Not in the country on A Level results day. Advice needed

[BrunchBarBandit]

I had an absolute brain glitch this week. In applying myself to the conundrum: we want to have a family holiday in summer holidays, and my DD18 wants to also go away with friends but needs to back at a set date, I was delighted to have arranged flights for the three of us for 2 weeks with DD to leave us after 10 days, and I started booking accommodation which meets all these parameters.

Except…I forgot about A level results day and uni admissions confirmations. I don’t know how I didn’t think of it. We’ve been discussing offers, offer-holder days, mock exams constantly so it’s not an after thought.

As it stands DD is due to be in Amsterdam on 13th August and the rest of us will be flying back from a different part of Europe that afternoon.

DD is our oldest. We’ve not done this before. They’re hard-working on on track to achieve pg: Astar, A, A. But of course anything can happen I get that. I have no idea if she’ll be able to sort out complicated admissions issues.

I’ve emailed her tutor to ask for advice on planning for clearing, and how much oversight I need to be prepared to provide (she’s pretty independent and motivated) but I do wonder whether we should all cancel our bookings now and prioritise the uni admissions.

What would you do?

Has anyone any experience of their DC handling this without direct parental support and from holiday?

I think statistic last year was 80% got their firm choice of university. Lots still accepted even with dropped grades. For competitive courses they may be offered an alternative course at the uni.
If all goes smoothly it’s all done and dusted by 8.05am. My dc opened her ucas saw she had her firm confirmed, then opened her school results email.
Her best friend in contrast missed grades, got C/D was predicted A/A (Had A EPQ) was crying in her room. She pulled herself together, got on clearing and had an online interview in afternoon and then went to view the uni and accommodation with her parents day after, she did need adult support.

Should say A star EPQ

Being away but together is different to being away, alone. Being away alone with mum at home able to sort stuff from the uk end is different to being away alone with mum and dad in another country.

Not having anyone with you when you get your results but predicted significantly above what you need for uni 1st choice and your uni first choice being something with no wriggle room- it’s not great.

You know your dd best, but I’d not want to be in that situation for either of my kids.

and yes pp is right - if you spend good money changing your plans, that will pretty much guarantee your dd gets exactly her PGs and breezes into her 1st choice!

We had a very similar experience right down to being advised not to ask for a remark and getting the higher grade.

I’m not sure how we would have dealt with everything if we hadn’t been together but only you know how your DC will cope OP if they don’t get the results that they need.

The most important phrase in the post you've replied to here is 'it's not ideal'. Both mine got their first choices and places were confirmed by email by 8am.My eldest son now works at Cardiff uni. He has manned the clearing hotlines in previous years. Do not underestimate the stress for the young person , the initial distress and panic and the need for parental guidance , toast and tea. Wise words down the phone 5/10, wise words in the kitchen at home 100/ 10

Lots of good advice here, but - do A Level results not get sent by email?

I wouldn’t cancel OP! We lived overseas when my eldest did her A levels (she boarded in the UK) so she was at home with us in Germany on results day. We did it all by phone, it was very easy 🤷‍♀️

But your situation was different because your DD was with you in Germany, not on her own in another country and her parents in another country (also not uk) with her having to do it on her own via the phone with no parent to give her a hug if it goes wrong, no one else to talk though issues with etc.

If they were away together that would be different. The OP doesn’t know if both her and her dd will have decent WiFi.

I'd say as long as her insurance is a decent one ie very achievable compared to the firm then it will be straightforward.
My DS had AstarAstarA offer from Oxbridge which he missed (he got 3 A) but his insurance was ABB so that was all fairly straightforward. The useful thing about being in the country was the chance to speak to school teachers onsite about prospects around getting things re-marked, we decided to not bother in the end. I don't know if the school would have that by phone. But otherwise basically it was fairly straightforward to do with a laptop and Internet connection.
I know people who have DC who had a insurance offer that was fairly close to the firm something like AstarAA firm and AAA backup and then ended up getting A A B so then you're in clearing and a bunch more work to do, lots of calls. But again , doable with Internet connection and laptop.

We had planned for clearing with a list of unis and courses plus phone numbers. Just as well as DC missed grades unexpectedly. We spent the morning on the phone and the afternoon driving, stayed overnight, saw two unis the next day and firmed the one that had gone all out to entice DC in one of their favourite cities.
As it happened, it was the best thing for DC as the course turned out to be fantastic with a paid sponsorship/internship opportunity and has lead to a good graduate job.
Yes we could have done it over the phone but being there with DC was important. School also had people there to talk to as well as representatives from the local uni who also offered a space - they didn’t want it but it helped to ease the initial ‘nobody wants me’ feeling.

