Explain Scottish degrees to me like I’m five please.

[SheWoreYellow]

Having moved from England, I am confused.

DD is in a private Scottish school, most of them stay on for advanced highers. So does that mean she’ll go straight in to a second year of a degree course?

Secondly, do degrees tend to be broader to begin with/throughout? I am looking at universities and courses but they presume a certain level of knowledge
She’s ideally like to do a joint honours, but I can’t work out of there any need for that.

A lot of people go straight to university after S6 though at 17, if their birthdays are from October - February. It makes the all important socialising a bit trickier if you're not 18 (speaking from experience!).

People spend S6 doing additional Highers (or resitting) and vocational courses, as well as Advanced Highers. AH would make 1st year uni a bit easier, or were for those aiming for English universities.

As others have said, the option to study a breadth of subjects in 1st and 2nd year - and also to change your degree subject - are real advantages of the Scottish system, I think.

My high school boyfriend went to uni at 16 having left after 5th year!

yes I knew a couple of people who did this - they really didn't have the maturity to handle the independence of life away from home, that extra year doing S6 makes all the difference.

I think I would encourage my Dec born DC to take a gap year after S6 to be honest.

Am I going crazy or did I already read a thread asking the identical thing yesterday?!

"I was thinking that most go straight after highers."

I'm not aware of any of DD's friends going to uni straight after highers, they all did advanced highers first.

What is also worth considering is that you don't only need to do AH in 6th year, you can pick up additional highers. This is useful if you didn't have space to pick them up in 5th year, or have changed your mind about the subject you want to study at uni. You can also pick up highers like photography which is useful if you did Art and want to add to your portfolio if applying to art school.

I think the structure and pace of Scottish undergraduate degrees are pretty good, there is an opportunity for changing direction especially if you struggle or hate a particular subject.

@DuesToTheDirt

"I was thinking that most go straight after highers."

I'm not aware of any of DD's friends going to uni straight after highers, they all did advanced highers first.

Yeah, this is the key piece of the puzzle that I was missing

I did my A levels in England and went to a Scottish uni. I found that the first year of uni was the same as A level.

@OopsadayZ

Am I going crazy or did I already read a thread asking the identical thing yesterday?!

No, there’s a thread in Higher education too. I skimmed scotsnet before starting this one, but didn’t think to look there.

You can go direct into 2nd year of some courses if you excel at AH. My nephew went directly into 2nd year for Physics at Edinburgh around 5 years ago. He is now in the 2nd year of his Phd. Although he, and his parents, from his experience would not recommend 2nd year direct entry.

@caoraich

Yes, what *@RavenclawDiadem* said

Also in Scotland you can get unconditional offers based on your Highers as it's the following year that you apply to university. Some courses will offer based on AH results but it varies.

When I was in 6th year I was accepted to medicine with an unconditional offer based on my highers but to 2nd year entry of my backup of biochemistry with a conditional based on AH results. I was still only 17 when I went to uni.

My high school boyfriend went to uni at 16 having left after 5th year! (This was the late 2000s)

Someone I know, went to an English Uni after highers, and as one if the youngest in her year git her degree last year at 19. Dd's Bf went after AHs, is doing a Masters so he'll be 23. I like the system here, and I know both as I went to school in England.

What is also worth considering is that you don't only need to do AH in 6th year, you can pick up additional highers.

Yes, this is what DS did. He did 2 adv Highers, an additional Higher in a subject which he had dropped after Nat 5, and a Nat 5 in Business Studies.

DD is currently in S5 and is thinking about 2 Advanced Highers, or 1 depending on timetabling, perhaps a Higher in Psychology, and (what i'm most excited about) National 5 cake craft.

When I was at school many moons ago I would say about 10% of our year who were going to Uni left at the end of S5. 90% stayed on for S6, many of us got unconditional offers based on purely our Higher results. The people who needed to pass or get good grades in their Advanced Highers were the ones applying to Oxbridge or places like LSE, and I remember one girl who was applying for medicine but didn't have the standard AAAAA in her Highers and was asked for a certain grade in Adv Higher to get in. These days you wouldn't even get a conditional medicine offer with AAABB at Higher.