Nice people thread part 6 - thrice by twice as nice :)

PasturesNew

I think it's a daft system. In my 'perfect world' they'd be looking today at what to do/where to go, Open Days would be 1-15 September. Decisions made by 30 September. Look for somewhere to live/sign up in Oct/November. Start courses early January.... leaving now to 1 January for travelling, deciding, working, saving..... and not having to worry about any of that while studying for exams.

It seems to me yet another bureaucratic waste of time, effort and money for people to be trying to choose based on results that are not known yet....

chewmylegoff

PasturesNew wrote: »

I think it's a daft system. In my 'perfect world' they'd be looking today at what to do/where to go, Open Days would be 1-15 September. Decisions made by 30 September. Look for somewhere to live/sign up in Oct/November. Start courses early January.... leaving now to 1 January for travelling, deciding, working, saving..... and not having to worry about any of that while studying for exams.

It seems to me yet another bureaucratic waste of time, effort and money for people to be trying to choose based on results that are not known yet....

that does sound better, but it does require you to produce an income to live on (and for many, i expect, somewhere to actually live) for several months before uni starts and they start lending you money to buy booze with.

personally i think we should have a system more like the US where you apply to get into an institution but do not select a course - do a general course for the first year (or two) and then select your "major". i think this would relieve the pressure on the admissions process to some extent, as well as relieving the pressure on the applicants.

LydiaJ

zagubov wrote: »

DD's got into her chosen uni!:beer:

:T Well done her!

silvercar wrote: »

Not good news here:

BBB and he needed ABB. One A was missed by 1 point (319 instead of 320 out of 400) and another by 2 points (318 out of 400).

Could get other universities for his course with those grades, but doesn't want them. Gone for remarks in some papers. Phoned the uni but they said unlikely to be offered a place.

Stupid system - if he accepted a course elsewhere today and the remarks came back with the higher grade he couldn't then take up his original place.

So sorry to hear that. Hope things work out for him.

JonnyBravo wrote: »

Phew. Youngest going to insurance place having just missed out on first choice. She's pleased, so all is good here.

Sounds good if she's pleased.

I'm pleased with how my set did. For my paper, I got one near miss and one nasty crash and everyone else getting the grades I predicted for them, including 4 doing v well indeed. Fortunately the two kids who dropped on my paper did all right in the other paper and the coursework, so their overall grades are as predicted. Marks on my paper and the other teacher's paper are pretty similar - mine are more spread out that his but our average point scores are within half a mark of each other.

michaels

Isn't that because US schools are a year 'behind' the normal international level at 18 and thus they need the extra year of tuition before they reach the standard to start a degree.

Where (and when) I went getting the offer was the hard bit, if you were good enough to get the offer it was very unlikely that you would find reaching the standard offer grade difficult.

chewmylegoff wrote: »

that does sound better, but it does require you to produce an income to live on (and for many, i expect, somewhere to actually live) for several months before uni starts and they start lending you money to buy booze with.

personally i think we should have a system more like the US where you apply to get into an institution but do not select a course - do a general course for the first year (or two) and then select your "major". i think this would relieve the pressure on the admissions process to some extent, as well as relieving the pressure on the applicants.

chewmylegoff

michaels wrote: »

Isn't that because US schools are a year 'behind' the normal international level at 18 and thus they need the extra year of tuition before they reach the standard to start a degree.

Where (and when) I went getting the offer was the hard bit, if you were good enough to get the offer it was very unlikely that you would find reaching the standard offer grade difficult.

i am not sure whether they're behind, but my understanding is that the US system is 2 years of "general studies" (with some flexibility but a requirement to do a broad range) then 2 years of a major.

i think that what they do in other countries e.g. germany is similar but i'm no expert.

i just think it's silly that here you need to choose which degree you are going to do as early as 15 (as your a-level choices determine what degree you can do in many cases). i think it has changed to some extent now with AS levels etc, but i had to go through real upheaval at the end of my L6 year when i decided that actually i wanted to do a science subject at university. i ended up having to drop one A level to do another. as a result because i was doing double maths (where you do maths in L6 then further maths in the U6) i ended up having to complete 3 of my 4 A levels in only 12 months, which was a right pain, and completely caused by the prescriptiveness of the process. as a result i didn't get the AAAC that i was capable of and got AABN instead which botched things up somewhat.

