University for Middling Achievers

[goosebumps]

Please tell me you plans/or experiences for university for your year 12 kids (either now or in the past) who are not all A star grades and 9's at gcses. But rather 5's and 6's with maybe a single 7 and A level predictions of C's and B's (on a good day). MN is so full of the high achievers (which is obviously great) so it would be nice to hear about the
dc's who still work (reasonably) hard and want/had the uni experience. What are the best places to apply and can they get just as much out of uni as the high flyers?

Depends on subject and area really. Popular with my students are NTU, Lincoln, Sheffield Hallam, Bournemouth, De Montfort, Leicester, Reading. My students tend towards M1 corridor. DS1 went to Lincoln.

the first link below lets you search by predicted grades / UCAS points. The other two also have a lot of info.

https://www.universityfinder.org.uk/

https://discoveruni.gov.uk/

https://www.unifrog.org/

For my DC who was as you described, we looked at a mix of universities and alternative routes into careers. DC's school was great and children of this kind of ability. They used to advise that you should be flexible with degree choice and open to wider courses e.g. if you are interested in English and advertising look at courses in journalism, creative writing, marketing etc. If you are interested in Geography look at Real estate, land management, argiculture, building and surveying, wildlife conservation etc. Often these more specific courses have lower grade requirements but you need to show specific experience and interest.

DC and peers did the following...

• Reading uni, Oxford Brookes are two known as good for slightly lower grades
• Buckingham uni (two year degree)
• Some top unis like Bristol have some good more specific degrees like I mentioned above such as animal behaviour (DC's friend now works with police dogs) and many others - dig around on their website
• If arty, graphic design, textiles courses, product design (Loughborough and Leeds have some good courses)
• Norland nanny or nursery teaching routes

Not uni but would still get the experience of being part of a cohort, meeting new people, shared journey

• Army or navy
• Go straight into school leaver programmes in estate agency, shipping, marketing, insurance firms

Completely non-uni routes

• Emergency services - firefighter, ambulance driver/heli rescue
• Apprenticeships with firms like Deloitte, Unilever etc
• Social media or marketing short courses - often jobs advertised for marketing assistants at smaller workplaces are then a good entry route

Do you know what subject and/or potential career your DC wants to do?

Parents of non high fliers www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/4782892-parents-of-non-high-fliers

This was a good thread 😊

Buckingham uni (two year degree)

Not an option for most students. You can only get a tuition fee loan of £6,125 a year and have to pay the remaining £6,547 a year out of your parents' own pocket.

@Jazzzebra that looks like really good advice for kids. What a good school.

My friend's son is at Lincoln and has secured a great 3rd year in industry in business/economics. My nephew went to Portsmouth to do geo-engineering with Bs/C's in maths physics and geology. Again, he easily got a 3rd well paid placement and graduate job.

Subject matters a lot. Portsmouth, Northumbria, de Montfort, Sheffield Hallam, Nottingham Trent are all b's and c's territory. In less popular subjects places like Aston, Newcastle, Leicester will make offers but tends to be arts not sciences

3rd year that should say. Not a 3rd. He got a 1st and only one of a few in his cohort so he found his niche and excelled. Don't write off B and C kids. Degrees are assessed in different ways from A levels. If you find your thing and do it at the wrote university, you can do well without As and A stars at A levels.

Thank you all for taking time to reply and there's some really good advice. It's interesting a couple have mentioned Lincoln. We've seen the previous thread on that and it looks a good option. My DC is interested in Sociology or Education (or maybe a mix of both). Vaguely thinking about primary teaching but not too sure yet. Does anyone know much about Bishop Grosseteste uni which is also in Lincoln and looks like it has lower offer grades 🤔

Totally agree 😁. And it's great to hear how well these kids can do.

Great thread. Also worth looking at apprenticeships https://www.apprenticeships.gov.uk/

Lincoln is a good deal better than Bishop Grot, as it is affectionately called! BG well known for education stuff, however.

For Education, look also at Winchester. It's worth considering Reading, too. Education is not a hugely popular degree so not massively hard to get an offer. Sociology is widely offered , so lots of options there!

