daughter threatening not to go to university - help!

[olderandwider]

Hi, I'm new here but would really value some persepective on how to deal with my 18 year old's lack of enthusiasm for her second choice (ie insurance choice) university. Long story short, she messed around in 6th form and underperformed, so didn't make her predicted grades.

Her first choice uni rejected her, her second choice accepted her (even tho both offers had been identical!)She is really unkeen about her second choice, but has shown no enthusiasm for doing resits (in order to apply for 2010 entry she'd need to retake at least two A levels in November, I think) and she is talking about taking an unplanned gap year.

Thing is, she is a lazy madam and she will drive me mad lounging around the house. I doubt she will try very hard to get any sort of meaningful work (ie that will enhance her application for 2010 entry). Her younger brother is going into 6th form and I was looking forward to focusing more on his needs. DH and I think she should make the best of her insurance offer, and think she has had a narrow escape by avoiding clearing. It's a good university but just not what she really wanted.

She does want to go to uni (she is clever and went to a high-achieving school) but has taken this set back badly. Not doing resits would mean applying next year with 3Bs - not bad, but not enough to get her into the sort of course and uni she would like, and also unlikely to impress admissions tutors who will be looking at students with the new A* A levels.

Any views on this welcome!

Well, one of the differences for me is that I haven't spent months and years arguing with either of my two teens, and so I haven't got any real, understanding of how horrible that is fro a parent's point of view.
I left home at 18 for uni, was delighted to leave and didn't come back other than for short visits...a weekend at most.

I can sympathise with OP.
My DD has been given every opportunity going but didn't work hard enough for A Levels so she missed her grades and lost her CF and CI. I'm not best pleased with her ATM.

O&W: does your DD realsie how lucky she is that CI still want her!!??? She should be snapping up their offer before they change their minds. She liked the Uni enough to make it one of her 5 choices. She liked it well enough to make it CI. Why has she turned against it now? Answer: because of petty pride and hurt feelings because CF rejected her. Time to grow up.
Surely she must look at others in the school who are not in the same position as her, who are desperately scrabbling for a place, and realise that she has had a narrow escape. Loads of people go to CI instead of CF, she's not the first person that this has happened to!

PS if she is a slacker instead of a worker then perhaps CF isn't the right place for her to be. CI may be better at teaching and supporting, which may be what she needs.

I think a lot of what you are saying about your dd could have been said about me at her age olderandwider. Looking back I was academically bright but lazy and not very motivated. I didn't have any passion or drive to achieve. My parents gave me an easy time and supported me generously, and I wasn't difficult to live with but I coasted at school and got reasonable A-levels which could have been a lot better if I had been more motivated.

I did get into my first-choice university but I just did the subject that I liked best at school without any clear idea of where it was taking me. I didn't work hard and didn't do well, then I got menial office jobs when I left and worked my way up to management roles.

I think I would have done a lot better in the long run if my parents had been a bit tougher on me and demanded a contribution to household expenses when I was not at uni. I also think I would have benefited from a gap year, in fact more than a year, where I worked in proper jobs and got more of an idea of what I wanted to do as a career. It may not be easy to get her to get a job but your dd does sound quite a bit like me and I'd suggest that a gap year might not be such a bad thing. I do understand what you're saying about it being difficult to live with her but maybe if she was working she would start to be easier? To be honest she sounds as if she may not be mature enough to really take advantage of university at the moment.

Can she defer with her 2nd choice so she wouldn't need to reapply. Gap year with a job to save money up for uni is not such a bad idea you know.

Not sure if Uni is for her, especially if she's not motivated enough to get the exams reequired. It will be harder at Uni with all the distractions (social life etc.). Wouldn't worry about it being her 'second choice' uni, most people don't know a soul when they go, but end up with friends for life.

How about a gap year, but abroad? They pay for your flight and you work for food and lodgings. It will give her time to think about the future and give you a breather.

Another thought, what about an apprenticeship?

Temp agencies are a reasonable way to get work now and ongoing, but she must say YES to every assignment they offer, even if it means leaving the house at 6am. Helps if she has own transport. They only bother to phone people who they think will say yes to anything.

Getting an apprenticeship is far more difficult than getting into university, Anste, they are like gold dust! We had no idea, DS2 isn't academically inclined and thought it was his best option. He got a place at college but had to have an employer and that was the stumbling block and the point at which we found out the reality. We had no contacts, he wrote well over 100 letters-most were ignored but some wrote back and said it was a nice letter, wished him luck but said that they weren't taking any on. It got through to August with nothing-he looked at going to college to do A'levels but they were full. At the last minute he got one,an excellent large firm and he has done very, very well but I think that everyone ought to be aware that it isn't easy. It is worse in the recession-his firm aren't taking on any apprentices this year. I even wrote to a man who involved with apprenticeships who wrote to the Times saying that it was a better option for many than university, but he had no answers.
OPs DD is going to hit reality, according to the paper today many graduates are getting jobs in call centres.
I think she needs to talk to a career advisor-I think it pointless to push her off to a university that she lacks enthusiasm for but she needs a very clear view of the alternatives, otherwise she will be lazing around at home still expecting everything to be paid for and most likely getting depressed because all her friends have moved on.
I think BonsoirAnna's suggestion of au pair in Paris was excellent-and she was offering practical help.

