Starting Year 13 - September 2015

[hellsbells99]

Welcome to Year 13!
Their final year of school;
Applying for university/college/work/apprenticeships;
A year of 18th birthday parties;
Going to their first nightclub (unless they already have fake ID!);
The year they turn into adults!

DD2 has been back at school for 3 days and has lots of work already.

My DD's application just sent. Now the waiting begins. We're in Scotland and only applying to Scottish Universities so they probably won't answer quickly as it's likely to unconditional offers or no offer.

Uhtred - that is a great offer!
DD got an offer from Leeds yesterday following her interview/applicant day on Wednesday. She also received offers straight after from Manchester and Liverpool. She is happy.

Hells - excellent news. :)

Thats great Hells. Offers seem very quick after interviews then? The unis must have a good idea beforehand of the situation.

DS2s friend was at Manchester a few days ago (Physics) and was told on arrival that all their interviewees had offers, the process was to determine the offer given.

raspberry, our experience of a couple of years ago is that it is either a yes, no or maybe. The yesses and nos come through quickly. The maybe's take an age. So after a no from his first choice DS was waiting till mid March for the next three.

UCL seem to do something similar, often inviting candidates to turn up to "collect" their offer. My guess was that they had so many EU and Oxbridge applicants, that this was a way of sifting out those who had other irons in the fire and were not really interested, which then allowed them to offer the remaining places to those who were.

Still its great to hear so much good news. Uhtred in particular, that offer should be a great boost before other auditions.

Well done to your dds for those offers Uhtred and hellsbells Great start to their applications

Needmore - she hasn't actually had any auditions yet, they are all in November/December. That offer is from a university. But it is a huge boost, yes. First time I've seen her smile in connection with anything other than dr who for weeks. I think it's lifted the pressure. Momentarily, anyway.

She has an interview and audition at York set for January - they originally invited her to go next week but I will be in Nairobi (for work) and DH was supposed to be doing jury service (he has since been released) so she got it switched to one of their other dates, in January. I hope they don't take this as being uninterested, it's just that the journey from here to there is sufficiently onerous and fraught with potential snags (flybe are notorious for cancelling the last flight back from places, no way would I be comfortable knowing that there was the possibility she would end up stranded in Manchester on her own) that one of us needs to go at least part way with her.

Gosh, the last thing she needs with all the stress of an audition is the stress of travel disruption without the calming influence of a parents! The fact they offered and alternative indicates that they really want to see her! Does she have to take an instrument son the flights too? That must be a hassle.

I've namechanged but not in an anonymous way! Still Uhtred. Still the rightful - but deposed - lord of Bebbanburg (for as long as Bernard Cornwall can continue to wring money out of those of us who buy the books!).

MrsUltra the instruments would be all she would be carrying, really, apart from her iPhone and headphones. The point of flying up there is to avoid an overnight stay (necessary if she went on the train - the train would actually potentially require 2 overnight stays!) I've been left stranded at night at Manchester by Flybe myself, before now, so I'm not just giving voice to groundless worries - they don't have the greatest of track records with me. So, January it is. I don't think their willingness to be flexible is necessarily an indicator that they particularly want her, by the way - when DH originally rang them (she was at school, so she couldn't ring them herself) to say that date would be a real problem did they have any other dates for music interviews/tests/auditions (there's a written test as well as an audition) they quoted 3 or 4 other dates before he told them which applicant it actually was. So I think they are just basically flexible. They'd have to be really because some UCAS forms won't be in yet, they can't have the only date for auditions etc before the UCAS deadline. I believe that some music people wait till they know about the conservatoires before considering whether to apply for university anyway, so anyone doing that won't be submitting a UCAS universities form till late December.

Gloria - music.

Thanks, I am finding that vicariously worrying about other people's DC is a useful distraction from worrying about my own

Uhtred re name changing, if you look, I change one letter in my name every couple of weeks as I was getting bored of a couple of people using advanced search
I'm still clearly me, but linking all my posts has become much harder

TBH I suspect the Unis are well aware that parents work and so long as she rescheduled early its a sign of being busy, not lazy.

Talkin - I had to change my name because I couldn't remember the password for the email account I set up to use with MN after the hoohah in the summer! Complete incompetence on my part. And it was just easier to re-register here using facebook than to sort out the email issue!

I had noticed your wheeze. I am waiting for you to work round to talkinpizza.

Gloria - Guildhall is one of her choices. We know several people who are Guildhall graduates and/or tutors, and DD1 has done a couple of summer schools there. It was at one point her top choice, I'm not sure if it still is (I think the fact that my office is round the corner, and my sister's office is only slightly further away, is both a plus point and yet also a minus point in her eyes). Ultimately, she only put down places she really wanted to go to on the form, hence only have 4 conservatoires and 3 universities instead of 6 and 5. She's over the moon with her offer (Southampton) but she is not going to make any decisions till all the cards are on the table.

Just got back from half-term break to find offer from UCL in post.

Good to read about the other offers that have been coming in.

DS now has 3/5 offers and is getting almost daily emails basically urging him to accept. I know he can't nail his colours to any particular mast till he gets all offers, but Surely this must affect the offer rate for later entrants if early entrants do accept places even before some apply? I wonder if a better system would be for no offers to be made before X date however early you apply to avoid this potential affect? Or have I misunderstood the process?

DS had had an offer from his 5th choice, who are similarly badgering him.
I suspect even if 1 & 2& 3 & 4 turn him down he still won't go to #5, tho'.

DD1 only has the one offer at the moment, which isn't surprising since she has interview/audition dates for all the rest (apart obviously from Cambridge). She had a lovely email from the head of department from the place who have made her the one offer she has. But she won't be making any decisions till she knows how the die is cast. She would however be fine with going to the uni that has made her the offer.

DD has heard no more yet, and I'm not expecting her to for quite a while
so the coming months are

• concentrate of music exam
• get ready for driving test
• do a bit of A level work

and then decide on Unis in the spring.

DD2 has had 3 offers - 1 was following an interview. We had expected 1 of the others to be an interview too but they just made an offer and have invited her for an afternoon.
Last year DD1 applied for a course that almost always interviews so she was advised to apply early to try and get all interviews out of the way before Xmas - as they need to concentrate on their mock exams come January. DD2 has also taken this advice on board but won't be confirming her firm and insurance choices until nearer the deadline.
The other thing to bare in mind is that some universities open up their accommodation applications to those with offers earlier than you would expect - DD1 applied for her accommodation at Manchester in December last year.

No interviews here (thank the Lord). Re accommodation DS was saying that you can apply even before you say Yay or Nay when the booking system opens - one of his is notorious for leaving it to the last minute to give offers so if he's right about that he will go ahead and "reserve" places just in case

Yikes! Cambridge interview date come through today- 7 th December.

Brioche - exciting!!!! FIrst on the thead - well done ( to your Dc )!