further education....help!

[ThatVikRinA22]

posting here as teens gets no one....

DS has ASD and dyslexia.

he was meant to be doing A levels over 3 years. to cut a long story short college has been crap. he hasnt done well but had little support. his senior tutor today proved how little she knows him.

he could now take his clutch of very bad A level results and go on to do a foundation degree - but we only found this out today. tomorrow will entail some fraught phone calls. he was meant to be going back to college for a 3 rd year which is very very pointless. he will just have a mis matched hotch potch of assorted A and AS levels....

or he could do this foundation degree at a college, with a third year full time at uni to get his Bsc Hons. seems like a good idea, but he/we didnt even know this was an option. cue some frantic UCAS applications and student finance applications....

what do i do? how do we do this in time? he has to find out tomorrow if he can get on the course - if he can then we have to do a ucas application and get finance in place ready for the new term. how the heck do i do this? its a better idea than wasting another full year at a crappy college....

I work at a university which was founded for workers, so the great majority of our students are over-21s, and to get a place they don't need any former official qualifications. If a student is under 21, they need some qualifications (we are flexible though) but they don't need to go through UCAS. We are still doing clearing.
I have done admissions interviews this year - if I am satisfied that they can manage a part-time BA degree, then I admit them, otherwise I redirect them to the foundation course, which can then count at first year of their BA. I have yet to come across a student I would call hopelessly 'thick' - only students who were made to understand that they were, or indeed told, by their teachers and sometimes their parents. If I and them had infinite time and resources, they would all get good marks.
Anyway, that's to say some unis can be very well suited to some of our kids (I say 'our', mine is 4). E.g. this year I admitted a young man with AS, who at present works stacking shelves in a supermarket. He is amazingly articulate, and writes extremely well. I don't care what it takes, that kid is going to finish his degree, and get a good mark - but he did take that first step of applying and coming to the interview.
Please tell your children not to give up on further education if they want to pursue it