visiting unis

[quasimodo]

He has always wanted to go to Cambridge as he prefers the place and a lot of the research done in the past which he has read about was done at Cambridge, but he has found revising for chemistry AS really tedious over the last few weeks so he is not sure he really wants to do it for A2, let alone a year at uni, which he would have to do at Cambridge. He comes alive when talking about physics, and I think he is beginning to think that Oxford would be a better choice - he would be able to do all maths and physics, although there is the small hurdle of the PAT to get through!

12 A* and an A at GCSE should be ok for Oxford, and he has an A in AS maths with good UMS, and predicted high UMS for his other AS and a A* for Maths A2 so Cambridge should be an option too as long as all goes well in a few weeks time!

It seems your ds has the right profile in order to make a successful application to either Oxford or Cambridge.In my mind I always have 7 GCSE A* to consider an application for Oxford and good UMS above 90 for Cambridge in your AS levels.It seems your ds has done his AS in maths early.

Is your son waiting on the senior physics challenge or the summer school run by the Sutton Trust for Cambridge?

Good luck with whatever you decide and let us know how you get on with his applications the knowledge is useful.

[2childmum]

He is waiting to hear about the senior physics challenge, but the other boy put forward for it is a super whizz at physics and as they only take one student from each school he isn't holding his breath!

He has a place on the space school course in Kent in August - we just had to pay for that, with no entrance requirements, and it's aimed at 15+ (with one at a different time for younger students) but it will give him an opportunity to talk to someone about uni entry and courses which should be helpful.

[moose]

Hi,
We only visited 2 unis ..and could not see any reason why would you want to visit all of them. It was relatively easy to choose 5 good unis for Chemical Engineering. My son wants to study outside London, so it narrowed the choice. Once he received the offers for 4 out of 5, he eliminated 2 immidiately (Newcastle AAB for being too far and Nottingham AAA for being lower the league table for the subject than Manchester). We decided that it is sensible to keep one uni, which have a high offer (Manchester AAA) and one lower one AAB (Loughborough), in case something went wrong. The last two were the only ones we visited.
We thought that looking at all of them was a waste of time. It might be different for other subject, but it seemed to be quite straightforward choice for us for Chemical Engineering.
Bath was the one that he did not get an offer for with AAAB grades at AS in Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

[Guest55]

Hi,
We only visited 2 unis ..and could not see any reason why would you want to visit all of them. It was relatively easy to choose 5 good unis for Chemical Engineering. My son wants to study outside London, so it narrowed the choice. Once he received the offers for 4 out of 5, he eliminated 2 immidiately (Newcastle AAB for being too far and Nottingham AAA for being lower the league table for the subject than Manchester). We decided that it is sensible to keep one uni, which have a high offer (Manchester AAA) and one lower one AAB (Loughborough), in case something went wrong. The last two were the only ones we visited.
We thought that looking at all of them was a waste of time. It might be different for other subject, but it seemed to be quite straightforward choice for us for Chemical Engineering.
Bath was the one that he did not get an offer for with AAAB grades at AS in Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

Why did he waste choices on unis that were too far away! Courses vary a lot as do facilities and the 'reality' of what the place is really like - it's always sunny on the websites. Going on a saturday after AS exams worked well for us - almost like a weekend away.

There is no 'right way' ...

[2childmum]

Which league table did you look at? They can be quite different. One of them (the Guardian I believe) put Hertfordshire 4th above Durham and Imperial for physics. It didn't feature anywhere near the top of any other table. None of the others have unis in the same order. Maybe there is less choice for Chemical Engineering, and things are more clear cut than DS has found to be the case for physics.

He wants to visit to see what the journey is like (due to looking at some that are a bit far away), the facilities, especially labs, the accommodation, the city (to make sure he want to live there for 4 years) . He also wants to ask questions about the courses, the choice of modules etc, and meet students doing the course to pick their brains.

[Catseye]

In my mind I always have 7 GCSE A* to consider an application for Oxford

unless one's child comes from a private school , if this was true at least 60% from DS school would get an interview !! certainly not true at my son's selective school and I would doubt it would true at my DD selective state school( where virtually every girl gets at least 7 A*)

maybe true at a comprehensive school ?-( the majority of successful Oxbridge/Med School candidates)

[Guest55]

In my mind I always have 7 GCSE A* to consider an application for Oxford

unless one's child comes from a private school , if this was true at least 60% from DS school would get an interview !! certainly not true at my son's selective school and I would doubt it would true at my DD selective state school( where virtually every girl gets at least 7 A*)

maybe true at a comprehensive school ?-( the majority of successful Oxbridge/Med School candidates)

It's true catseye they do look for around 7A*s - maybe the students don't have good Personal Statements or do well enough in the PAT/MAT/HAT etc.

[quasimodo]

Which league table did you look at? They can be quite different. One of them (the Guardian I believe) put Hertfordshire 4th above Durham and Imperial for physics. It didn't feature anywhere near the top of any other table. None of the others have unis in the same order. Maybe there is less choice for Chemical Engineering, and things are more clear cut than DS has found to be the case for physics.

He wants to visit to see what the journey is like (due to looking at some that are a bit far away), the facilities, especially labs, the accommodation, the city (to make sure he want to live there for 4 years) . He also wants to ask questions about the courses, the choice of modules etc, and meet students doing the course to pick their brains.

You have to be very careful with league tables as there can be large discrepancies between the tables in the UK and then there are discrepancies with the academic international league tables which again can vary between each other.Within that departments at Universities can vary and change over time.

[ToadMum]

I actually did a very un-pushy-parent-like thing and looked at the student satisfaction ratings for various universities offering the course which DS wanted to do. Interesting how much less happy undergraduates at some prestigious London institutions are with various aspects of their courses than those at certain 'less desirable' (in the eyes of some) ones. One thing that occurred to me - having worked on projects involving various 'the renowned expert in whichever field, Prof X's, that people may be getting all fired up about being taught in those departments, only to find the prof(s) in question very little in evidence due to being away being renowned in their field on numerous outside projects much of the time.

[Guest55]

I actually did a very un-pushy-parent-like thing and looked at the student satisfaction ratings for various universities offering the course which DS wanted to do. Interesting how much less happy undergraduates at some prestigious London institutions are with various aspects of their courses than those at certain 'less desirable' (in the eyes of some) ones. One thing that occurred to me - having worked on projects involving various 'the renowned expert in whichever field, Prof X's, that people may be getting all fired up about being taught in those departments, only to find the prof(s) in question very little in evidence due to being away being renowned in their field on numerous outside projects much of the time.

These 'names' certainly don't want to teach freshers! I'm shocked to hear some students come back from 'famous unis' to say their lecturers are mostly postgrads ... nothing wrong with them doing some teaching but how much is reasonable?