SingleSue

James got the 2 A levels that he took (philosophy and film studies), thankfully no waiting on tenterhooks due to Uni places this year (that comes next year) but he is dropping psychology for the coming school year (he crashed and burned in that AS), taking up performing arts BTEC, carrying on with his Media Btec (currently on for a merit/distinction) and doing an extended project in philosophy.

All in all, pretty pleased.

His grades were good but as he is already staying on for an extra year, he is going to retake to see if he can improve them a little more.

zagubov

chewmylegoff wrote: »

i am not sure whether they're behind, but my understanding is that the US system is 2 years of "general studies" (with some flexibility but a requirement to do a broad range) then 2 years of a major.

i think that what they do in other countries e.g. germany is similar but i'm no expert.

i just think it's silly that here you need to choose which degree you are going to do as early as 15 (as your a-level choices determine what degree you can do in many cases). i think it has changed to some extent now with AS levels etc, but i had to go through real upheaval at the end of my L6 year when i decided that actually i wanted to do a science subject at university. i ended up having to drop one A level to do another. as a result because i was doing double maths (where you do maths in L6 then further maths in the U6) i ended up having to complete 3 of my 4 A levels in only 12 months, which was a right pain, and completely caused by the prescriptiveness of the process. as a result i didn't get the AAAC that i was capable of and got AABN instead which botched things up somewhat.

I had to prepare a student once here for the US system and realised the A levels were equivalent to the first year (Freshman) and part of the second year (sophomore). DW worked in a a US uni.

The first two years count as an Associate Degree (I think) and then they do two honours years to get an honours Bachelors degree which is probably like our ,much less popular, ordinary Bachelors degree.

I might be doing their system down but I think they have to do a Masters degree to prepare for doctoral studies whereas in my day only about half of PhD students here in the Uk had a Masters. The US masters was pretty much our honours BSc etc.

Then again in the US, everone's relaxed about working in casual jobs for absolute years to complete degrees part-time.

hjd

silvercar wrote: »

Not good news here:

BBB and he needed ABB. One A was missed by 1 point (319 instead of 320 out of 400) and another by 2 points (318 out of 400).

Could get other universities for his course with those grades, but doesn't want them. Gone for remarks in some papers. Phoned the uni but they said unlikely to be offered a place.

Stupid system - if he accepted a course elsewhere today and the remarks came back with the higher grade he couldn't then take up his original place.

We were in a similar situation last year. DS needed AAB for firm, ABB for insurance - and he got BBB. Clearing was jammed solid - we were both refreshing it on separate PCs from 8am and only got through at 1pm to get his clearing number.
He got into the course he wanted at another uni - which actually turned out to be better ranked than his original ones - and he loves it. Finished first year with 2.1 all round. Luckily he got the offer on the first day of clearing as they realised how popular they were and increased the requirement level to ABB by the second day of clearing!
He was capable of AAA but didn't work hard enough.

A couple of years ago my nephew missed his offer by 2 marks - he got it remarked and got what he wanted, but the original uni wouldn't let him in that year. He took a gap year and graduated last year (with a first).

It's very tense - but DS did consider unis which had never been in the list the first time and it worked out well.

lostinrates

chewmylegoff wrote: »

that does sound better, but it does require you to produce an income to live on (and for many, i expect, somewhere to actually live) for several months before uni starts and they start lending you money to buy booze with.

personally i think we should have a system more like the US where you apply to get into an institution but do not select a course - do a general course for the first year (or two) and then select your "major". i think this would relieve the pressure on the admissions process to some extent, as well as relieving the pressure on the applicants.

National service would solve your issue.

lostinrates

chewmylegoff wrote: »

i am not sure whether they're behind, but my understanding is that the US system is 2 years of "general studies" (with some flexibility but a requirement to do a broad range) then 2 years of a major.

i think that what they do in other countries e.g. germany is similar but i'm no expert.

i just think it's silly that here you need to choose which degree you are going to do as early as 15 (as your a-level choices determine what degree you can do in many cases). i think it has changed to some extent now with AS levels etc, but i had to go through real upheaval at the end of my L6 year when i decided that actually i wanted to do a science subject at university. i ended up having to drop one A level to do another. as a result because i was doing double maths (where you do maths in L6 then further maths in the U6) i ended up having to complete 3 of my 4 A levels in only 12 months, which was a right pain, and completely caused by the prescriptiveness of the process. as a result i didn't get the AAAC that i was capable of and got AABN instead which botched things up somewhat.

I did my a levels in one year. It suited me better than the two year course.