pass at A level

wdyw

property.advert wrote: »

I would hope that by the time my child needed to go and visit prospective university campuses they would have enough backbone and common sense to be able to get there and back by themselves and not need mummy and daddy to hold their hand and wipe their ar5e !

If they could not manage that on their own I would think my parenting skills over the last 17 years were pretty crap.

At our open / intervew days:

Approx 80% of applicants will attend with 1 or more parent/guardian/friend

90% of the questions asked are by parent/guardian/friend

The vast majority of the day is open to the parent/guardian/friend's (talks about the course, visits to the teaching/lab facilities, student Union, library, accommodation etc

It's only the actual interview where the applicant has to brave it alone.

In this day and age it's vital for parent/guardian/friend's (thank goodness for cut and paste, but let's not worry about the precise grammar!) to be happy with what they see as they are, knowing that the uni will look after their son/daughter/friend just as much as for the aplicant to be happy withthe course and everything involved with studying away from home, knowing that the institution gets their parent/guardian/friend's approval.

Anecdotal evidence would make be guess that approx 40% of applicants who turn up for an open day by themselves, "vanish" at some point during the day, while for those who arrive in a family group it's about 10%.

Most common reasons for leaving an open day early ... car parking needs renewed, train/bus timetables - got to get home. (they still stick us down as firm/insurance so it's not like they want to just get out of the place!).

Spend the full day there and if possible stay overnight to get a proper feel of the place. You'd be amazed how many Year 1 students drop out simply because they can't hack big city life (if they are from a rural setting) and vice-versa

dibuzz

Things change over the years too.
My son is 23 and when he was looking at universities parents just didn't go, they went in groups together from college or went alone and the same for the interviews.
I went to the open days with my daughter last year but she went alone to her first 2 interviews. My son was shocked when she said she was the only one without a parent at the first and I felt awful but she managed fine and had already bought her train ticket for the 2nd one and I had an appointent anyway so she went alone to that one too.
I still feel guilty about it but my son says it's the best way and will be good for her.
I'm taking her tomorrow as it's only half an hour away by car but the trains are awkward and she would have to leave at 7am to be there for 9am but she's already said she'd rather I stayed in the car so I'll be armed with a book, ipod, flask of coffee and DSi. I'm quite looking forward to a couple of hours peace

onlyroz

wdyw wrote: »

At our open / intervew days:

Approx 80% of applicants will attend with 1 or more parent/guardian/friend

90% of the questions asked are by parent/guardian/friend

The vast majority of the day is open to the parent/guardian/friend's (talks about the course, visits to the teaching/lab facilities, student Union, library, accommodation etc

It's only the actual interview where the applicant has to brave it alone.

In this day and age it's vital for parent/guardian/friend's (thank goodness for cut and paste, but let's not worry about the precise grammar!) to be happy with what they see as they are, knowing that the uni will look after their son/daughter/friend just as much as for the aplicant to be happy withthe course and everything involved with studying away from home, knowing that the institution gets their parent/guardian/friend's approval.

Anecdotal evidence would make be guess that approx 40% of applicants who turn up for an open day by themselves, "vanish" at some point during the day, while for those who arrive in a family group it's about 10%.

Most common reasons for leaving an open day early ... car parking needs renewed, train/bus timetables - got to get home. (they still stick us down as firm/insurance so it's not like they want to just get out of the place!).

Spend the full day there and if possible stay overnight to get a proper feel of the place. You'd be amazed how many Year 1 students drop out simply because they can't hack big city life (if they are from a rural setting) and vice-versa

You see to me all that you have posted simply suggests that the modern youth can't hack being away from mummy and her apron strings. Surely it's better to raise your children to be independent and to be able to make their own decisions. I chose my university applications for myself and made my own decision about where I wanted to go, and got myself to the interviews and open days. Sure, I discussed the options with my parents, but the decision was mine.

I think it's tremendously sad that you say it's mainly the parents that ask the questions at these events. If I was an admissions tutor I would not be interested in letting in students who were so socially inadequate that they couldn't find out for themselves about the course and the department facilities.

As for students who drop out because they can't hack big city life - by the sound of it this is because our kids are too molly-coddled and are not encouraged enough to strike out on their own.

JC9297

Things change though over the years. When I was at secondary school parents evening was only for parents to be told about their child, now almost all the children are there with their parent(s) and it is more of a discussion about how things are going and how things can improve.

poet123

want-it-all wrote: »

If he has uni in mind, Wendy, work your motherly magic to ensure that he gets the best he can

You can often get into uni with relative ease and reasonably low grades...a big shock to many new graduates though comes when they find that many 'blue chip' employers require 300+ UCAS points on top of your degree, with some of the more stringent ones going one further and insisting on 300 points in 3 subjects (i.e. ABC, BBB).

So, you can have the best degree and all the will in the world, but be penalised for not trying hard all those years earlier.

Good luck to him!

So true, and if you want to go on to do post grad, PGCE for example, many providers won't consider you if your UCAS points score is not high enough, even with a 2.1.

