To ask about Law at the university of York

[Fatsnowflake]

DD got 7 9s and 3 8s at GCSE and got an Oxford offer for Law. She was predicted 4 A. She's won loads of national essay competitions and has generally built her identity around being a high flyer. Come results day - two As and two Bs and Oxford have rejected her. She's set to go to the University of York as her insurance choice but she's feeling really down about everything and is pessimistic about her future. In History she is two marks off the A and in Politics she's just one mark off an A so waiting for a review of marking but not expecting anything to change.

Please tell me positives about York. I'm stressing and so is she. She's feeling like her future is gone. I'm so upset for her. She's honestly such a clever and articulate young woman. She's saying her A Levels aren't good enough for Vac schemes and training contracts and she's not at all excited for uni.

Sorry bold didn't quite work.
She was predicted 4 A stars.
She's two marks off A star in history

DD went to York for her masters after doing her undergrad at Oxford for PPE not law. It had been her insurance at undergrad level too.

York was so much more relaxed and less intense, which worked wonders for her confidence. No imposter syndrome for once.

Nice, safe campus, beautiful city. Huge ensuite room.

Fab that sounds really encouraging. I think it feels like the end of the world for DD at the moment and I'm trying to give her some perspective.

York is a beautiful city. She has achieved amazing results and shouldn't be so harsh on herself !

Oxford is not the be all, York will be fab, friendly, as pp said, relaxed so she can enjoy uni and possibly not feeling the pressure of needing to be an Oxford grad.

Thank you. I hope she can still achieve her goals and it's just a redirection. I've been beating myself up wondering if I'd chosen the wrong place for her to do her A Levels etc.

DD was a small fish in a big pond at Ox and a very big fish in a small pond at York due to the nature of her post grad. Such a different teaching style to having to sit in a tute, sometimes alone, sometimes with 2 or 3 others, whilst her work was ripped apart 3 or 4 times each week. (She got an excellent degree from Oxford, but the tutorial teaching approach is very, very different).

Your DD will find that York has a lot of students with extremely high grades who simply didn't want to apply to Oxbridge or tried and were in the 90% that didn't get in.

Take her for brunch or tea at Betty's on drop off day. Go for a walk around the lake. The architecture is concrete, but the sports facilities are great. Try everything you can to counteract it being seen as second best.

Better off in Higher Education than AIBU? MN can move it for you.

The point about her building her identity around being a high flyer is what she needs to deal with, because nobody gets through life without disappointments like this. It would happen at some point how matter how good she is as there is always someone better - ie not getting a first or getting the internship she wanted or not getting the promotion she thought she should once she's started work. In a way it's good to learn how to deal with such things at an early point! And doing law at York is still really great from employment perspective and she will love it when she gets there.

Thanks I've requested this

Well, one of my friends who went to York is a KC now and another a Professor, so DD really needs to revise her prejudices about the place and get a sense of perspective.

To be fair to DD I think she's just processing what has been a bit of a shock. I'm sure she will.

There's a Waitrose 15 mins walk from the West campus. There's a huge M&S at the Monk Gate (?) retail park. Dunelm is at the Clifton (?) retail Park for click & collecting mattress toppers. There are buses from campus into the city centre & station every few minutes. There's a Lidl or Aldi close to campus. Loads of private halls from Unite etc if she doesn't have a place on campus.

The only negatives I can think of were the price of accommodation, how cold it got from Oct onwards & the long drive to pick up or drop off (we're very, very far south).

It's quite close for us to drop off and pick up. So that's a big plus.

Speaking as a solicitor and someone who is involved in graduate recruitment for a large firm, so many firms now use blind recruitment that the grades you’ve achieved and university you go to aren’t the main focus of applications for vac schemes or training contracts in the same way that they were when I was applying 20 years ago. York is - I believe - an excellent law course and has a practical focus that some of the other academic courses lack (while also still being academically rigorous - I’m not suggesting York is not of a very high standard, just a different approach). This should set your daughter up well and perhaps the less intense atmosphere will help her find / spend time on other interests which she can talk about in applications to show her as a rounded person that people will want to work with. That’s what we want from our trainees! If her whole personality is being a high flier this change of tack might benefit her.

