Starting Y13 (y12 support thread contd)

[AtiaoftheJulii]

Well, I filled up the other one, so here's a nice new one to get us through dropping subjects, Uni open days, personal statement writing, and UCAS applications

Plenty of and and (nicely-intentioned) s available!

Sorry Leeds want AAb for Joint honours with History

Mumslife what subjects is your D taking and which is she dropping:
My DD: Eng Lit, History, Politics, Psychology. Dropping Eng Lit which was one of her B's

If we want to get copies of papers to go through just to see where marks were gained/missed, is there a deadline to do this?

Fairenuff - is there not a slip in with the exam results about when to apply for copies, remarks etc and cost for different exam boards? If not you will need to ring the school. At ours, the deadline for requesting a photocopy is this Friday (22nd).

We're asking for two photocopies, partly so we can see why DS got a C in his second Geog paper despite thinking it went really well and having got an A in the first paper which he didn't think went well! Thankfully he got an A overall, but I'm hoping he may be able to learn something useful.

Similarly Biology - A in one paper and C in the other (though a B overall). We're getting a copy of the weaker paper back to see if he can glean anything useful.

And, if he looks at them with a teacher and they advise him to go for a remark there is still time.

Deadline here for copy scripts is Thurs 21st. Says up to 3 weeks to get them, which should just about be in time to request a remark after going through.

Deadline for scripts is Thurs here too. We're applying for 2 x Chem and 1 in Physics.

Ok, dd is back and has found out deadline for copy script is tomorrow and original script is 3rd October. However, she is happy with her marks and doesn't think she will benefit from going over them. She got ABB but thinks she will be predicted AAA because her Bs were close to As.

Sounds promising Fairenuff

Our deadline for script requests is Friday. DD will be requesting 2 x Physics and 1 x Maths, all of which she intends to retake. She got ACCD overall but is dropping the A subject (Religious Studies), which she hates. So I'm quite worried about what grades the school will predict based on CCD.

Atia, yes, DD will be doing M1 in Maths this year, but repeating S1 as she got a D. She is hoping to find M1 relatively easy having done Mechanics for Physics this year.

Quick question - when a university says its entry grades for a course are (for example), ABB-BBB, what does that mean? Someone told me that they will look at your grades in context, so if you went to a really good school they'll expect the higher grades, but if you went to a dodgy one they'll accept the lower ones. Is that right?

It means that their standard offer is ABB (unless you go to a state school listed as being in the bottom 40% of results nationally, who may be given a contextual offer of BBB). You can check to see if your school is on the list.

By the way, each university uses contextual data differently, so look at the website to check out whether your dc would be given a lower offer. Some have lists of local schools /or use it to decide about interviews /or use it if student has dropped a grade during clearing in a badly performing school.

Sorry - I think it also incudes poorly performing private schools. But check that out on the websites.

Thanks all for the explanations. DD is in an independent school (not a poorly performing one, happily), so no contextual offers for us. She will just have to work her socks off.

DD2 got a contextual offer from Nottingham for Maths a few years ago but we couldn't work out why as she didn't fit any of the listed criteria. Her state school doesn't perform poorly so we just put it down as a mystery!

Is it usual for the predicted A2 grades to be higher than As then? Or is this only if they are close to the next grade. I understand that A2 is much harder or does the extra maturity come in to play?

It is said that A2 usually go up by one grade. All depends on how the students work though!

That's good to know Horsemad. Ds has done better than predicted at AS. The same happened for GCSE. He may actually have more choice of uni than he thinks Going by what you've said he could actually pull A*AA out the bag. I so hope he can do this he works pretty hard and needs good grades to compensate for his PS he has an ASD and really is not a get out there kind of guy though he is becoming more confident now.

That's great Jellified What is he wanting to study?