Scottish UCAS applicants 2025 entry

[motheronthedancefloor]

i know there's a HE board but that's dominated by English parents/schools/unis.

I thought I'd start our own thread for Scottish parents of kids applying to UCAS this year. What are your kids applying for? Where are they applying?

I'll start!

DD is applying to primary teaching. Considering Glasgow, Strathclyde, and Stirling. We discussed UWS but its too far away to commute and as she'd be a young 17 (february born), I wouldn't feel comfortable with her so far away. She's academically capable, but in some ways still quite young.

She has BBBCC from S5 (bastard SQA and Higher HIstory). Doing 1 AH and 2 more HIghers this year. Qualifies for a contextual offer.

Personal statement draft all done. Teacher seems happy with it. She has work experience, did the Accerlerate Education challenge I think its called and is accepted onto Top Up. So her statement looks quite good.

What annoys me is that Strathclyde asked for something specific to be included in the personal statement but that's specific to Strathclyde and might not necessarily be accepted by other universities or what they want to see. Plus it doesn't seem to be mentioned on their entry requirements so other applicants may not know this for that particular course.

Also annoys me that they don't use UCAS Tariff points. That would make it so much easier as its not clear if DDs C grades are accepted or not.

DDs school will do the submissions in December. Then I'll probably post here like every day as an anxious mum or rather angry mum - why won't they give my DD a place? lol

Thanks, I've read negative things about all the different education courses. UWS apparently isn't the best for course content, Glasgow doesn't have enough electives in other subjects, Strathclyde doesn't offer sufficient wellbeing support and Stirling doesn't have enough places....but its all subjective though isn't it?!

DD has completed the personal statement now and entered it on UCAS and selected her 5 courses - 2 at Stirling (early years and inclusive practice specialisms), 2 at Strathclyde (primary ed and generic ed) and the MEd at Glasgow. Strathclyde would be her first choice.

All that's left, I think, is the teacher reference, then they submit early Dec.
Strathclyde don't make offers til after UCAS deadline in January. Glasgow don't do offers until after interview which is usually March. Stirling make offers anytime but apparently they are notoriously late at getting back to teaching applicants.

@YouBelongWithMe (great username btw) if your DC qualifies for a contextual offer, that could help them also? You might want to consider a university that goes by tariff points such as UWS, rather than one that goes by grades. Eg Strathclyde might ask for As and Bs from S5, but UWS could accept his grades if it adds up to the right points.

@theferry Dnephew did film at Napier and had a ball. He also applied to The Conservatoire, didn’t get a place but was told to gain more experience and apply the following year. He was tempted but decided to accept the place at Napier. He’s not working in film at the moment but he doesn’t regret his choices.

Ds3 finished school this year and is having a (working) gap year. He has ASD and we thought he was a bit “young” to go away this year but actually, he would have been absolutely fine. He did unexpectedly well in his Highers AAAAAB and less well in his A/H ACC but got 4 offers to do Computer Engineering type courses and has accepted a place at Strathclyde for next year.

To those with the back up plans of HNC/HND and then on to the degree, both ds1 & ds2 did it this way and both are doing really well in great jobs now.

DS said he has done his personal statement, but not sure if the application is completed yet....he's got an open day coming up soon for one of his two choices (he is considering HNC/HND route). He wants to commute each day from home.

Not 100% but I think DS has an NPA in Digital Media? Will double check...I think they hold some weight towards their qualifications.

NPAs varies according to how many credits/what level it is at. DD did one at level 6 and it equates to a C at higher level, according to the two Uni’s we asked at on the UCAS calculator

Quick q here. I have an S4 child who is doing maths, physics, engineering science, computer science and 4 other Nat 5s. These 4 they definitely want to do for higher, along with a lot of their friends. Everyone else is doing English as the other higher but my child cannot stand English. Any suggestions of a 5th higher that would be good for a geeky child (that preferably does not involve writing essays). They haven’t done nat5 biology / chemistry and aren’t good at music, cdt or pe.

