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.

[MorvahRising]

needmoresleep what a worrying summer for you. So glad they are both recovering.

[essyol]

Hi there, suspect I'll be haunting this thread.

Have twins DS and DD. She's on track with 4 As at AS, and likely to do well in year 13 with a strong work ethic. Our main challenge with her is she can't decide between Cambs to do English or a Drama school - meaning her PS is a real challenge to write so as to appeal to both.
DS did okay but isn't working to his potential at all - he's already decided the school is to blame for his AS levels ACCC but in fact what he thought was 'working' simply was not what was required. He wants to study abroad so is doing UCAS with little enthusiasm but I'm not convinced he'll get the grades to study abroad. I fear problems ahead with him.

There were several lost students at AS in their state school due to appalling results.

I'm dreading this year to be honest.

[EllenJanethickerknickers]

DS has been told at school that he doesn't need to look at different modules for STEP but he's getting some extra lessons to cover the different style questions.

Essyol, DS1 gives me no cause for concern, but DS2 in Y11 is another matter!

[raspberryrippleicecream]

Hello. DS1 goes back on Tuesday. His PS first draft is ready to hand in. He is applying to Oxford so needed to crack on

He is doing Maths, FM, Physics and Geology, dropping Philosophy.

He is off to Leeds next week.

[hellsbells99]

DD2 eventually 'threw' some stuff together last night for her PS - she has to show that she has a draft done. I think she has about 3 A4 sheets so I said I will look at it with her tonight. As least the facts are there ready to start moving stuff round and getting rid of stuff. She is also going to talk to her physics teacher about it today.
Her friend was round yesterday and they were talking about going to see their teachers today so they could 'beg' for good predicted grades - I did tell them that they be fine anyway. They are due a full report in about 2 weeks time which forms the basis of their school reference - I only know all this because DD1 went though it last year!
DD2 is doing maths, chemistry, physics and AS further maths (she has dropped biology).

[Needmoresleep]

Sorry I posted this first on the Open Day thread. Probably because I am envious of everyone zipping round the country. Its going to have to be paper for us. Then ones we could get to like KCL, and which she is genuinely interested in, are full.

Also thanks for the good wishes. She is fine but the real pity is she is starting term absolutely exhausted and emotionally drained. I think we were all asleep by 9.00pm yesterday. Its was always going to be a tough term. I think they try to cover the bulk of the A2 syllabus, plus she has the fun/responsibility of being at the top of the school. There has also been one 18th birthday party, staying over and not much sleep. Lets hope most of the rest of her friends are summer babies.

The next step is predictions. Schools seem to have quite different approaches. Her school is fairly strict and will normally only predict an A if the AS UMS is above about 90, and don't normally take into account plans for resits. (They say that for maths/science the AS is a very strong predictor of A2 grade.) Other schools seem willing to predict a grade above. I know DS was asked to supply his UMS scores to most of the places he applied to. DD probably needs at least one A prediction.

LIZS. I would not worry too much about booking at Warwick, other than a place in the car park. You might need to find an alternative. The big talks were repeated several times during the day and though not booked (DS only booked me into the car park!) I managed to get into one of these. I dont think they checked to thoroughly and your DS could probably sneak into his subject talk. I went to a lot of the minor talks on things like studying abroad, where there was no problem getting in, and which meant between us we had better coverafge. Ditto there were plenty of spaces later in the day on campus and accomodation tours etc. I thought Warwick was great. DS was less convinced, perhaps because he found it hard to envisage living anywhere but London.

Dunlurking. Glad to hear he has made a decision about what he wants to study. I went round with DS, who was very course orientated and the Exeter course simply did not appeal. Instead I kept thinking how much my daughter would enjoy it. However the medicine course is PBL which she wants to avoid, so not for her either.

NorthernLurker. Perhaps we need a new mums of medical applicants thread in Higher Education. Not least it would be nice to have help and advice from previous years' mums of applicants. Its going to be a long year.

[hellsbells99]

Hello Needmoresleep. I hope your DD is recovering ok. If you want any views on any particular universities, I am sure mumsnet can help you .
DD2 is hoping that school will predict her good grades even though she messed 1 subject up a bit at AS - 1 bad paper that she will resit.
Last year, DD1 persuaded her chemistry teacher to up her prediction from a B to an A, and this helped her get all 5 offers. She did end up getting a B (so he was right) but got into her first choice anyway (even though she needed an A in chemistry).

[RhodaBull]

How can it be fair if different schools have different policies regarding predictions? And bizarre that - if it is to be believed - Exeter offer worse offers (ie higher) to better applicants?