Yes, exactly this.

There are so many considerations/variables. We’ve been working through them

DD is insistent that she can handle any outcome and she has consistently taken the position that if she doesn’t get into firm or insurance then she’ll do a gap year whilst researching alternative unis for 2027; ie does not want to consider clearing panic. In response, I’ve suggested we do some more thinking on this. Perhaps a list of 5 other courses/universities that we can check out in the next few months as potential clearing fall backs. We’ll explore this and other considerations with college tutors next week.

In the meantime I’ve checked flights from our holiday destination to Amsterdam which is doable. Her trip isn’t booked yet but once it is it’s likely that I’ll leave DH and DS and fly there on 12th for moral, practical, and logistical support.

Thanks everyone for all these comments. It’s been hugely helpful to read all your thoughts and experiences.

We were on holiday, offer was all by email though a tense wait of over an hour as dd2 missed her stated grade offer (b not a) but was doing 4 a levels and had a 3 a level offer, it’s just they named the one she slipped on. All was ok, phew. We did make sure we had access to WiFi that morning if needed, had asked at the hotel if we could use their business suite area, also landline phone if required.

You’re right…my bad! 🤦‍♀️

hmm, been reading and commenting on this thread, and just realised that we had planned to go away in August that week, and dd is doing A levels.
Nothing booked yet, so back to the drawing board

Very gently.... I think both you and your DD need to prioritise being physically together and being somewhere where you can focus on her results and the next actions that you need to take. Even if the results are exactly what you want, there are often time pressured decisions and actions that you need to take - for my DS we had to decide and book his accommodation by noon on the day of his results. I suppose he could have done this by himself, but he wanted the support of his parents because he felt that choosing where he was going to live was a fairly big decision and wanted to talk it through (and have another pair of eyes on the contract he was signing)

This is a really big day for your DD.... I would want to actually be there to support her.

We just had twins go through the process (first year uni students now). It really depends on a few things - if your daughter is going to still be happy with her choices for firm and insurance closer to the time and what her grades will end up being.

If your daughter is happy with her choices and ends up with the right grades or being accepted with whatever grades she has, than its a slam dunk as there is nothing for her to do - her place will be assumed to be automatically accepted if she gets the grades or grades the uni is happy with.

Her accomodation is another thing, if she gets her firm her onsite accomodation will be guaranteed and she can find out accommodation application deadlines for applying for this well in advance. If she ends up with her insurance, from my experience there is a mad scrabble for the kids to find last minute accomodation on campus for their insurance choice so she would need to carefully research her accomodation options for her insurance choice and start appling ASAP on results day if she can.

Where it gets really tricky is the clearing options. There were ALOT of unis who advertised their clearing options well before results day and some more added places the night before clearing opened - so she if she wants to go down that route she needs to just literally write a list of unis she wants to call re clearing and start calling as early as she can on results day.

The thing is - you can watch videos on how to go about clearing and prep her on what she needs to have on hand (ie both A level and GCSE results) and they will want to speak to her in person anyway not you.

What this comes down to is your daughter deciding how sure she is about her uni firm and insurance. One of my kids was unsure and literally waited until the last day (June) to submit firm / insurance which was during his A level exams and he gained a feeling for how well he did in them before he decided who to firm and insure.

I also have a theory its not a bad idea to submit 4 UCAS choices rather than 5. Once the kids accept a firm and insurance they other offers melt away anyway. But what this does is leave one space so if the child has an empty spot incase in June they go I really don't want to do engineering anymore I just want to do maths ....they have up to (maybe June?) to submit that 5th uni choice. The Jan deadline is just the deadline for unis to guarantee they will review a students application by a set date.

A big one for your daughter is what does she want to do if she does not get into her firm or insurance .... is there any unis she would still be happy with going to or would she prefer to resit and take a gap year. My daughter's course was limiting and there were really only two unis she was happy to go where my son had a broad course offered at most unis.

We’ve just decided to be away together for results day (it means we can take a 3 weeks family holiday rather than a 12 day one). But DD is fairly likely to reapply next year if needed and won’t engage with clearing.

I was away with another family for their child A level results, they missed their grades. They didn’t want to do clearing but it was an emotional day for them and I think they needed us all around them.

I think it’s ok to be abroad but you need to be together.