What should DS be aiming for in terms of Uni courses

[Mumski45]

DS is year 12 and considering his uni application. He is doing Maths Fr maths Physics and Chemisrty A level and is considering maths or engineering degrees, maths is currently the favourite. He is doing Maths A level this year and hoping for A star. He has GCSE's 9999998888. We don't have predicted grades yet but his year end exam results were Physics A star and Chemistry A (3 marks of A star).

He is expecting his predicted grade for Fr Maths will be A or A star.

He is looking at the top tier Unis for Maths. However I don't think he has much in the way of extracurricular stuff for his personal statement.

So far he has
A student job at Booths supermarket
An NCS course
Plays Rugby for school
Work experience at pharmaceutical distributor and granite supplier.
Mentoring younger kids in Maths at school
Supervises mentoring group after school
Some participation in extra maths activities at school but not sure exactly what
Will be a prefect in Year 13.

Please could I ask advice on whether this would be enough or if he should be doing more now whilst he has a bit of time over the summer and if so what.

TIA

Just be aware that Maths at Uni (esp Oxbridge) is a huge step up from A levels. If he is at all unsure then I’d recommend him looking at other subjects. Consider some less obvious ones such as Material Sciences, Earth Sciences, etc.

The "other maths activities" and the mentoring are relevant. The other extra curricular stuff should only feature in a last brief paragraph.

The single most useful thing for a maths PS is a track record in the UKMT Maths Challenges - if his school doesn't enter, then look in to doing it as an individual. Ideally he'd get through to at least the kangaroo, but a gold would also be useful.

Other prizes/competitions/workshops featuring maths and/or logic are definitely worthwhile (eg safe-cracking, physics, computing things) - in London that would include the Hans Woyda competition, no idea if there are similar for schools elsewhere.

Participation in online courses might help to show interest - but not just by listing them but by saying what he got from them, eg intro to engineering ones (If he decides on an engineering course rather than maths) to show he's got some idea what it's all about and what interests him.

Degree and uni choice decisions need to be firmed up within the next 6 months. As Tizer says, I would focus on info gathering and reflective thinking to support that decision-making rather than evidence-gathering for a PS. (...and decent info gathering and reflective thinking helps generate genuine and credible PS evidence as a by-product anyway).

Time and cost permitting, attend some summer Open Days at a variety of unis (not just super-competitive), making sure Engineering as well as Maths departments are visited and current students talked to. Yes, such events are slightly artificial, but help DC address the 'can I imagine studying this subject in this kind of environment'. For my maths-oriented DC, it helped them decide whether maths or, alternatively, maths& (ie maths joint with another subject) or a maths adjacent subject (eg CS, Phys, Eng) were more appealing.

If your DC has top uni aspirations, then it is important to become familiar with supplementary tests such as STEP, MAT and TMUA; there differences in approach, timing and requirement/benefit relative to different uni offers. If Maths looks like the most probable route, then your DC needs to be sure they enjoy the pure maths elements as these aspects only become more evident as you move through to uni-level maths.

If he’s interested in engineering have a look at the Smallpeice Trust summer courses to see if any of them fit with his interests.

Extra curricular activities are only useful(apart maybe from giving something to talk about at interviews) if they are directly relevant to the course. And even then, they don't carry much weight. It's obvious that they can't really. It's grades that are important, mostly!

@CurlewKate
Yes, the grades are important. However some unis look at the PS for tie breaking between candidates. Therefore universities such as Bristol do give guidance on the PS . It can matter.

Also engineers who are actually interested in engineering and find hobbies or courses that support that choice, actually make better engineers. It’s not necessarily the high achieving ones - they often go into finance. So being interested in engineering matters - certainly to employers!

I'd look at the changes to the personal statement from 2024, this shows the structured questions which students will be asked to answer. I think this gives a good guidance on what universities actually look for.

