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!

Thanks everyone. Is it me or are they sending out offers quicker than last year? Or is it just because dd1 applied in November?

Mumslife - dd2 has an optimistic prediction of (A, A, A). However, I take that with a massive pinch of salt, as just a couple of bad exams could easily make that go down to AAB or ABB (so I'm glad she has an ABB offer). After last years exams (when this happened to dd1) I'm a lot more cautious.

No offers for DD yet because she hasn't finished applying yet!
Just about there I think. Her PS has been given to 2 teachers for a final check and she has copied it into Ucas. She has narrowed down her choices - she has got rid of the 1 furthest away. She did really like it but it wouldn't have been her 1st choice because of distance and didn't guarantee accommodation for insurance choice.
All her choices select via interview so we could be in for a long wait to see if she gets any interviews and then gets any offers.
Littleham - the predicted vs actual grades is a worry. Several of her friends did get in with lower grades last year though, although 1 or 2 ended up in clearing. 1 dropped 2 grades and still got into their firm choice of Birmingham and 1 dropped 4 grades and got into their insurance choice of York.

1 dropped 4 grades and got into their insurance choice of York.

Wow hellsbells99 ! - What subject was this for? I agree, the predicted grades are really just a best hopeful guess.

yay DS has made his 5 choices and is now ready to apply!

Congrats to all those with early offers.

DD nowhere near ready to submit UCAS, starting PS again.
All choices are sightly to moderately aspirational - ie one or two grades above predictions. Although a slim chance will raise after half term. School have been quite mean with predictions because of over-predicting last year. Openly saying they are predicting the lowest they expect the student to get, so they have every chance of beating them. Seems very wrong to me.
May have a last look at one or two lower end Unis over half term, before finally ruling them out.

We had same problems here circular with school predictions more under predicting, my dd achieved AAAB at AS the A's were very high the B was 2 marks off an A and they were predicting ABBB we was mortified as the uni's that dd wanted to apply range from A*AA to AAB obviously daughter was very upset to the point she didnt see the point of aspiring to go to uni since she couldnt have a shot at applying to somewhere she wanted to go and she had worked her socks of to get the grades she got. We had to ring the school and practically beg them to reconsider as. They did in the end. We couldn't understand why they under predicted as dd is self motivated, diligent has strong work ethics.

circular and fairycakes, that seems really unfair. DD's school say that they try to be 'realistic but optimistic', and in DD's case they have been quite generous. She got BCD in her A-level subjects at AS, and they have predicted her BCB respectively; she's hoping to pull the C up to a B in mid-term tests so she can apply with BBB. Then her aspirational choices will be only one grade up at ABB. It's not a great situation and we are quite prepared for her to take a year out before uni to improve her application if things don't go well next summer.

Fairycakes - that is really bad. You would assume she would be predicted at least her AS grades. DD got AAB in AS and school initially predicted the same, but DD managed to pursuade them to raise the B to an A as she only just missed it and is resitting a paper.

Littleham - sorry it was 3 grades she dropped not 4. She obviously interviewed very well!

Waitingaround - is it your DS who wants to study Comp Sci? Do you mind me asking where he has applied to please?

yes thats right horsemad same as yours

I'm glad you ladies don't think we were being unreasonable to ask for higher grade predictions and that we weren't being unreasonable. The school made us feel that we were indirectly pushing our daughter to achieve the AAA grades if they give into our request. But our argument was that dd had worked so hard in her AS in order to achieve the A grades so that she could apply to those uni and have go hopefully get a offer and that if in the end she didn't achieve the required grades its ok as she was happy to go to AAB uni she liked too. You would have thought school would be happy to have a child that had aspirations to achieve there best and to be honest, her grades do reflect she has potential. I personally think that the school under predicted so to cover their backs, so that we wouldn't blame the teachers or school if she didn't achieve AAA predictions she required.

sorry, posted too soon- after much deliberation he has chosen
Durham, Birmingham, Bristol, Bath and York (insurance). He seriously considered Imperial, but struggles with crowded tubes so it wouldn't of really been appropriate but I think he is disapointed about this. He is predicted all A* but I would be surprised if he managed this!

Great choices Waiting

fairycakes It is totally nuts as our two daughter's are in a similar position, but with wildly different predictions. The right prediction is probably somewhere in the middle!

where does your DS want to go horsemad

Imperial (doubt he'll get an offer)
Southampton
York
M'cr
and either Nottingham or Sheffield (going to Sheffield Open Day on Sat)

Muffin monster wish our dd school were a tad bit more generous like yours. Its a good idea having a strategy a plan A and plan B should things not work out.

Sounds good horsemad
Ds has just sent me a text to say he could still change his mind!!! He really is differing about imperial- I don't know which one he'd drop though plus he does have a real problem with crowded tubes!

Hellbells our dd tried to do the same thing and persuade the head of 6th form to predict her higher grades funny thing was it was up to them and not the subject teachers that taught her??? Any way it was to no avail and she was in floods of tears, so we ended up having to reason with them. .

DD never got predicted below AS grades, but in 2 subjects had very good case to be predicted up. Subject teachers agreed, but still wouldn't take the risk. Took it to head of 6th, and they more or less hinted that they could indicate she is likely to exceed predictions in her reference. So all very confusing, left not really knowing what her true predictions are.

That said, have found that any admissions she as contacted (with her assumed predictions) for courses a couple of grades up, have been very positive.
But would they every say don't bother?

Oh, that's awful fairycakes - your predictions have to be the first filter on your choice of uni really, so they should be realistic-to-hopeful, rather than completely achievable to somehow make the school look better! Really glad you got things sorted for her.

My dd1's school have a strict selection process for who they predict an A in Maths for (although, it still doesn't work, lol! Last year they predicted nearly 30, got 8, plus another 4 unpredicted did get As) - have to have at least 95% average ums across 1 and C2, and at least 90 in the applied module. And then after that it's up to the individual subject teachers. Two of dd1's are generous, imo (doable if she works, I suppose ).

I can empathise with him Waiting as I hate travelling by tube full stop!! Freaks me out!