Ds spent four hours on his PS and came up with precisely nothing. I said I'd have a go, and he declared it Total Crap. He has now emailed his tutor something or other, which he said was Better Crap. I think one problem was reading lots of personal statements off the Student Room and from school. I think every single person was in the county youth orchestra (first violin, of course), had 12 A*s at GCSE, had won national debating competitions, volunteered six days a week and had shadowed David Cameron, three high court judges and the ghost of Mother Theresa.

[MrsUltracrepidarian]

Last year, DD1 persuaded her chemistry teacher to up her prediction from a B to an A, and this helped her get all 5 offers. She did end up getting a B (so he was right)
This is why it isn't fair - because some teachers are bludgeoned into overriding their judgement - which starts an arms race and the Unis therefore cannot trust the predictions.

[SecretSquirrels]

Just as AS are a step up from GCSE, A2s are tougher than AS exams.

A prediction should be an estimate of what the student can expect to achieve using factual evidence such as actual AS results and work done in Y12. Over predicting does no good to anyone.
I wouldn't expect an A* prediction unless the AS modules were all in the 90% UMS range.

[Northernlurker]

dd hopes for an A* prediction in biology I think. Happy with A for the other two which is in line with AS.

Needmore - yes a specific thread might be handy to save boring everybody else with our struggle Oth I'm just as happy to plough on here too. Long year absolutely! I feel drained just thinking about the wait for interviews and offers - assuming she gets any. Then we have to live through results day.....

[hellsbells99]

MrsUltra - DD1 did only miss the A grade by 2 raw marks. Her school normally are quite strict with predictions, but as the chemistry teacher knew she would work hard he was happy to predict the A. They will only normally predict an A* if the AS ums is at least 94 average.
Some universities will make higher offers if their prediction is high as they don't want to be an insurance choice - Bath said this was their policy for DD's course.

[MrsUltracrepidarian]

Some universities will make higher offers if their prediction is high as they don't want to be an insurance choice
This is interesting - gets even more complicated!

[hellsbells99]

I think this is also what Exeter were doing last year, hence Gloriahotcakes' comment above

[RhodaBull]

What happened in the end with Exeter, then? Did they fail to attract all those A offer people? Are they stuck with (relatively) lower achievers whilst the A students gave them two fingers?

Why wouldn't they want to be the insurance of an Oxbridge failure? Surely the aim is to get the best possible students, rather than the ones most eager to go to your institution. Preferably both, of course, but realistically they have to accept that anyone predicted 3A*s may well be having a stab at Oxbridge. To be eliminating all those people is surely shooting themselves in the foot?

[Dunlurking]

This Exeter issue has gone over my head (and we were at open day saturday and I attended 2 talks with ds). What is the problem with predictions and their offers? That they make higher offers the higher the predictions? So should you only get the predictions that are in the prospectus when talking about Exeter?

What if you are applying to Bristol as well and they ask the same? Ds wants Exeter and Bristol as aspiration choices for an AAA course. He got AAB for AS but has convinced me he can get AAA predictions and make them. In fact either of his AS As could earn A predictions and the B papers in his Maths will be retaken and should turn into As OK. Does that mean he must make sure he only has 1 A prediction? Or if he had 2A* predictions does that give him a better chance of getting an offer from Bristol (or Exeter?)

Really confused

[SecretSquirrels]

Dunlurking I do recall on the UCAS thread when DS1 was at this stage there were several DC who got stupidly high offers from Exeter. I think they were English or other Arts subjects.

[Needmoresleep]

Northernlurker and others, I have started a new medicine thread in Higher Education where we can be boring about BMAT, UKCAT, PBL, MMI and more.

[Dunlurking]

Thanks SecretSquirrels I'll try to find that thread.

[hellsbells99]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/2161764-Starting-Y13-y12-support-thread-contd?pg=38
Here is the thread that contained Exeter references and then the follow on thread number 3. There was stuff on student room too.

[Dunlurking]

Oh dear. Thanks for the warning GloriaHotcakes. Good luck with the pushing. Have just had a conversation with ds about applying with AAA predictions instead and seeing how far he gets.

Thanks hellsbells99 that's really helpful. I wasn't getting very far with a search.

[MrsUltracrepidarian]

Any thoughts on Durham?
I have heard (in RL) and read on here that people have been messed around by them sitting on decisions (eg if a grade is missed not releasing the applicant for clearing until the best of the rest are snapped up?) and in another case, keeping a DC hanging on nearly till the deadline (for firm/ins decision) before rejecting him.