Did Your Ds/Dd Get On A Psychology Course Through Clearing

[BettiG]

Just wanted to ask if anyone’s Ds/Dd got through clearing for Psychology course?
My daughter is taking a gap year and was hoping to do psychology next year. However she is way off the grades.
I know this year many have got through clearing on very low grades for some courses.
Daughter’s grades are CCC and she needed ABB I think it is.

When we went to the open day at Bristol last year they did mention that they will take into account that she did chemistry and biology A level.
Be interesting to know others grades that got through on clearing.

Can she not retake the year and attempt to get better grades? Lots do.

Psychology is massively oversubscribed. There are way more Psychology graduates than Psychology jobs. In general the ones who get the jobs are the ones who git AAA at A-Level.
I would be advising her to choose a university that allows students to do modules from different disciplines, and to focus on another subject but do a module or two in Psychology purely for interests' sake. It's certainly a fascinating subject.

To be honest she worked so hard to get the grades that she did, her predicted grades were lower. She was so ready for a break and is looking to get a job now to save for uni next year.
Thanks for your suggestion though.

This is worth looking into.
Thank you would never have known this.

Sussex is offering Psychology courses at CCC

https://www.sussex.ac.uk/clearing/uk-clearing-places/courses?subject=psychology-and-cognitive-science

It might be worth ringing them and asking if they'd consider a deferred application. They can only say no!

Whilst many of the very low offers from RGs and the like were very tempting it's worth remembering that the majority of students on these courses will have achieved their original offers of AAB or similar. It might not be the most comfortable experience being surrounded by people you know got much better grades than you did.

DD accepted an offer in Early Clearing (she had BCC) that was in line with the uni's normal requirements. When I saw the offers on Results Day I did wonder whether I should advise her to "trade up" but eventually decided she was better off not feeling like the poor relation and worrying that everyone was much smarter than her!

What about Oxford Brookes? Their advertised requirement is BBC but may be worth trying with grades in hand.

My dd went to OB and had a very good experience in terms of teaching, facilities and just living in Oxford.

Also consider that if she wants to work in psycology a degree isnt enough - she will need to do a Masters or PhD - which are very costly, competitive to get on and academically tough.

This is the bottom line. Unless she wants to work in HR then she will need to go a lot further academically to do more.

There are courses that combine Sociology and Psychology, and they seem to have lower entry reqs as well, it might be worth looking for those as an option.

Thank you all so much for taking the time to reply, all your points are very useful.
she is looking to do psychology in education.
The advice on looking at ucas extras was particularly useful has I knew nothing about that.

Thanks again everyone and have a good weekend. X

To become and Educational Psycologist you need to do a Doctorate / PhD.

This is very expensive - another 3 years of fees, living costs post graduate - and academically rigorous - as well as hugely competitive to get on the course.

Ignore the advice about not getting a job unless she has 3 x As. For Psychology she needs to make sure her course is BPS accredited - these aren't limited to just high tariff providers. A placement year would be hugely helpful in gaining a post that would enable her to build the (several years!) experience needed to apply for doctoral programmes.

The doctorate is funded by the EPFT scheme so no extra money needed.

Lots of people with Psychology degrees gravitate towards teaching in special schools.

Educational Psychology is insanely competitive for what can be a fairly pedestrian job. High stakes for the individual child and family but pretty routine "assess and advise" for much of the day. In my experience, A level grades are utterly irrelevant as part of the EP selection process.

The funded Doctorate is hugely competitive and rejects about 85% of applicants.

If sucessful it requires relevent post graduate work experience for at least a year and then a 6 year commitment in return for funding (3 years study, 3 years working for LA).

Just need to be realist about the post graduate training and employment landscape.

Yes I am aware of how competitive it is - my previous post highlighted the several year of experience needed before you can apply. I was just correcting your post which said it would cost more money to do the doctorate which isn't true as it's funded.