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.

Brioche (love your name - reminds me of a wonderful holiday in Brittany) know how you feel. Really hope your DD and my DS end up in right place for them. Is your DD being taught STEP at school?

No.the school don't seem to offer any help at all.l she is just teaching herself .There are 3 or 4 of them doing STEP and they have set up a little study group in 'enrichment' to work on STEP questions.

Thanks myvisions and zazas* for the views on Lancaster. We'll definitely try a visit then.

I think this is the thread for me too, although we're in Scotland so my Dd, at 16, is one of the youngest in 6th year. She did really well in Scottish Highers with 5 A grades and wants to study a Humanities subject at Uni next year. She's taking 3 Advanced Highers and Mandarin at GCSE (Nat5) level to fill up 6th year.

She's been to some open days and Edinburgh is coming out as top choice with St Andrews in 2nd place. Luckily for her, if she gets accepted at either/both, it's likely to be unconditional as Highers are the entry requirement, generally AAABB at a minimum. It will be still be a rough few months waiting for offers though!

dotdot an unconditional would be great!
We have just been through all this with DD1 who started uni 2 weeks ago and waiting for results day made me feel sick. I am currently trying to persuade DD2 to apply for Birmingham or Nottingham where she would have a chance of an unconditional - but this would only be if they were her firm choice and it's unlikely that they would be (Leeds current favourite).

UCAS application went in yesterday. Had an acknowledgement from Warwick which is nice of them.

Ds's UCAS form already returned - he omitted to fill in his A2s... Typical ds.

Oh no! Didn't the school check it for him RhodaBull?

I once sent off an application for an important exam for work and posted them the instructions for filling in the form instead of the form itself.

Ha ha. I once FedExed my Duran Duran tickets to a client instead of a share certificate...

I guess the school didn't check it, and clearly neither did ds! It's a bit tricky with online forms; you can't see where you've made a mistake/left something out as well as you can on a sheet of paper.

Rhonda - is it the school that have returned it to him but via the ucas system? DD2's has been returned to her by the school administrator as one of her exam boards was wrong

UCAS sent him an email saying they were returning it.

The school has form for not checking UCAS forms. Dn last year received no offers and finally asked for some feedback from somewhere she was particularly keen on, who said that her predicted grades were too low. It turned out the school had messed up and entered several people's grades incorrectly, in dn's case 3Cs instead of 3As. Bil was furious but the school's answer was "mistakes happen" Luckily university of choice reconsidered dn in the light of this and she is there now.

First offer in! From warwick .This is nice but is actually no big deal because they make an offer to everyone with the predicted grades.

Glad about offer Brioche.

DS had email from UCL saying he should have put Maths UMS on UCAS form so can he send them now please. He says he couldn't see anywhere on the form to put them. Strange.

RhodaBull what happened to your dn is terrible. Good that she got her place in the end.

I don't know where you would put UMS on the UCAS form

where has your DC applied to BethanKate? Mine has applied to Cambridge, Warwick Durham Bath & York.I think Durham might be a long wait as apparently they compile a list in order of UMS and offer from the top down

Applied to Camb (St Johns), Warwick, Bristol, Imperial & UCL.

Felt Durham was a bit too far from where we live.

Really liked St Johns but aware there are a lot of people whose exam results are loads better. Can but try.

Which Camb college is your DD applying to?

Cambridge ask for UMS on the SAQ. Durham asked DS1 for UMS by e mail.
Some schools mention them in the reference if they are unusually high.

She has applied to St Catharine's.She has drafted a mini PS for the SAQ in which she says she thinks the short terms at Cambridge would suit her style of learning!!!!
I think I am going to have to talk her out of that!!

Ha ha!

Must check what DS is putting.

the short terms at Cambridge would suit her
DS (application still to be submitted - apparently doing the rounds of referees etc at school)told me yesterday that one of his friends got an offer.
I casually said - 'Oh, Warwick?
He was startled (I think he maybe thought I was somehow stalking his phone )
So I told him, no - it's thanks to mumsnet, that much-derided (in our house by DH & the boys) source of info!

Someone at DD's school got an offer from Warwick earlier this week. Apparently, everyone was cheering her because it was the first offer any of the Sixth Form had received this year! Don't know what subject it was.

DD still not sent her form in. Think plan is for it to be submitted on Monday.

Finally DD2s application has gone in, her PS has been ready for over a week, we were just waiting for the school's reference and extenuating circumstances letter to be finished and checked over. Next drama will be over the SAQ (DD likes to have everything under control, and gets very stressed when people Head of 6th form don't do things when they say they will. Not sure how she's going to cope with waiting for offers).

Her tutor's doing sterling work reminding her that Cambridge isn't the be-all and end-all, and I think she has a realistic view of her chances there (which oddly are better in terms of numbers than her second choice).

at Brioche's DD