Foundation Years - How do they work?

[CornishGem1975]

Sorry for the dumb ass question.

DC is in Year 13 and predicted grades are pretty low (despite working really hard). Unlikely to get offers I would have thought. School have mentioned doing a Foundation Year but I don't understand the process for this so I'm hoping someone else will.

Is this something we have to apply for now? What if you apply for the Foundation Year but get great grades, do you have to reapply?

You can apply via ucas for a degree course with foundation year or some local colleges deliver them on behalf of unis. If grades are better he can look at courses in Clearing on results day. However unless there is a specific reason for low attainment is uni the right path?

Thanks @LIZS To be quite honest, I feel the whole 6th form experience at school has been a mess. DC has really struggled with a lack of support throughout, even when reaching out and I think this has been massively detrimental. I wish we'd not stayed at school but we were about 6 months in at the point I realised it was a shit show, especially in the sciences. (My other DC is a few years younger and has had endless issues with science teachers).

I actually have every faith that DC can put in enough effort to bring the grades up before exams but that obviously doesn't help the application process, so I guess what I don't understand is when we are doing the application next month should be go straight to applying for a degree with a foundation year now because of the low predicted grades? And if it turns out better in the end we can go through clearing, or is the foundation year something that unis directly offer?

How low is low compared to standard offer? You may find if he applied for a regular degree with standard offer grades not far off he gets offered the foundation year instead. Progression is not guaranteed though and if he is bright it might be a bit dull but make up anygaps.

So you apply for degrees with foundation years (taking four years total) on UCAS, same as for three year degrees. Most foundation years guarantee direct progression subject to passing at a certain level, but double check this, as a small number make you reapply.

Depending on the uni/course you may be able to transfer onto the three year course without foundation year if grades are good, but not guaranteed. It’s common to apply for the three year and the four year and then have the four year as insurance.

a foundation degree is a different qualification, and not what you’re looking for.

Ds did a foundation year - his A Level grades were nowhere near where they should have been due to lockdown and undiagnosed SEN. He got on to his course with CDD - they were all v close to the next grade up.

The year was at a specific college affiliated to the uni and they covered the full A Level courses of the subjects he needed for entry to the full degree. The pass mark was 65% in exams plus coursework modules. Passing meant he could actually pick from any of the courses offered in his faculty, the one he’s now on has an AAA tariff for direct entry.

Pros - revisiting the A levels to be absolutely sure on the content, allowed ds to get his head round studying independently, treated as ‘Year Zero’ so still a full uni student and could stay in halls and he’s now on a course he absolutely loves.

Cons - the college was quite a way from the main uni so daily travelling a real grind, pastoral support at college not great but the uni sorted things, an additional year of finance although the foundation year was cheaper than uni tuition fees.

Look at the subject areas at the unis he likes and see if the courses are available with a foundation year. They usually ask for lower grades but don’t expect much lower grades for popular courses. I looked at Sheffield uni engineering and CDD would not hack it. They might want the same subjects as standard entry too, so really look for near misses. All 4 years get loans.

A young person I know did Foundation vet science at Nottingham. Didn’t have the right A levels but had stellar grades in other sciences. So that was slightly different.