University Offers Coming In 23/4 - part 2!

[WombatChocolate]

Following on from the old thread which was getting full….come and share the highs and lows of the journey that is A Levels and UCAS!

I'm sorry for your son, you know from previous discussions that my son has had similar issues in his life to the ones your son is having now. I sincerely hope your son makes a full recovery.

I just think the joke is a bit tone deaf, my son is delighted to be going to London rather than Oxford but some DC are feeling a bit stung at the moment and their parents are trying to put a positive spin on it. As a parent aware of mental health issues you must see that a space for them to be positive is a good thing. We don't need reminding of how wonderful Oxford is. We know that already.

She wants to (eventually) use the knowledge and science that people in the sports world have been using for a while now and transfer it across to helping dancers with things like injury prevention. She find have applied for Dance Science but feels the dance world is still too rooted in tradition and poor practice.

she is also this year doing a personal trainer qualification.

She sounds amazing and very mature. I really wish her all the best. Perhaps with PT qualifications she could use that to support her degree? It will be much better paid than other student jobs.

mrsfloof has been on a few of these threads tonight talking about her dd Oxford offer. It really does seem a bit tone deaf.
Most of the other oxbridge lot have been polite enough to stay on their own thread and celebrate there.

I think your son has done amazingly Life but I don't think his issues are like my son's, I don't think my son will ever recover. And that's why I am worried about money with London esp having cancer as well. But I am happy to leave though so you can focus on non-Oxbridge.

ok well good luck to him. As I have suggested before look at Brain Injury OT's. The one my son has was life changing for him. He had years of not leaving his room and not talking. Stay positive, it is the best you can do for him. I didn't think my son would ever recover but he has.

All the best to your daughter at Oxford she has done amazingly well

I think that comment is somewhat disproportionate

Thanks Life and user13572

I have not been on the thread for people rejected from Oxford. I have been on the no offers thread as that was DD first offer just to update. I thought people would be happy for my DD as she's been through so much (my cancer and a 20% chance of her brother dying) and I genuinely think the people who have supported me through the whole journey are happy for DD and me. But I will not mention it again.

You literally came on here and implied going to oxford means more money post degree compared to other unis. Like I'm sorry but some of us don't really need to be hearing this. It's tone death and having an oxford offer doesn't mean your DD is better than our children who were sadly rejected or didn't apply.

She will be fine with cooking!!! DS is lucky enough to share uni accom with a student who is a part time chef. He’s got this thing going where he will buy ingredients (highly recommend apps like toogoodtogo etc ) and then stand in the kitchen loudly wondering what to make with his random assortment of purchases. Chef will be unable to resist taking over and voila DS gets a meal made for him. Cheeky but chef shares the food and DS does the washing up 😂

London accommodation is expensive, sure - but other stuff there’s not that much difference to other UK big cities if you’re canny. And the wages for part time jobs are ££££!

I am getting the worried about making friends thing. DD isn’t that self confident, especially when meeting people for the first time so is super bothered about this. In fact it seems to be influencing which uni she puts as her first choice - veering towards the one that will “force” her to be sociable?!

I get the London money worries. It must be doable because people seem to do it, but DD knows she will have more disposable cash if she goes elsewhere and it's putting her off UCL (if they ever offer ha!) I was a student in London but might as well not have been because I was too skint to take advantage even though I had a job.
Plus the friends thing - her course is apparently 95% international so she worries they will all be rich and have a different lifestyle to her. She thinks that for her, life will be easier all ways at Birmingham or Warwick. (Please make an offer, Warwick 🙏)
Having said that she really wants UCL to offer, having just been turned down by Oxford 😀
And the London unis are fantastic and loads of DC do seem to manage the finances and have a great time.

Ds is now waiting also for a London offer and I worry a bit about the expense and friend thing too (although I think a few of his friends will go to either UCL or Imperial). However, London can be very cheap (or free) in terms of amazing stuff to do - world class galleries and museums, lectures, music etc. Transport costs are low and plentiful compared to other cities and Aldi and Lidl have the metro type supermarkets dotted about. It's just the housing costs that are more expensive really. When we did the open day at Imperial, the student showing us around said he had a £5k reduction for each year due to parental income being under a certain amount. I wonder if UCL and Kjngs etc also offer this? It would bring costs in line with the Northern universities. Plus London students do get a higher maintenance loan (which obviously has to be repaid once above a certain income).

