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.

[MrsUltracrepidarian]

Some principle!
I was at ands Oxford Open day on Friday, an a parent had the same issue with her DDs school, even tho the DD has got the equivalent of A*s in her As levels

[MrsUltracrepidarian]

DS submitted his UCAS application last night ( the school require it to be done by today). I presume so they can then go on to concentrate on those who do not need to apply early and the US applications.
He won't be visiting Durham till this Saturday so has just randomly chosen a college there...

[Ta1kinPeace]

Marking place as I should probably get up to speed.

Have not been to visit any Unis yet : have made an active decision to do so early next month once they are in full swing and see what the vibe is.
As DD said - the people we will see will be mostly there with her so if she does not like the feel of them ....

DD showed me her PS but I'm trusting the college to handle is that they see rather more than I ever will.

Glad lots of people liked their visits to Southampton. Its a nice city, a nice campus and the halls provision is getting better every year.

[Stillunexpected]

Am I dreaming or was there a separate thread going on Uni Open Days?

[MrsUltracrepidarian]

Is anyone going to Durham on Saturday?

[raspberryrippleicecream]

No, DS has finished looking round and decided on his five. However he does need to fonalise his choice of course. PS has been handed out to several people, redrafted and handed out again.

I think he gets the final predictions at parents evening next week, so should be ready to submit at that point. Then I suppose the wait will start for interviews/offers. Plus his Oxford test!

[UhtredOfBebbanburg]

DD1 has met her internal deadline and her PS is approved. She has seen her reference. Her predictions are A A A - I don't know what they are predicting for her EPQ. I'm not sure why the button hasn't been pushed, if everything is done, but I think there's some stitching together of the elements of the school reference to be done, maybe - she's seen the individual chunks from her subject teachers, one of which made her cry it was so lovely and it prompted another subject teacher to say 'they really love you in that department don't they!'. She has only selected 3 universities but she is applying to 4 conservatoires too so that seems an elegant sufficiency. All a bit nerve wracking though.

[LessStress]

Hope you won't mind a latecomer?
DD has changed her mind about applying after A levels and now has three weeks to sit her UKCAT test and get her UCAS form submitted.
I had been looking forward to a reasonably calm Yr13, oh well.

[Needmoresleep]

Less stress, there is also a would-be medic thread in Higher Education. We are almost the reverse. Dd was very ill in August and the sensible thing might be to apply next year. However she will get her application in with 4 reasonably sensible choices, all unvisited, and see what happens.Then apply next year in a more organised fashion if need be.

Good predictions, so another of the very many medical school boxes ticked. On fourth draft of PS and two universities chosen. I need to finish going through the rest to identify which are realistic (Bristol wants an AS in a non-science, Sussex require BMAT etc) and then she can decide - or toss a coin. The good thing about the early deadline is that it will then be done. She probably won't hear for months so can focus on what she needs to do at school.

[LessStress]

Needmoresleep, sorry to hear about your DD, that must be tough for her going into Yr13. DD had a lovely Summer but is a bit up and down at the moment, feeling the pressure I suppose. I've suggested she sees this round as a trial run. I wonder how important personal statements really are? She's on her first draft but finding it difficult.
DD can't really make any sensible Uni choices until she knows how she's done in the UKCAT, but likes the look of Cardiff (went to open day) and Birmingham so far.
The mum-of-medic applicant thread looks a bit scary technical. I've no clue about league tables, might venture over later

[UhtredOfBebbanburg]

It's really difficult to tell with PSs. Some people are adamant that universities don't read them. Some people are adamant that they do. Both groups include people involved in admissions. Sometimes from the same university! I know someone who is certain that his Cambridge interview was secured by a 'killer' PS. I know someone who thought his PS was pretty poor and also got an interview. I've read both PSs and neither of them seem that great to me! I've seen other PSs that were described similarly glowingly and did seem, to me, to be amazing (and depressing!). So I've decided that you just can't tell. It's one of those things our kids have to give their best shot with, and then move on.

[RhodaBull]

I still don't understand about Exeter... Ds likes the look of it but says he can't apply because he's been predicted AAA* and he might not achieve those grades - he is doing humanities so you never know how things will pan out. It seems unfair (and misguided) to have different offers based on predicted grades. To make an adjustment for circumstances, fine, but I don't quite see how their policy of having higher offers for better people is going to result in getting top candidates in the door.

[RhodaBull]

Whoops, that came out wrong: I meant ds has been predicted 3 X A* rather than just one.

[Needmoresleep]

Uhtred, in our experience University Departments made it very clear how much emphasis was put on the PS. I suspect the important difference is between selecting and recruiting Universities. If a course is over subscribed and some candidates offering more than the minimum requirement will be rejected they have to work it out somehow. Not all interview, so what they get through UCAS becomes all important. And for subjects like medicine, a PS can be used to help decide who is called for interview. I assume that a good PS might also help if you are on the margin, say if you narrowly miss your grades in the summer.

