How can I help my son? Uni options

[PrincessOfPreschool]

DS is in Y12. His school want them to fill in UCAS and finish it by mid June. He is totally stuck on what to do for a uni course. He's had a hard year, starting a new school, left all his friends who he misses dreadfully, getting used to commuting (after a short walk his entire school life), and a close friend - almost a girlfriend - in a mental health crisis (in mental health unit since Jan, still there). He seems quite down, tired and overwhelmed the past month when he's usually such an energetic, happy, confident person.

Academically he's doing really well. He'll be predicted 3 A* (Maths, Chemistry, Spanish) by school for Uni. He could get that in real life if he works (he didn't work that hard for his summer mocks due to feeling the way I've mentioned above).

I'm worried about him.

He's changed tack from doing Languages and Linguistics to maybe Chemistry, but basically doesn't know what he wants to do, doesn't really want to study further, no ideas about jobs or apprenticeships. He just seems drained and avoidant of future for conversations/ research. He's done minimal super curricular and these are all language based. His passion is learning languages but not the literature etc.

I feel little he's getting all this pressure from school but I know it's with good reason in terms of him being quite gifted and with potential to do really well. But he's still so young.

I'm just not sure how best to support him.

• do I intervene and ask school to back off?
• do I leave him to go at his own pace and maybe end up with nothing post Y13?
• do I look up courses etc for him and support with application?

What would you wise Mumsnetters advise?

My son had a tough time at sixth form and we went through the motions of applying through ucas and doing an open day. He didnt gothrough with it after results day as his heart wasnt in it .

He yook a gap year and applied again for totally different courses with much more enthusiasm.

He needed a break from the treadmill and some time doing a boring retail job to give him the drive and time thinking about what he really wanted to study.

That’s very early for schools requesting ucas forms to be in to be in. For my DCs school they didn’t need it until after Oct half term in year 13 once all the Oxbridge early applicants were sorted. Plus many open days run up until that point.

i think first step for him is ask if he can delay submitting his ucas to school and say why. He needs to decide what he wants to do. He can apply after results for the year after, plenty do. Uni isn’t the only route, there’s also degree apprenticeships and even working straight from school for a bit and uni later.

I meant rushing into a decision. YP often start to feel an obligation to follow through, until they no longer can.

Funny you should say that. His Spanish teacher spoke to him yesterday and suggested that - Chem at Imperial with some Spanish and a year in Spain researching. It's a 4 Yr course though which he's not that keen on. I do really think a year off is in his interests.

My friend’s daughter had a lot going on towards the end of high school, exams after lockdown, didn’t know what she wanted to do next, and was using all her energy just getting through to the end of exams. She took a gap year, upped the hours at her Saturday job, went on a big trip with a friend and applied to uni, loves it and the change in her in that year was phenomenal.

I'm an academic and admissions tutor (not Russel Group though 😱😁).

With the greatest of respect to his school....it's absolutely none of their business really! I mean encourage and inform absolutely...that's great. But they don't get to tell him to actually apply and when and insist on it.

It's much better to go when you're ready if it's right for you than have your confidence knocked with a bad start and course changes etc.

He's got loads of time yet.

By all means do a summer open day though. Id say just rock up to the local uni and have a looking what it's all about. He doesn't have to apply but it's an easy start into thinking of it's right for him and exploring subject choices.

Sorry for typos in pp. I didn't have glasses on and I seem to be in a battle with phone autocorrecting me!

Many degrees with mfl will be four years long.

@PrincessOfPreschool How about computational linguistics? E.g. https://www.essex.ac.uk/courses/ug01385/3/bsc-computational-linguistics
Sadly, that's the only undergraduate degree I found for it. Most degrees in computational linguistics are offered at postgraduate level. A good lead-in undergraduate degree for those would be Linguistics. A degree more similar in content would be Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence is broader than computational linguistics, but Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLM) are a big part of AI (though probably only covered in third year on a general AI undergraduate degree).

I think looking at courses now is a good thing even if he doesn’t seem that interested yet. Schools like to get the ucas application finished in in good time, even if the student isn’t sure about going, as there is a lot of school admin to do too. This means the references etc are all done even if they want to take a gap year. I think it’s good that the school are pushing the ucas prep - it will be there as an option for him when he’s ready. My DS didn’t seem to want to go, did open days and his application, got offers, then in the second term of year 13 was suddenly keen to go. During that process we also looked at gap years and apprenticeships. I presented uni as one option of many - get as many options on the table as possible then decide. He also applied to apprenticeships (didn’t get any) and looked at gap years. My DS had no real idea about what course to do either but we looked at loads of different options together and narrowed it down. How about starting by looking at unis - campus or city? What sort of opportunities might be exciting for him? Take him to some open days and just have a look - no pressure, just one option of many.

Wow, everyone. You have all been incredibly helpful and kind. So many ideas, links, advice. I'm so grateful. And it's a very pleasant change from AIBU! 😉

I would say your DS would definitely benefit from a gap year if funds allow. Both my DDs did and they were totally different people by the end of that gap year. Older DD had a deferred entry place at uni so she worked, travelled, passed her driving test (it was after all the lockdown delays) and by the time her and her friends came back from travelling they were all actually missing studying and using their brains so all went off to uni or jobs really fired up. My second DD had a deferred offer but decided to apply for apprenticeships in her gap year and chose that instead which she is absolutely loving. That year without school and without the pressure from exams, teachers and peers just gave them both time to really think about the future. As I see it that they will be working until they are 70 or more probably (sadly) so one more year now isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme!

Also I meant to say that just ‘applying’ in year 13 isn’t a binding contract in any way. It’s totally risk free as nothing gets released money wise until you register on campus and /or sign an accommodation contract. You lose your ucas fee but other than that you can decline offers, even accepted offers after results, right up until the few days before you actually go. I do feel for teenagers now with it all costing so much - it is such high stakes. I’m also a teacher and year after year we have loads of students who don’t know what to do but they all find their right path eventually.

It sounds like he's had a tough year. I would be concentrating on making sure he's feeling good and secure in himself before he thinks about uni. He sounds like a smart boy, he'll work it out in his own time.

I hate the push to get kids on to The Next Thing if they're not sure what that looks like for them. They have all the time in the world, they're only young.

Although if you have an older son who is a bit lost right now you maybe feel you want ds2 to have a bit more of a plan. That's understandable.