam, all whilst revising for the mock, so she's worried she won't be able to put in the revision that she needs to do. However, if she drops the Oxford idea, she won't have the personal statement to do (yet) or entrance exam, so she reckons she'll comfortably get an A in the mock.

I think she's pretty much decided she's going to drop physics, but the school are being funny about that as well, because of her 3rd A-level being further maths. But she just wants to do straight maths anyway!!

Aargh! In my previous post, wherever it's gone bold, is where I put A* for her grades!

You need to talk to him and say that you want a star predicted for FM to increase the chances of an oxbridge interview, and because it is perfectly justifiable. Be very clear. Increased prediction later is pointless if her application has already gone it. You need to eyeball him.

As a curveball have a look at Keele. Especially for medicine/science/politics as it is getting some excellent feedback.
As a teacher a fair few kids go/have been and love it

Not tying into one uni with MSci means you can move for your masters to a place that might have better research lecturers to support your particular research area.

I think integrated Masters for engineering courses are highly regarded, but in general I really agree with this from @Fruitygal. I strongly advised DD2 to change universities for her Masters as then it looks like a proactive choice rather than simply doing another year at a place where you feel comfortable. It also avoids the potential perception that you couldn't think what else to do!

In the event DD2 was able to 'upgrade' from a mid-rank university to one right at the top of the tree for her subject, and that resulted in getting directly involved in research which has since been published.

@Delphigirl Thank you, I wasn't sure if I was being too pushy about my DDs abilities, but I used to be a teacher, and I know, at my old school, we'd just predict her straight A stars with the grades she's currently getting in end of topic tests.

I suppose it bugs me that that one teacher has so much power over my DDs future. Fair enough if she was drifting along getting Cs and Ds or something - I'd be telling her to lower her expectations myself, never mind her teachers, if that were the case - but she's actually achieved an A on the AS exam already! And that's the highest grade at AS!

Her teacher seems to think that people have an innate ability for maths, and since my DD gets her grades by working hard (although she is clever as well), then this doesn't count?? Whereas I would say you have to be clever AND work hard to get A stars and get into Oxbridge.

The other thing that bugs me, is all the talk in the media of getting students from crap state schools into Oxbridge, but then it's exactly situations like this that stop them from getting in (her school got inadequate at the last OfSted - she's, honestly, pretty much taught herself in some subjects, especially during the lockdowns). If she didn't have an educated parent like me to advocate for her, she'd have just accepted his word and assumed it wasn't for her.

Go and say that! Say are you willing to support my daughters oxbridge ambitions or not? Why are you quibbling? Give him your best Paddington stare. He will fold. If he doesn’t, escalate to the head. Honestly I don’t take shit from anyone anymore, it is much more effective. Good luck !

@asastuz it would be a no no fi6r Oxford applications at least to drop physics as further maths isn't seen as a full A level. Her predicted grades given she's at an underachieving school won't count against her, its the entrance exam and her gcse grades that will matter most.

@RedHelenB For maths at Oxford, further maths is treated as a full A-level. She has to get A star in maths and further maths, and an A in another subject (3rd subject not specified). We've checked and double-checked it, and she definitely can drop the physics, so going into Y13 she'd do maths, further maths and chemistry.