DS didn't mention any extra-curricular activities which were not directly linked to his course choices (International Relations and History type courses). So he talked about his experiences of Model UN, his EPQ (an obscure part of history linked to building a modern state), how his visits to parliaments (UK and abroad) had formed his thoughts and ideas about various things. He was very specific about the course-specific skills that these opportunities had developed.

He did talk about the fact that he learns a foreign language in his spare time, using an online tutor not at school. This was because he is applying for courses where a year/ semester in that country is an option.

No mention of subject ambassadorship (link a subject specific prefect), national level sports or part-time job. He got 4 offers before withdrawing from the 5th application as he was offered an unconditional offer after a scholarship exam. (no contextual flags, standard state secondary)

I'd really like to know any thoughts on this too as my DS is also thinking of applying for maths :)

The thing is, it's blatantly discriminatory to pay too much attention to extra curriculars. One hopes universities have got that message.

@CurlewKate I think top tier Universities definitely try to get the message out that academics are the focus but I don't know if parents hear it! Even after attending open days when presentations are explicit about what they are looking for...parents still think Oxbridge are interested in good grades plus Grade 8 piano or DoE 😀

My dt have hobbies (because that is what they are) and they are not relevant to the course they will apply for. I think it's why there is often upset when some dc don't get offers from the most competitive universities in the world because there is little understanding of the requirements.

Cambridge at the recent Open Day made it crystal clear that they are looking for students with a certain brain type that can study Maths sucessfully at their colleges. They have applicants from across the whole world to choose from and your PS isn't a real factor. Indeed a Director of studies said he doesn't read it as assumes it's written by the parents 😀

However I think hobbies are good habit for students as they can provide relief from academic pressure.

Reaffirming some of @TizerorFizz points, we found Bristol's clarity regarding their admissions criteria to be a level above the other places we looked at.

Individual PDFs per subject outlining exactly the weighting of GCSE to A Level grades; what they wish to see in a personal statement etc, for example:

1.3 Personal statement criteria
We may refer to the personal statement and reference to differentiate between applicants
with similar academic profiles. In these cases, we use the following criteria:
• Interest in the discipline
• Evidence of independence and responsibility
• Evidence of outstanding achievement, including academic excellence

Is there a reason he is doing maths a year early>? That is very unusual and not what universities want as being able to do all your A levels at the same time is the usual challenge.

He has good grades so sounds a good idea to aim for Oxbridge, Durham, Bristol Warwick etc

DS is a Maths undergrad at Oxford - he applied for Oxford, Imperial, Warwick and had offers for all. Honestly, these top tier universities are not bothered about D of E, work experience, they just care about the subject and passion for it. DS's personal statement was essentially a long list of super curricular Maths lectures he had attended, performance in UKMT challenges, books he had read and a special mention of a particular area he had self researched. Literally 1 line about playing the piano and bass right at the end.

I continue my one woman campaign to free the young people of the country from non consensual Duke of Edinburgh awards....

@Xenia, Some schools adopt the approach of having a ringfenced combined M/FM set who cover all the Maths syllabus in Y12 with the aim of sitting it at the end of that year. The whole group only look at FM syllabus at the start of Y13 and then do all of that in time for the exam period at the end of Y13.

There are arguments for and against the approach. My DC went through the 'in parallel across Y12-13' approach, which suited them better and which I prefer.

An obvious risk is that someone narrowly misses an Astar in Maths at the end of Y12 as they have not quite got into their stride and this is why some Maths departments offer 'Astar in either Maths or FM'. However, others, such as U of Bath, stipulate that the Astar must be achieved in the Maths A-level.

Extracurricular is very diverse and works for US universities more than UK. US universities prefer an all rounder with wide range of activities and mentoring and work experience.
Check out https://us.suttontrust.com/ They help UK students and financial aid etc.

FWIW - www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings/mathematics

My DS1 wasn’t keen on Oxford or Cambridge, he was from a normal comp and felt uncomfortable on open days in both places. He therefore only took STEP 1 and applied for Warwick as his top choice and Nottingham, Exeter, Birmingham and Southampton.

