Yr 13 DD head in sand

[Tara24]

DD has no idea what she wants to do . She says she regrets her A level choices and wishes she had done better at her science GCSEs. She refuses to visit universities and hasn't started her personal statement.

I've tried everything I can think of to help, but it ends in an argument.

The school have a careers guidance person who has spoken to her, but no change.

I'm at a loss. I've suggested a gap year or just applying for a general type degree to keep options open. She just says she hates studying but she also says she wants to go to university. 🤔

Anyone had one like this? Please give me hope.

@timetochangethering put it brilliantly.

How shitty.

Would some form of journalism suit her?

@Tara24 Does DD understand that undertaking a foundation year can be at the university a student wants to study at, so it feels like any other UG experience? DD could get onto the foundation year at Southampton (for example) and then continue directly onto the degree of her choice. https://www.southampton.ac.uk/courses/foundation-years/engineering-physics-maths-geophysics.page#entryrequirements%0AA__

There are lots of open days coming up in October so it is worth a few visits to see whether they help her to make any decisions.

If she’s arty, is doing film studies and psychology, and loves computer games then game design is the obviously choice surely? Bournemouth probably the best known but also offered by ACM in Guildford and UCA in Farnham - both have very strong links to the Guildford games industry.

It may be bluntly put but it’s absolutely true, if something doesn’t work out when it’s something a young person is pushed into by someone else, that is setting up a whole host of problems

I haven't been in your position but as a kid I probably needed help to understand that everything is OK, there is no rush, the world o
Is your oyster etc. She sounds a bit 'in her head' and needs to step away from it all. Would a weekend away or some long drives to get perspective and have a deeper chat to get perspective help? She sounds like she is very Alerrt and Tense right now. She has lots of options and a caring mom. She will be OK :)

What about an apprenticeship?

Still attend college, meet new friends, social life, real work experience and a little bonus pay too?

People go back to university for all sorts of reasons. She will not be behind.

Most students say they don’t want to work in an office, but that is because they don’t truly understand what jobs are.

There are some degrees like
Cyber Security Management
or she may like Global Security or Counter Terrorism and management.

Or Environmental Management courses.

Creative media
Project management
Has she considered things like Occupational Therapy?

There's an app called ERIC which covers creative careers, including lots that would traditionally be seen as STEM - games design, tech side of broadcasting etc. I met one of the founders at an event we were both speaking at and then downloaded it for my son and he found it very helpful. He's now very clear about what he wants to do, having been similarly paralysed by indecision. It could be useful for your daughter. There were certainly career options my son's school hadn't encouraged him to think about.

My story is quite similar to your daughter. I was told I couldn't do my chosen A level combination (English Literature, Economics and Biology) as it didn't make sense and I was cornered into doing 3 sciences at A level. I crashed and burned and ended up doing another course.

I didn't go to university until I was 22 and even with that age gap I was fine. Most of my university friends were 3 years younger than me and had taken gap years. I even lived in halls and was fine. I ended up studying management and that's the way my career has developed.

So many people take gap years now so maybe you could find some stats about numbers to help your daughter stop thinking she will 'be behind'.

Sympathies from me though, it's really hard watching your kids feel like every decision has to be the right one right now.

A couple of things.

You can approach looking for uni courses in a couple of different ways.

Start with where shed like to go. Wants to go up north? Look at northern unis. Wants a campus based uni? Look at those. City centre based? Etc..

Or she could think about her future career and what degree she might need for that.

She could consider a liberal arts/natural sciences degree (I feel like they're designed for those that don't know what they want to do and might be ideal for your dd).

Also there was a long running thread on here with the most unusual, or uncommon, or little known about degrees that may be worth a browse. Let me see if I can find it and link to it.

I totally understand. It's a very difficult time, kids are expected to specialise and if they feel like they've got that wrong, it does impact on next steps. And there are deadlines looming.

She does have excellent predicted grades in her favour. And a great mum trying to help her. She will get there! Hang tight.

Here's the thread I was talking about....

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/higher_education/4287321-Particularly-fantastic-less-conventional-undergrad-degree-courses?reply=119483562

Far better to delay and not apply whilst not knowing the direction she’s going in. Although to her, she worries about being ‘behind’, so many people say they are glad they delayed to work out what they want to do and then actually did something they wanted to and was worth it.

There is nothing wrong with having a year after A Levels to simply work in a shop or similar and get some life experience and work out what you want to do and then apply with grades in hand.

Don’t talk to her too much about it or being it up. Let time pass by and if she asks, simply tell her that it won’t matter if she doesn’t apply now or know quite yet what to do. The big debt is really something that has to be about doing a subject you really want to do.

Possibilities that I’ve known some do, include re-starting yr12 at the beginning of yr13 when it’s become clear that the current A Levels are the wrong direction. However, sounds like she doesn’t have the GCSEs to do this anyway. As others say, looking further at the massive range of degrees available and realising she doesn’t have to do a degree in one of her A Level subjects might help. 18 year olds often just have a very narrow awareness of what’s available.

OP, don’t stress. Let her leave her head in the sand for now and it’s better there than applying for the wrong thing….that’s where drop-outs end up happening.