Another vote for Reading, it’s a lovely green campus with a good range of facilities. Accommodation locally in good supply and not overly expensive.

As a parent I value having a happy child at university doing a course they find interesting & making good friends & that’s what mine has had at Reading

Thank you. We are slightly put off by Bishop grosseteste also just because it's so hard to pronounce 🤣🤣. Will have a look at Reading too. Thank you.

University of Essex. Grades on the website are often ABB, but a look at discoveruni.gov.uk will tell you that the grades achieved by candidates are (much) lower.

My oldest son went to Reading when he did not get his grades for Exeter.

There are some excellent non RG unis around. And it is quite common for students who didn't thrive at school to do well in a specific subject that they love.

Places like Oxford Brookes, Kingston, Middlesex, Portsmouth - I know students who have absolutely thrived in these unis and gone on to have fantastic careers despite being average or below at school

Thats interesting @Xenia, I thought all your lot only went to Bristol and only considered Law as a career worth having. What did he think of Reading? Ms DS has it as his insurance choice and really liked it (predicted ABB, offer ABB, mainly 7s at GCSE) and I was amazed how nice a campus it was compared to many others I saw.

OP, despite the Law/Big4/Medicince/Oxbridge mafia mums on MN, there are many great options for the non hyper academic kids and lots of other career options outside of Law, Medicine and Finance, many just as well-paying. Essex, Surrey, Reading, Lancaster have some good options at the AAB/ABB level we found as they arent hampered by the RG label which automatically compels them to demand AAA plus for everything, despite near identical course content (in the subject my DS is looking at anyway) plus the ex-polys like Nottingham Trent, Oxford Brookes, Manchester Met have some good options for BBB/BBC. Leicester, Lincoln were more like BBC/BCC for my DS subject. A lot will be subject specific - Business and Economics degrees are at a premium at the moment seemingly.

You would never know it on here but plenty of kids that get Bs and Cs go on to have very good and very well paid careers and often get great degrees. I work with these kids on a daily basis but the highly academic Russell Group brigade (of which I am one) dont like to aknowledge it as they worry it devalues the more academic route.

There are some of us here who have children unlikely to get a raft of stellar grades- it's astonishing how on an anonymous Internet forum there seems to be such a skewed population of genius offspring. 🤔

DS looked at Oxford Brookes, Man Met, Plymouth, Aberystwyth and Aston. His offers for International Relations (some with another option attached) were from 104 to 112 points. I think that's BCC- BBC. Took the Aberystwyth scholarship exam and was offered an unconditional place. He's already decided it was his firm choice so he's happily accepted it.

It's definitely worth looking at the less fashionable universities as they offer some really interesting courses in brilliant places. Also, there are lots of chances to swap to other courses once you get there. Aberystwyth were very upfront about the ability to change to related courses if you think you've made the wrong choice.

Loughborough and Sheffield Uni routinely score really well in the league tables, but have more realistic entry criteria. We've had 2 cousins in the family both attend each recently with BBB.

Friend's son did hnc, hnd, then into year three of a four year degree ( in Scotland). He needed the structure in the first two years but meant he was much more ready for the step up in work because it was gradual.

One of mine got an A, two Bs but mostly Cs at gcse, worked really hard for A level and came out with all B. Went to Man met, got a first, and now has a fantastic job doing exactly what she wanted to do (as do several of her friends who went there).

Oh, that's great. Aberystwyth is amazing for IR!

There are some of us here who have children unlikely to get a raft of stellar grades- it's astonishing how on an anonymous Internet forum there seems to be such a skewed population of genius offspring. 🤔

This is so true. It can be quite disheartening to look at the usual higher education threads when nearly all dc's seem to be planning on Oxford. Thanks for all the great suggestions of alternatives. We're having a good read through all replies.

My son is going to Worcester this year to do Computing

He has a very average set of GCSEs and did a level 3 Btec last year. He was 10 UCAS points short but has been given a contextual offer.
I adopted him 11 years ago when he was 8. He did not speak till he was 5 and was in special school until he was 10 because of the developmental delay. He also has autism.
I have no idea what the future holds. I do know my boy works his socks off, he wants to be the same as his friends so I will support him in that decision. He deserves the opportunity.