She absolutely should not have to resit A levels for 3 Bs. How could that even be remotely motivating? 3B's is good and she's been accepted to Uni which she liked enough to make her second choice. If she got 3B's with little work she will cope fine at Uni.

Don't know anyone - that's what freshers weeks are for.

Hey,

Just thought I'd add my two penn'orth in here, as pretty much the same thing happened to me. When I got my A level results, I had missed out on my first choice Uni by a grade - they'd specified AAB with an A in History, and my ABB (not in History) didn't cut it. Second choice had specified the same.

After some discussion with my second choice, they agreed to defer my place for a year, and take me with the grades I had achieved. Thy couldn't take me that year as they had enough students who had fulfilled their offer requirements.

I was wondering whether your daughter might be able to do the same with her first choice? Unis are often fairly happy to defer like this, as they can easily plan around it in terms of filling places on the course. The fact that your daughter only dropped one grade makes it fairly likely they'd go for it (missing by a single grade isn't that bad after all!), especially if her school were to talk to the uni too.

Doing this would negate the need for retakes, which it seems she's not very interested in. It would also ensure that she would have something to look forward to (her first choice) at the end of her gap year. My unplanned gap year was one of the best years I've spent - I travelled a bit to learn a foreign language, and got a job to mean that the first year at uni was a little easier on the wallet.

Sorry for the essay! MMW

p.s. I knew no-one at my uni. The first person I met there is still my best friend. She doesn't need to worry...

3'Bs are good and she definatley should not have to resit.I would let her take an unplanned gap year and try to find a job if that is what she wants to do. DD2 ended up taking an unplanned gap year as she didn't get into any of the unis she wanted to go to.
She has had a couple of part time jobs but has not manged to get any work since Christmas.( she gets job sekrs allowence that helps with the money situation and has made hertry hard to get a job) But she has been to dance classesand has taken part in a couple of musicals. This was all good for her as she wwanted to do a misical theatre course.
She is now going to uni this year and will be doing Acting for stage and media.I've found that she has grown up a lot during the last year and is now more ready for uni than she would have been last year.
Hope that helps

I don't agree with pushing young people out at the age of 18. They often still need their parents. DD2 can be very annoying but she has needed this year to mature in a safe enviroment. Neither DH and I would have pushed her out t 18.

Quick update - DD has decided to go to her second choice (ie insurance choice) uni after all! I think she just needed to reach this decision in her own time - DH and I have not spoken about this with her since the days immediately after results, so I know it's her decision and not ours.

Seems she decided the re-takes option was unappealing, and she didn't really see point of a gap year given situation with jobs, and prospect of even higher grades being asked for next year. I think she has realised that if you get lemons, make lemonade (rather than pelt your family with them ). And, as I said originally, it's a good uni, and the student life is meant to be brilliant.

Thanks for all your comments/advice!

I really think that that's great news for your dd and you. Where is she off to?

excellent news! i hope she does well and you all benefit from a bit of space

have deliberately chosen not to read the rest of the responses on here, so might be repeating.

If she has no enthusiasm for going to this Uni, there is no point pushing her to go. All she is likely to do is mess around and possibly fail her 1st year exams, or do fairly badly in them. As you only get one even partially funded shot at a degree in the UK, it would be a waste for her to mess it up at this stage.

If she wants to take a gap year, let her - but only on the proviso that it is self-funded, i.e. that she gets a job. I doubt that she would improve on her A level results if you force her to resit them either at this stage.

Sometimes waiting for a little while before going to Uni can be a good thing - my DH insisted on leaving school at 15 cos he had had enough of it - his mum said only if he got a job, which he did, with an excellent apprenticeship. He worked for 10 years and then decided he had had enough of that trade and wanted more - so did a degree as a mature student. Because he was ready for it by then, he worked harder and better for it, and got a good degree (it's Australian so different grading system from the UK)

But whatever you do, I agree that she shouldn't be allowed to freeload around the house for a year - that is a shocking waste of life and time at her age.

Good luck with it!

there, I knew I should have at least read the last page!
Glad she has come to that choice and hope she makes the best of it.

if she was to do resits and get into her first choice uni a year later than her friends (which seems to be her reason for making that a first choice) they WILL have moved on and again she will know nobody in her own year.

uni is about starting afresh, meeting new people and it is by FAR the easiest way to do that - everything is set up to help people meet and mix, it's the easiest time of your life to move to another city and meet people.

staying at home while all her friends go off to uni doesn't sound great whatever the OPs attitude... even if OP was happy for her to be at home she'd still likely be lonely and feel she was missing out if all her friends have moved on.

i can't help feeling she really needs to take this uni place and re-evaluate after the first year (when she can transfer or drop out entirely) as she's rejecting it now without knowing what it is she's rejecting.

yay!