School can be very accommodating and are happy for kids not to do higher English.

What are the other 4 Nat 5s?

I’m afraid I was the mean parent who told my kid he had to do H English, you never know what the future may hold and career plans may need it.

You can always do higher English in S6. This means you can choose five highers in the strongest subjects in S5 to give the best chance of top grades for university admission.

The consensus amongst all I talk to with older kids is that Higher English is SUCH a bad syllabus. Marks are given for churning out things in the expected format. Independent thought is not rewarded at all.

Other 4 Nat5 are French, history, English and Food tech. The issue is subjects such as computer science ask for all As. Should my child take English they’d struggle to get an A whereas As in the other four techie subjects is far, far more doable.

Marks are given for churning out things in the expected format. Independent thought is not rewarded at all.

That is a perfect summary of all SQA awards.

😁

Has anyone had sight of teacher references now or in previous years? I'm a bit worried it will be very 'copy and paste' to save time and not unique to DD. I'm especially worried they'll forget to mention her extenuating circumstances.

Universities are very used to teacher references which may not be wholly individual and they place more emphasis on her personal statement so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Lots of the unis this year invited more students to interview than previous years so she'd have a chance to present herself well then too.
Our DD got offers for UWS, Stirling, Strathclyde, Dundee & somewhere else (Aberdeen maybe?) and interviewed for a couple of those.
From the other side of the fence - which uni they go to isn't as important as how they do in the classroom as they'll learn most on their placements and during their probation year.

It depends where he wants to go. My son is doing maths and CS at Glasgow and they did indeed need all As. He has friends doing it at other Unis which didn’t though.

motheronthedancefloor
The teacher reference changed last year so now has three specific questions they must answer, one of which relates to extenuating circumstances that may have impacted the applicant. Designed to make things more fair to children who may have faced barriers to achievement.

We went to the Heriot Watt open uni today, what. Fantastic experience. It sounds like my son will be eligible for a contextual offer so we're focusing on getting his application ready to send off next week.

Big (for him, for me not so much) surprise was how much he loved the Physics dept. He did well in Physics last years and is expected to do well at AH this year. He's now putting an application in for this too.

That's great for your DS!
My DF taught Physics and insisted his daughters take it, even though we hated it, I only just passed. He tried with DD (his DGD) but she's more stubborn than me and wasn't having it! Luckily his DGS (my nephews) are good at STEM!

Hello everyone - nice to see this thread and some familiar posters. Hope everyone's DC are doing okay and not finding the UCAS process too stressful.
My DC submitted their application at the beginning on November (their school is quite hot on doing it early!) and we had an offer from Aberdeen within 2 days! But still awaiting response from Glasgow. I totally appreciate that, in theory, it could be months yet, but just wondered if anyone has any experience of Glasgow response times? Cheers.

My DD submitted her application last week and heard back from Stirling, Dundee and Aberdeen within a couple of days. Nothing from Glasgow or Strathclyde yet but everything crossed. Hope the waiting isn't too stressful for everyone!

Can someone help me with how advanced highers are viewed? if a course needs AAABB and you don’t get that in S5 but you are sitting 3 AH, do the AH grades count as extra subjects (so you have 8 grades in all) or do they sit in place of the highers, so you get 5 grades overall?

I understand that a B in AH is counted as an A in Higher. But what if you e.g. have an A in higher German but get a C in AH. Are you counted as getting a B in German?

Or is the whole thing less of an exact science? University of Edinburgh or Strathclyde are being looked at.

Some accept double counting but some don’t. Glasgow does. Not sure about others.

No I don’t think your A in German would be downgraded if you got a C at AH. They might of course say you need a B at AH

Some don't double count.

The conditional offer should tell you exactly what you need to get in S6.
So they'll look at the highers and decide what else is required in S6, so eg. 2 Bs at AH, or 1A at higher and 1B at AH.
They S5 grades are unaffected

Thanks. Really appreciate it.