To be OK with DS not aiming for the top?

[Devotedtomydogs]

DS2 has seen the amount of work DS1 gets at Cambridge and has no desire to apply there or to any other top tier RG uni. In any event, he would not get the grades for Oxbridge/Durham/St A etc - but his predictions suggest Bristol, Exeter, York etc would be feasible.

However, DS insists that he wants to go to a tier below that because he would rather thrive at a slightly ‘lesser’ uni than struggle at a top RG uni. He is not a particularly confident boy and hates being bottom of the class (he is at a super selective 6th form surrounded by DC predicted A stars, whereas he is predicted AAB and should achieve that but not higher).

He likes the look of Liverpool, Leicester and Cardiff so far but also has Nottingham and Newcastle on his list to visit. All v good universities and I am happy and understand DS’ reasoning. DH on the other hand says he should be aiming higher. What do people reckon?

My dc3 sounds similar OP. I think it's fine. Fwiw dc1 went to Swansea who will basically take anyone 😅 they loved it there, did really well and now have a good career and are very mentally well balanced. Dc2 went to high flying RG and really struggled. If your ds knows himself that's a great character trait.

Swansea is the unsung hero of universities!

My DD is at Birmingham doing law and French law. I didn't want her to study law in France (where we live) because she'd have had a miserable time. It's been the right choice for her.

Swansea seems like it's a bit of a hidden gem under the radar - also Leicester I think. Is the two campus thing a bit of a drawback at Swansea?

Not that I'm aware. Good bus service.

What a smart young man you have. The most important thing is where he thinks he will thrive.

recommend you read David & Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell, which explores the big fish small pond thing wrt unis, it’s fascinating.

I'm always baffled on MN by the drive to get into "the best" university at all costs. For a start "the best" is pretty subjective. IMO lots of the league table rankings criteria don't have a vast amount to do with the undergraduate experience, either in the classroom or outside of it.

And I think that it's important to choose somewhere you'll be happy to live for three years, so the soft stuff like size and location of campus, or whether you can continue your passion, be that windsurfing or playing in a full symphony orchestra, matters a lot too.

It's usually some lawyers on 6 figure salaries who won't countenance any university outside the top ten @TheTurn0fTheScrew. It is beyond their comprehension that not everyone wants to be a lawyer in a magic circle firm.

I was told by one such lawyer that my daughter's first class STEM degree from a not very high ranking RG university wasn't worth the paper it was written on.

Half of them are fantasists anyway, on here at least.

He should go to wherever he will be happy.

All of these universities you mention are good universities (and I say this as someone who recruits STEM graduates for a large global firm).

I quite agree.

Don't we all know many people who went to polytechnics back in the day, now the newer universities, and had great success in life? Or even those who didn't go on to higher education but were quite clever and capable, did on the job training and ended up with the top job.

(I 'get' the op's son is considering an 'old' university, not an ex-poly though there are some excellent courses at those. He knows where he will be comfortable and can thrive.)

DS is clever and is perfectly capable of following DD to a great uni.

However, he's also lazy ... but also has great insight. He's choosing to do a degree apprenticeship "because it will make me do the work, if I go to uni I'll just mess about with all the free time and it'll be a waste of money."

He needs to find the right course for him and his future plans and the style of Uni and location in which he will have the student experience that suits him best.

For someone who doesn’t like pressure, your DH’s attitude will alienate him.

Let him do the open days and make up his own mind. It’s his decision. Support him to thrive, on his own terms.

We had a bit of this with ours. A very academic sixth form suited DS who was naturally studious and enjoyed both education and having clever friends.

It was different for DD who is dyslexic. She made her mark on the sports field, was forecast top grades in 5 A levels, and generally enjoyed school, but clearly said no to considering any of the BMAT medical schools.

Essentially she felt that she had had enough of "over achievers". Even if she was as good as the others, and she is a natural mathematician, her slow processing speeds and inability to read aloud mean that she felt less good. (The problem was eventually solved by a few practical things: her being able to complete class tests in her own time, to avoid her getting 60% when the rest of the class were in the 90s; getting handouts or having another girl asked is she could copy their notes.) She knows where she wants to go, and does not feel she needs to engage in some of the the uber-competitiveness she saw at school.

She ended up spending a year at Imperial for her intercalation and in some ways enjoyed the focus of her fellow students. She had seen it before at school and survived. She was surprisingly delighted to get a better class degree than many of her friends. We had not realised the impact that having an academic older sibling can have on the younger one, even though there are a whole raft of things: cooking, driving, anything practical, where she is way ahead of him.

She is coming up to her foundation year and again is looking outside the box to an area that is normally low on people's lists, but with some glorious countryside, and a complete change for a London born child. The obvious choice would have been London or somewhere south, but she feels she will learn as much away from the pressures of stretched hospitals in the South East.

He should work backwards from where he wants to be after the 3 years - look at the linkedin profiles of newly hired graduates in the jobs he wants and see where they went and go from there.

Sorry if you’ve already mentioned it but which courses is he interested in?

Your child should apply where they want to go and where they think they will feel comfortable , be themselves and enjoy the course.

Both ds and dd were accepted into a RG university however after visiting it they decided that the people who attended were quite pretentious and the course really wasn’t any better at the RG uni than it was anywhere else. Both accepted courses at another university which has a great name in the or city of choice.

Going to university is for 4 years or more your teen has to feel they have made the right choice of course and university for them, where they can be themselves and express themselves too.