However I suspect a lot are not read, as grades will provide sufficient information.

Again in our experience those courses, where they said the PS was important, provided a lot of guidance on their websites. I guess you would then ignore at your peril.

Lessstress - ignore the league table debate. I liked the suggestion that the best University is the one most likely to offer a place. Someone also provides an Amazon link to various books about applying for medicine. In panic I bought the lot. (Fingers crossed that she gets to use the two on interview technique and the basic guide to medical ethics.) DD said the one about the PS was very useful. I think she liked having a guide to the content she should cover. PS is now on its fourth draft. Luckily her school is good at this sort of thing, so I have no need to be involved.

[HocusUcas]

Rhoda, DS applied to Exeter, no idea what his predicted grades were - the school doesn't officially give them out., but from parents' evening I would have guessed to be higher than the A A A offer from Exeter. He turned it down as offer from his first choice was lower . I guess their reasoning is there are enough really good candidates out there they don't need the ones who fail to achieve their Oxford AAA offer - there are plenty who will get the A and As who didn't apply to Oxford.

[HocusUcas]

Also not sure about other humanities but as I understand it Exeter history dept has a really strong demand.

[RhodaBull]

But why put off the A students and welcome in the A predicted ones? So a student who has been given AAA offer, and gets 3As, is not accepted, yet another who was offered AAA in the first place is in. So both students got same grades, but the one who was seen as a higher flier on the UCAS form is penalised. I can't get my head round it!

And all the Oxbridge rejects have to go somewhere! There are an awful lot of them with presumably rather good brains. I get no one wants to be second choice, but it seems to be a case of cutting off their nose to spite their face if they try to dissuade A* students from putting them down. Or it becomes a situation of schools trying to second guess what predictions they should make to game the system.

[Needmoresleep]

Lessstress. I would add that since different medical schools use different selection criteria, it is worth looking closely at what they want. There is no point DD applying to Bristol, though she would like to, as she does not have an AS in a non science subject. Luckily she meets the, quite stringent, GCSE requirements for Birmingham. SGUL have reasonably low requiremennts and then base most of the rest on interview.

That said, I am hoping that all we need to do is double check she ticks the boxes for each of the Unviersities she plans to try for, and don't have to put too much effort into understanding the detail to allow her to choose Universities where she has greatest comparative advantage. At least not this year.

[HocusUcas]

What I am not sure about though Rhoda, and there might be enough experience around these parts to fathom it , is if anyone got less than an A* A A offer from Exeter (for history). My anecdotal impression was that it was fairly standard. If people did and I missed it then apologies, as you were - I've just been spectacularly and time-wastingly unhelpful . I'm pretty sure DS didn't know of any amongst his friends.

[RhodaBull]

Well, if everyone gets the same, that's fine even if it is a horrible offer!

Ds is dithering around because his PS makes it a bit obvious that he's applying to Oxbridge - not mentioning it by name, of course, but the slant is there. It's a shame you can't do a slightly modified PS for each different university...

[MyVisionsComeFromSoup]

DD1 sent off her form the day after the Oxbridge deadline so that all her choices knew she wasn't also applying there. She's convinced it made a difference .

[Ta1kinPeace]

Am so glad that none of DDs chosen courses at any uni require any test over and above A levels.

When she took her driving theory the other day there were lots of kids in the test centre doing their UKCAT who she said looked very stressed.

[LessStress]

DD will be doing her driving theory and UKCAT at the same test centre within the same week. At least she could retake the driving test though!

Needmoresleep where did you see the bit about Bristol wanting a non-science AS level? DD has a non-science AS so I thought I'd mention it to her but I can't see it anywhere on their website. It just seems to specify Chemistry and another lab science at A level with no guidance on the extra subjects.

Predicted grades seem to be a bit random at DD's school. She has been predicted her highest grade in the subject she did worst in at AS level but feels quite demoralised about another subject she was confident of getting a top grade in where the teacher has made a lower prediction.

[LessStress]

hellsbells99 I've just read your OP properly re Yr13 milestones. My DD went to her first nightclub (age limit 17+) a few days before her 17th birthday over the Summer, used her provisional licence (which was not yet valid) as ID assuming, correctly, the doormen wouldn't bother to check the date and promptly got her bag containing her licence, bank card, student card etc stolen.
It was a harsh lesson and she must be in the minority applying for a replacement provisional licence BEFORE she'd even reached her 17th birthday! It has apparently put her off clubbing for life (we'll see).
She's the baby of her friendship group which is a real pain as she is last to do everything.