He got 3 x A* maths, FM and physics, got a 1 in STEP 1 and went to Warwick. He loved it there and got a first. Warwick offer was either 3x A star or 2x A star A plus grade 1 in STEP. The other 4 were all AAA. In retrospect he could have applied to Durham or Imperial but Durham was too ‘posh’ and Imperial too expensive. His sixth form went for parallel maths and FM taken in Y13.

His personal statement mentioned UKMT competitions and maths tuition he has done with younger pupils. Some books he’d read, Fermat’s Last Theorem etc and a maths masterclass programme he’d taken part in run by Bristol University in Y9, and then he’d volunteered to help at the same masterclass programme when he was in Y12. He’d been on a physics residential run by Villiers Park Trust in between Y11 and Y12. He very briefly mentioned Explorer Scouts and Silver DofE as extracurriculars.

His offers came in so quickly that he didn’t feel they’d even looked at his PS and that his predicted grades (and AS levels, still a thing for maths back then) were good enough to get him offers. Your DS’s GCSE grades are very good, should stand him in good stead.

Oh yes, Bristol and Bath unis were too close to home!

@HawaiiWake
"Extracurricular is very diverse and works for US universities more than UK. US universities prefer an all rounder with wide range of activities and mentoring and work experience."

How appallingly unfair!

Thank you all for your thoughts. As I suspected whilst he has a number of different activities under his belt I think he needs to show more super curricular maths stuff.

I particularly like the strategy suggested by @PerpetualOptimist which is to go on visits and do activities which will help him decide between Maths and Engineering and by default that will give him stuff to put in his statement which genuinely helped him decide.

I think if he follows his heart he would go for some type of engineering as he loves doing projects. He did DT and Art at GCSE and really enjoyed combing the 2 into real world tasks. However his head is leading him down the Maths route as it leaves options open and he thinks it will lead to a more lucrative career.

With respect the early Maths A level, I didn't think it was that unusual for students doing Fr maths. As far as I am aware the school have been doing this for a while and regularly have a good number of students going on to Oxbridge.

DS wants to spend some time with me this weekend looking at the UCAS process as they have been given their login data and set up their accounts this week. Next job is to register for some open days and get him thinking about how he makes up his mind about which corses to do. Good luck to all those in the same boat this year.

@CurlewKate MN is littered with DC who, for example, visit foreign Parliaments, go on paid for courses, attend master classes, go abroad to learn a MFL, and so on. These are not free! Parents pay. DofE is cheap by comparison and at least shows effort by the student!

I think if a Dc gets suitable work experience through their own effort, and not via the connections of parents, it’s worth more. Especially if they learn from it. So is finding out about engineering projects and engineers. So many elements of a PS can be paid for activities. That’s not what a PS should be about.

Maths and engineering grads can earn plenty but it depends what you want out of a job besides money. DH ran his own company. It made plenty of money. He’s loved being the boss! Being a wage slave was never what he would want!

Really don’t worry about doing Maths in Yr 12 and Further Maths in Year 13. My DD’s college do it this way and hasn’t been a problem at all - she has an offer from Oxford (STEM but not Maths).

We did attend the Oxford Maths Open Day last year and the admissions guy (James Munro - also runs the Oxford Online Maths Club which is amazing by the way) said it doesn’t matter how the two Maths are taught as they recognise it is a decision made by the school or college and not one the applicant has any control over.

However his head is leading him down the Maths route as it leaves options open and he thinks it will lead to a more lucrative career.

It is true that the combination of statistics with programming skills makes it easier to tick boxes for sone quant type jobs. Those positions are not client facing normally. Engineers with their skills (maths, teamwork, scientific and sector knowledge etc) will have the full range of city careers open to them if they also have the required personal attributes. That includes city law. Maths will close down engineering careers which your DS may well find more interesting in the future.

Love the assumption that lucrative careers are only available in The City @sendsummer