Another point worth noting is that a lot of the top universities won't accept the grades from a re sit either, yet this is not always obvious. So when applying you can waste a choice if you have resits amongst your results. If you have resit results check the policies of the individual uni before putting them down as a choice.

Moneybot

My goodness this thread has some interesting twists and turns; rattles thrown out of prams and fisty cuffs at dawn.

I was only having a look as I have a son going through the process of doing A levels and wanted to see if it stressful for other parents; apparently it is!

He got his application into the school on the last day possible; he has to resit any module the school thinks he could have got a better mark in (hence retaking a maths AS module which he only got a low A in); I would take him to any interview (not because I think he needs molly coddling but because I am nosey and would want to look round the uni campus).

Which ever uni he goes to I will be very proud of him and will turn up unannounced from time to time to collect his washing and to embarrass him in front of his friends (as I feel all caring mothers should).

melancholly

just to add something from someone who works in HE (but thankfully never had the hideous task that is being an admissions officer - so much paperwork!) - there is no single way that unis offer places and different departments within the same uni will do things differently. some offer places as the forms come in, some do nothing until after the deadline. even if they do offer places early, they only offer them to the really good students and keep the others on hold until the end. there is no advantage in that sense to applying early. it's relatively common to make offers to three times as many students as you have places, since there will be plenty who pick other unis or don't make the grades. to me, it's a minor miracle that the numbers turn out fine every year and i can see some advantage to only applying to uni after grades are known.

however, i'd always encourage people to apply early. being in a class with other students who have offers before you've submitted your form can be very stressful. plus you have the whole summer to work on it so there should be plenty of time to get a personal statement. a lot of people have to take January exams and it's worth getting UCAS form off well before then so that there isn't a distraction when revising.

OP - i'd also suggest that it's worth considering something like maths or physics as well as computing, just since that broadens options after graduting. if he's really certain, then go for something he'll enjoy and computing may well be that for him, but if there is a chance of changing ideas on careers, then keeping options open is the best plan. it always strikes me as unrealistic to expect many 17 year olds to know with certainty what career they want - i certainly didn't. you get exposure to so many more career options at university. it's important to pick a degree that will get you where you want to do, but equally, picking someting you enjoy. the ones that don't enjoy the topic don't engage as much as don't do as well.

as an aside, the school should be offering better advice. my parents don't have degrees so it was all very new to us, but the school did give advice and talks about uni options, plus took the whole year to a massive open day where lots of unis had stalls. it almost felt like an overwhelming amount of information, but it was great for me to open my eyes to what the options were and for my parents to understand how it all worked. i went to very few specific uni open days having been to the big one (and the reality is that universities are big places with lots of people - almost everyone will be able to find their niche almost anywhere!).

poet123

We went to all of the open days with our three sons. Certainly not because they couldn't have got there under their own steam or because they needed us to ask questions for them, but simply because we were interested in seeing the different universities, getting a feel for the area, for a nice day out, and because we were asked to go by our sons. Oh, and the fact that as this venture was going to cost us thousands, we wanted to see where our money would be going and gauge the calibre of the teaching staff.

In almost all the places we visited there were seminars for parents giving advice and guidance, so obviously we were expected to attend or no provision would have been made.

That said, who would seriously think about attending an interview with their child? How many kids would allow it?

wdyw

poet123 wrote: »

We went to all of the open days with our three sons. Certainly not because they couldn't have got there under their own steam or because they needed us to ask questions for them, but simply because we were interested in seeing the different universities, getting a feel for the area, for a nice day out, and because we were asked to go by our sons. Oh, and the fact that as this venture was going to cost us thousands, we wanted to see where our money would be going and gauge the calibre of the teaching staff.

In almost all the places we visited there were seminars for parents giving advice and guidance, so obviously we were expected to attend or no provision would have been made.

That said, who would seriously think about attending an interview with their child? How many kids would allow it?

How would you gauge the teaching quality of the staff when most Depts. wheel out their version of Brain Cox to make the course appear as interesting as possible (and of course to make it appear that all lecturers are equally charasmatic)?

Then again many courses around the country where the teaching quality is rated as being excellent achieved that rating 20 years ago and it hasn't been assessed since.

Use the NSS data because it really tells the story of how students rate their experience ..... but then again no matter how bad your experience why slag off your uni if it means it will be ranked lower than if you all say things are excellent. nobody wants to say they graduated from a top 50 uni when they can rank every category 5/5 and push it into the top 20.

The biggest changes to the rankings each year come from uni's who have just recently learnt how to play the game. Why claim to have a SSR of 20:1 when you can do all sorts of imaginative things to massage that figure down to 10:1. etc etc

Also parents, make the most of the info given to you at Open Days, because once your son/daughter signs on the dotted line the uni can no longer officially communicate with you at all without first getting the permission of the student.

At open days I simply make it clear to prospective students that the best way to find out the real deal with a course is to talk to current students - not the "tame" ones wheeled out to be tour guides etc.

poet123

I lecture, and I do believe that you can sort the wheat from the chaff if you know what you are looking for!! Obviously, you need to do some homework, and it is never foolproof, but in most places I did get a feel for the ethos of the place and teaching standards, a feel which didn't always correspond to what the party line was!!