Also there are lots of part time/casual job opportunities.

I studied in London many moons ago (down from the Midlands) and had a great time despite it not being a campus institution.

@TiaSeeya I have a quiet, introverted and socially anxious, but also very self-aware DD. Until about a year ago she rarely spoke to anyone outside her tight friendship group, unless responding to someone directly addressing her. Over the last year she has found a couple of new groups of friends, one on a cruise and one with other teens at work (she works at a big garden centre).

She finds WhatsApp groups really helpful, as she can begin to get to know people without having to deal with them face-to-face, and it avoids a lot of initial awkwardness. She can also now start a conversation with peers she doesn’t know. She has a rule of thumb that she won’t approach someone who is very outgoing, on the grounds that they would approach her if they wanted to speak to her, but will approach quieter people on the assumption that they are also likely to be shy.

When she finally knows where she is going to uni, she will sign up for any relevant WhatsApp groups before she goes, and will have her “who I’ll approach” rule on standby. This really reduces her anxiety about meeting new people.

That’s really interesting thanks for sharing.

DD has already said that she will put herself in front of a “nice extroverted person” who she can essentially use to help her make a wider circle of friends! It’s the thought of initiating conversations with people she doesn’t know that terrifies her. She has got through both primary and secondary schools by having quite a large friendship group that is populated quite heavily with more extroverted friends.

On the London thing is there a student finance uplift. Doesn't go all the way to cover the additional costs but it is at least something. Obviously not all DC will be eligible for the entire amount.

https://www.gov.uk/student-finance/new-fulltime-students

London really is a fabulous place - there is nowhere quite like it! Like everywhere else there are pros and cons.

Yes accommodation is expensive, but on the flip side you are living in the capital city with all the free and cheap activities and culture that it offers.

Yes more students may be international and whilst some may stick to socialising in their own groups, others won’t and you’ll meet people from all corners of the globe which must be an amazingly enriching experience.

You could look at every university and its location and draw up pros and cons - horses for courses and what suits some of our DC won’t suit others.

@PumpkinKnitter your DD sounds very emotionally intelligent and self aware and it sounds like she has done some good work getting some tools in place to overcome (and challenge) her social anxiety. That in itself is an achievement!

DD is similar; introverted in that she is very inward looking and thinking. She will always take things on herself and say “what’s wrong with me”. She used to place huge emphasis on every interaction she had with people she didn’t know and question whether she fell
short in some way. Having her part time job has really helped take her out of her comfort zone and has allowed her to see that it doesn’t matter what the customer she interacted with for 5 seconds on such and such a day thought about her; that it is meaningless and it is just her internalising and projecting what SHE thinks someone thinks about her whereas that person has probably not given it a second thought!

Confidence and assertiveness comes with age and experience. They will get there!

@TiaSeeya Yes, similar here, though her friendship group shrank over the years as people moved off to other schools and colleges and is now down to three introverts and one scatty extrovert!

@Rollergirl11 Yes, having a part time job and having to deal with customers has been a big help. It also means she can now manage to make small talk which makes day-to-day interactions much easier. She also recognises that she has got herself stuck in the role of "silent girl" at school, to the point where if she speaks up in class it draws a lot of attention by being so unexpected, and is looking forward to a new environment where she can just be "quiet girl" and contribute without all eyes turning on her in surprise 🤣

Thanks @SeaofTranquility it was tough but he's bounced back surprisingly quickly and is now in a good position with his 3 offers, a fourth from Imperial would be lovely but that's also difficult to get into. They'll probably both have Warwick at the top of their list if its a no from Imperial and C, so we shall have to wait and see, I think we will be doing lots of offer holder days to help them decide. I can imagine how your feeling about the 24th, it makes it all more the difficult having two applying together, I hope its a good outcome. I've become more chilled about it since the O rejection although that might change as the day draws closer.

Everyone worrying about not making friends in London - they will!!! I have loads of friends who went to London unis who had a blast, much more so than I did at Cambridge (which certainly didn't have great shops back in the day or any excitement about it whatsoever come to that)