I’d not recommend deliberately ignoring the school’s deadline ! The tutor recommendation is as long as the student’s personal statement - so not an insignificant undertaking , and it works best if the tutor has seen the personal statement before they write the recommendation. And tutors will have a lot of them to write ! So if DD wants a well written one that is really personal to her, she should keep them in the loop - at least warn them she’s likely to miss it.

Has she got an issue with low self esteem? If her 'inner critic' is running riot she may be avoiding conversations about it to delay emotional upset. Can she access any coaching or mentoring programme, or even informal peer support?

Thank you so much everyone. I am going to read through the thread that was linked. I will also contact the school to ask if the deadline for the personal statement can be extended for her.

She won't go to unis but does have some idea of what she wants , either to stay close to home or by the coast in the south.

I will also download that apo someone recommended.

Liberal arts, American studies, International relations ... all generally quite open modular degrees so lots of choice.. if thats an idea... the first two also narrow choices as not done at many uni's....

dc1 no idea what wanted to do after uni but wanted to go... unifrog also helped..
nightmare doing ps ... in the end got a friends childs who was already at uni... (completely diff sort of subject) talked through with his school mentor and head of sixth form..
if school dont do mentors maybe talk to them about what support they could give...its part of pastoral care and dc may listen to them....
we did local uni open day 1st with a friend..just going along for the ride/bribe ! as was never going to go but really useful in starting to pick what type..
school also took to a ucas fair..although not sure about that although dc liked the freebies ... maybe see if one in your area?

God, the 'roadblocking' thing is so tough to deal with (hadn't heard that word for it before!) Can you get her to be really specific about what she wants you to do? ie 'of course I'll do everything I can to help. What is it you'd like me to do?'

Or gently help her to see that the core problem is that she's shooting down all suggestions without really thinking about them?

It sounds like she's in a total funk, for whatever reason, so before you discuss concrete options it sounds like you need to get to the bottom of what's going on.

Has she done the roadblocking thing before, or had other situations where she needs to catastrophise before making a decision? One of my sons is like this - there's always a 'this is awful, I can't do it, my brain isn't working' stage when he starts prepping for an important exam. I've realised that what he needs from me is a reminder that he's said this to me several times before, and every single time he's worked his way through it and come out the other end OK - the panicky frustration is a part of his process. Once I got him to recognise that (gently!) he was more able to get past it.

My DD was in a similar position last year, I posted asking for ideas and got a lot of helpful responses, most telling me to back off. I can't work out how to link to the thread here but I posted under this username.

DD felt the same - thought everyone else knew exactly what they wanted to do and she wouldn't engage AT ALL.

The tipping point was persuading her to go to a nearby university open day (one of the later ones) and she attended subject talks on a couple of her a-levels. I said it was just a general nose, she was under no pressure and it would be a lovely day trip out.

Outcome was her eyes were truly opened and she said the campus was like a centre parcs for 18 year olds. She then started doing a little bit of research and decided on a degree topic (slightly different to the ones she attended)

She's a procrastinator so did her PS entirely herself just before the school deadline in December, we didn't have chance to visit anymore open days as they were all finished so she researched online and picked 5 unis. I helped a little but the choice was entirely hers.

She got 5 offers and we went to all the offer holder days. She starts next weekend - she's nervous but also excited.

I think it's a very stressful time - not sure if my post helps but I wish your DD the best of luck in whatever she decides.

Are there any Unis close to you? We have a couple within half an hour. One is particularly leafy so we took DS and went fir a walk around on a sunny Sunday. Seeing the students sitting in the grass and chatting sort of focused him a little.

Like others have said, if she really does regret her choices, she can start her A'Levels again with her new choices and go to Uni at 18.

Does she have access to Unifrog?

Can you reassure her that uni is not just for 18 year olds and quite frankly no one goes around asking the ages of other students so she is not behind anyone. Ds's mate is an early September birthday putting him at 19 before he even started uni.

She will not be alone in not knowing what she wanted to do at 14 and then mapped her GCSEs, A levels and degree course around that. Ds1 knew at 15 and hasn't wavered and is at uni doing that course. Ds2 discovered his love for a subject in year 12. Before that, no idea.

Foundation years are there for applicants who may not have chosen the right subjects for that course. Uni is also not single subject degrees like biology and if she just looked at uni courses she would see that they are combined with many different subjects plus a whole host of interesting and varied topics.

In her shoes I would try to get her to any open day near you just to get a feel of a uni, either with you or a friend. Maybe get her excited about the potential. UCAS closing date isn't until January but school are clearly wanting time to work on them hence November. Not everyone will have finished by the November deadline.

Her grades are great though so that massively helps too.

My DD was a bit like that
I totally left her to it and she eventually sorted herself out

@OverInvestedMum what a lovely outcome for your DD. It is great when parents are able to come back and update what happened. I hope she has a brilliant time at uni.

There are university open days happening now. Maybe take her along to one or look at a few online prospectuses. There are all sorts of subjects I'd never heard of and lots of different combinations. She has until January to decide.

Could you pick a possible uni on the south coast, and browse through all the degrees they offer - give them marks out of 5 maybe.
You might hit on something you haven’t thought of, and lots of degrees don’t demand specific subjects.

Looking at her actual subjects, and the ones she wishes she’d done, I think speech and language therapy could be a really good fit.
You don’t have to work with children! It’s really broad, you can work with any age.

If she is into the computer side, perhaps she could specialise later in communication aids, or designing therapy apps.