Why did she do 4 A levels and not 3? It also sounds really close. Managing 4 A levels is extra tough. I would get it remarked, make her realise how close it was and then simply realise that she shouldn’t have one the extra A level but taken the safe option. At any future interview, she can then talk about that. She will likely get a first at York, have a great time etc etc .

I think it's always a huge shock when you've spent 7 months seeing yourself in one location, then having the short sharp shock on results day & realisation that they have said no, especially if others are celebrating their success at getting their own places.

Please reassure her that she did so well to get through LNAT and the interviews to get an offer, but it isn't for everyone. York will be a harsher contrast compared to say Durham or St Andrews as a back up, simply because of the architecture & lack of history dating back hundreds of years. However, the contrast could be just what she need. There will be others who were also disappointed along with students who are excited to make their firm choice.

Forgot to say, the Little Apple Bookshop near the Minster is a tiny treasure trove.

York law is totally different to other law undergraduates. It’s problem based learning. Make sure she’s happy with that style.
You can see min A levels for vacation schemes and training contracts on sites like legal cheek. It’s so ultra competitive that she may need to set sights accordingly.

I’ve always regretted declining a York offer over fifty years ago, instead choosing a more southerly university.
Honestly, I think DD might have been handed the golden apple here, even though she sees missing Oxford as a terrible blow.
I’ve been very distressed with so many, many wrong moves made by both Oxford and Cambridge these past ten or so years, and I cannot help feeling the Oxbridge brand is presently about as attractive and reassuring as Harrods’ is now.
Which is to say, it used to be the definition of excellence and rigour, but now you cannot be sure about standards, let alone which foreign oligarch (or dubious ideologue) is calling the shots.
At some point not far off, I think adding ‘Oxon’ to your credits wont be the advantage it used to be. Especially in Law. It may well recover its lustre of course, but honestly, right now I’d say she has been given a prize rather than lost one.

Troubled times, I reckon. York is a superb university, as it was in my day too. Plus it’s a gorgeous location, of course.
I hope her bruised pride recovers swiftly and she finds the silver lining this cloud definitely offers her

I’d definitely look at papers with school and go for a review of marking.

DH was is the same position as your dd. I told him about this post and he said he was actually glad this happened to him now because he wasn't sure that actually going to Cambridge would have helped him as a person. He loved York, made lifelong friendships and has had an extremely successful career. He also thinks that failing at something and still thriving was really good for him.
Will say that he mentioned that he really should have gone to Cambridge rather too often when we first met at York but that calmed down.
I had York as my first choice because it had an amazing reputation for the department I applied to.
We were both very happy there.

She did German as a 4th A level outside of school because she wanted to do Law with German Law and school didn't offer it. In the exam which school facilitated, they put her in a computer room and the noise of tapping distressed her and stopped her processing. She was so upset she was taken out of the room sobbing. The invigilators were also talking. She applied for and got special consideration. The head wrote a letter to her college. She got an A and A* on the two other papers but that paper was worth 50%. She knew it had gone badly and she was frustrated because she knew the answers but the noise really affected her.

Have school put her through for a priority marking review? You haven’t mentioned what her offer was? We normally see marking reviews moving up by one or two marks but if she has AABB and needs x3 Astars then not going to happen

I can’t comment on the law course but my daughter has finished her first year at York and absolutely loves it. She applied on a gap year with grades in hand (A*AA & all 9s at gcse) and turned down 4 unconditional offers, including Durham & UCL, in order to go there. York has definitely met her expectations, both in terms of quality of lectures and seminars, as well as regular meetings with her supervisor. She’s made some great friends and joined lots of clubs, though the beautiful city and feeding the ducks and geese on campus seem to be particular highlights!
If your DD does go to York, I hope she has a great time too.

i assume this is one of the first time on her life she has ‘failed’. When she hasn’t really. But do bear that in mind. She’s still going to a great uni and everyone I know there loves it. It’s my DDs top choice for next year I went to Oxford! It’s tough, and the lawyers I knew spent all their time in the library. As with all Oxford courses some of the people going has never read what they would do, just went because it was Oxford. Give her a few months and I bet she’s be pleased. I know a lot of good lawyers. They didn’t all go to Oxford. My DS applied to but failed to get to Oxford at interview stage. On reflection he would have hated it.

She needed 3 As with one of the As in German. However they may switch her to the straight law course if the politics grade goes up. She's one mark off and we are waiting for that last paper to come back. Not holding out hope though.