A Levels & EPQ

[extinctspecies]

Please tell me about the EPQ?

DS's school is strongly encouraging it, alongside 3 A-Levels.

However DS is not keen on it & says it's not recognised by Oxbridge, which is an option for him, so doesn't see the point ...

He is clever, but lazy (yes, I know that if he wants to do Oxbridge he needs to sharpen up, we are are working on that).

Interested to know others' experience of their DC doing EPQ. Did they get good grades and did you feel it was helpful with getting into their first-choice Uni?

His other subjects will probably be English Lit, History & Maths.

Thanks.

"Of course nobody can guarantee here that he won't lose out on an offer at some universities that may when he is applying be scoring in favour of an EPQ during the admissions process."

Apart from the most competitive universities and courses (Oxbridge, Durham, Imperial, LSE, all medicine/vet/dentistry/law) isn't it mainly all about the predicted A level grades now? Now that the cap on admissions has been lifted my impression had been that for most RG universities and subjects if you have the required predicted grades you will get an offer? Am I wrong?

(I realise there are exceptions - see above!)

I think you are right sothat. DD has friends who are struggling at A level, yet have had offers from all 5 universities they have applied to. DD wants to do medicine so she is having to go through the interview process.

Lonicera he's obviously one of those very unusual kids but I can say with absolute confidence that you do not need to be a 'nerd' to get an Oxford place for History. The DS of mine who has just graduated with a First probably has a keener knowledge of NFL than of History. To be honest, it sounds like less work to do an interesting placement for a week than live and breathe military history to that extent .

Thanks for the posts. What sort of placements have your young History buffs being doing?

We are limited in options by living in a rural area with poor public transport.

OP we're in a rural area too with impossible public transport. My DC went away for placements in the sixth form, although when they were required to do a compulsory week's placement early in Y11 they opted for the nearest city's Record's Office where the people were incredibly good at engaging students in various aspects of the work. In the sixth form there are all sorts of opportunities if you look for them in London, for example at the Imperial War Museum. I'm half Polish which to be fair opened up other possibilities too.

DS discussed his EPQ at his (successful) Oxbridge interview. In some depth, judging by what he said. Take from that what you will.

Rewind.

On the eleventh you said; Although DS is probably going to read History at Uni.

On the twelfth (your next post) you said; DS is only just 16, and still has no idea what subject he may want to read at Uni.

Today you want to know; What sort of placements have your young History buffs being doing?

Is History your idea or his? This seems a bit jumbled.

sothatdidntwork my last statement was simply to acknowledge that despite my view that EPQ is n't generally going to make a difference to offers we cannot guarantee with 100% certainty this will be the case for every single university admissions in 2 years ( although it is likely to be).

DS is doing an EPQ, not compulsory at his school and wishes he hadn't. He's enjoying the research and writing but is finding the journal tedious. I don't know the details though.

Battleax I take nothing much from that since some colleges stick rigidly to a source related script and won't discuss the EPQ so that the playing field remains as level as possible, and even where colleges do take a different line, if an applicant doesn't happen to have done an EPQ, they won't discuss it by definition - simples!

So maybe in those colleges, if the subject is relevant, they do note it, but don't touch on it at interview?

Whichever way, in depth work is good preparation for uni.

It sounds as if OP's DS is under a misapprehension to do with UCAS points, anyway.

whiteroseredrose same. DS1 who's reading Medicine wrote an EPQ about mad cow disease and was bored rigid of mad cows by the end of it (well actually earlier than that, probably about half way through). Fortunately none of the tutors at his Oxford interviews was enthusiastic enough to ask about it either although it crept into a Birmingham interview for about two minutes (I think DS shut down that line of questioning asap, for his own sake, and moved onto more fertile ground :)).

Battleax call me an old cynic but the EPQ is a heaven sent low cost qualification for cash strapped state schools, such as my DCs'.

Reading medicine. You ol ponce

I thought four A levels plus EPQ was the standard arrangement, but my older two just scrapped through before the new Linear A levels. So I can imagine lots of stuff happening now or in different places, but especially now.

Fair point cod :). I try not to do it but it sometimes slips in.

Battleax

DS's strongest subject is History - he is good at it & enjoys it. From that I am surmising he will probably read it at Uni. When I have mentioned other subjects he might want to consider e.g. law, economics, PPE, business studies he says he's not interested.

He doesn't really have a clue himself, and our conversations about this change on a daily basis. In this respect I think he is a very typical 16 year old boy.

This weekend he told me he'd been chatting to a boy in the year above about the EPQ & thought it probably "wasn't that bad after all".