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!

I thought that the Manchester University explanation of how they use contextual data was quite helpful.

www.manchester.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/applications/after-you-apply/contextual-data/

Thanks Littleham that's really interesting. As suspected, DDs GCSE school has contextual flag for level 3 but not level 2. No mention of parents education there.

Helping DD with info gathering for personal statements today.

Seems to be a grey area of what is included in school reference, re work experience, achievements and extra CA. School form asks for such details, but are they likely to include stuff done outside of school? Or in DD's case, also at previous school as she moved for 6th form?

I wouldn't expect them to include out of school stuff, if its relevant I would put in a paragraph at the end.

DS and I had a bit of a personal statement stand off yesterday - he wants to perfect it in his head before he writes anything down and I think he should just write a rough draft and then amend it. DS knows best of course

Dd is going to do hers in sixth form when they go back. They have timetabled sessions with a teacher on hand for advice.

DS is supposed to send his to one of the teachers over the summer and considering there isn't much summer left he needs to get on with it!

DD was supposed to submit a first draft before the end of term, but kept missing the 'workshops' because of open days and taster days. Then when she could attend one, found the info totally useless for music.
Also asked for a list of extra CA stuff, achievements, leadership, work experience and special circumstances to provide school for reference purposes. She has now done this, but not sure how much will go in to reference. But at least, having done the list has some idea of the more important bits that must go into PS.

I think it depends on the subject mumslife - DD2 is studying maths at university and I'm sure that all the universities she applied to didn't care in the slightest what she put in her personal statement but as DS is applying for English Literature its probably more important that he can write something coherent!

DS and I had a bit of a personal statement stand off yesterday - he wants to perfect it in his head before he writes anything down and I think he should just write a rough draft and then amend it. DS knows best of course

web DS1 went through this last year, and adopted the same approach as your DS seems to have. He had to meet the mid October UCAS deadline and that "iterative in my head" approach did work, extremely successfully, for him. In these instances it may well be the case that a DC does know best, does not mean we cannot support them but they do need our trust in their ability to write the personal statement that best reflects them as an individual.

DS has to meet the early deadline as well boys3 - my nagging is based on the fact that things tend to stay in his head and not make it into reality because he is too busy "perfecting"!

If I were doing it in my head, I'd have no idea how long it was!

web I can empathise with the "perfecting" bit. :) I'm not sure if its a humanities thing. DS1 did English Lit at A2 as well, although taking History forward as his degree. Hopefully such subjects do lend themselves to potential coherence.

Mumslife - were were told the same by our head of 6th form re grades not going up! All feeling a bit flat here still..

In terms of negotiating with teachers to predict up on AS levels I am going to advise caution. I was told by admissions tutors in July that many universities ignore predictions if they are more than a grade above the AS result and that they are also sceptical when there appears to be an across the board AS + 1 policy. Essentially, if a student got CCCC and is predicted BBB there needs to be a reason given for it (extenuating circumstances explaining AS underperformance, explanation that student was only 2 UMS from next grade) otherwise many admissions tutors simply discount the predictions. They said too many schools give every student an AS + 1 prediction and this is ridiculous. I didn't know this before but they said statistically the split in terms of A2 performance is roughly into thirds so 1/3 go down a grade or more from AS, 1/3 achieve the same grade and 1/3 go up a grade or more. Schools predicting that all grades are going to go up when in reality 2/3 won't are setting people up for disappointment. It's not to say you never see cases of dramatic improvement, there are some every year, and that is what adjustment is for IMO.

I'm just hoping and praying that DS gets some offers from decent unis!

We received his Physics script yesterday - he was 6 marks off an A. I think he's dropped marks by not reading the questions properly. We'll see what the teacher thinks when he sees it. Still waiting for Chem scripts.

We're off to Southampton open day next week. Anyone else going?

Not sure mumslife but some of the unis we've looked at have said DS could change course content after the first year. Perhaps your DD could do History & Politics and then drop Politics to concentrate on History?

Mumslife in a situation like that where they were so close to the next grade I would predict one grade up (but not two). The admissions tutors I have spoken to urged caution when choosing different courses at different Unis just because of issues it creates for personal statements but if carefully written I think history and history and politics could be fairly safe in terms of statement writing, just make sure the main focus of the statement is history.

You technically can apply for more than one course at a particular Uni (there are exceptions to this though) but some Unis can be a bit prickly about applicants doing this, especially if they think the applicant is only applying for that course due to the lower typical offers. Other Unis won't care at all. It makes it really difficult when giving out advice because admissions tutors have different preferences at different Unis.