a parents’ guide to higher education€¦ · timeline for the next 14 months •june-september...

Choices after 18 A Parents’ Guide to Higher Education

What do you want to know?

• This evening’s presentations are divided to answer two fundamental questions:

▫ What does my son/daughter need to do?

▫ How much will it cost?

Timeline for the next 14 months

• June-September 2017

• September – October 2017

• January –April 2018

• May 2018

• August 2018



▫ Choosing your path

Is University the right thing?

▫ Research

Choosing a subject

Choosing a university

Open Days

Is university the right thing?

• Why choose Higher Education?

▫ Employability

▫ Prospect of salary

▫ Professional qualification required

▫ Skills, skills, skills

▫ Personal development

▫ Love of the chosen subject


• What are the alternatives?

▫ Jobs with training, including apprenticeships;

▫ FE at local colleges (Suffolk New College; West Suffolk College);

▫ Art Foundation;

▫ Possibility of OU/application as a mature students if motivation/ambition/capacity to study are reignited;

▫ Gap Year – but it is a ‘gap’ between two things – you still need to consider what will come after.


• If you decide to go for HE some of the barriers to overcome include:

▫ Fear of debt;

▫ Fear of failure (am I good enough?);

▫ Concern about leaving home;

▫ Concern about the graduate job market.

• The next 14 months will take students on a process to answer these.





▫ Research

Choosing a subject


Open Days

Research

• Course search

• Researching the course, the right university, the entry criteria etc

http://search.ucas.com/





▫ Research

Choosing a subject


Open Days

Choosing a subject

• What subject to study? • Endless choices: Choose what you love; what you’re

good at; something new; two or more subjects; something practical; something academic; something that leads to a specific career; something that includes a year in industry/abroad...

• All these can be valid choices – what is right for you?

• Please note, students do not drop a subject before results day in August, so please encourage them to continue to engage with all subjects.

Choosing a subject

• Qualification type – what does it mean?

▫ BA

▫ BEd

▫ BSc

▫ BEng

▫ Joint honours

▫ Professional recognition

▫ 4-year Bachelors and Masters combined





▫ Research

Choosing a subject


Open Days


• Institutions

▫ Lots to consider:

Entry Criteria

Oxbridge?

Location

Type of institution

Accommodation

Suitable course

Style of teaching

Size of university/university town

How universities differ • Oxbridge

▫ Oxford & Cambridge

• Russell Group

▫ Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Durham, Edinburgh, Exeter, Glasgow, Imperial London, Kings London, Leeds, Liverpool, LSE, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford, Queen Mary London, Sheffield, Southampton, UCL, Warwick, York

Russell Group facilitating subjects

• Maths and Further Maths

• English Literature

• Physics, Biology, Chemistry

• Geography, History

• Modern and Classical languages

• There is no requirement for all three or even two of the subjects to come from these.

• 1994 Group

▫ Many of the traditional ‘campus’ universities from the late 50s/ early 60s, such as UEA, Leicester etc. However, the 1994 group dissolved in November 2013.

• Stand alone (not in a group)

▫ St Andrews, Surrey, Bath and now all previous members of the 1994 group.

• Million+

▫ Many of the former polytechnics such as Anglia Ruskin, Leeds Met, Sunderland.

• University Alliance

▫ Other former polys and universities offering practical and sandwich courses, such as Bournemouth, Lincoln, Oxford Brooks.

• Guild HE

▫ Often vocational/practical including art, drama, agricultural etc, such as Harper Adams, Bishop Grosseteste, York St John.

How universities differ

What is a good university?

• League tables are only part of the answer, and it depends what you’re looking for.

• Don’t believe the myths:

▫ “Proper uni” vs polytechnic.

▫ General Studies – they like it more than they admit and far more of them accept it than you think – including most Russell Group universities and those that say they don’t. The also all use it on results day for students who may have just missed out.

▫ “Reputation” – look at the faculty, not the university.





▫ Research

Choosing a subject


Open Days

Open Days

• Universities are running these from June to October.

• They are a useful way of seeing a university in situ and ‘getting a feel’ for it.

• Choose which ones to go to carefully.

• Parents can go too – but don’t have to!

August results

• In August your son/daughter will get their AS results and can then add this information to the research already done and begin making a more definite plan.





• May 2018

• August 2018



▫ Making an application

Using UCAS Apply

Writing a personal statement

How does the reference work?

What’s the deadline?

Using UCAS Apply • Filling in the online form. This will be covered in General

Studies lessons, but they need access to GCSE certificates and details about their exams.

• Five choices leading to a firm and insurance final choice.

• Admissions tests: ▫ LNAT, ELAT, BMAT, UKCAT etc

• Interviews: ▫ One-to-one, panel, group, informal

• Compulsory Open Day visits.

• Requirement to provide work experience, UMS marks or academic work/portfolio.

• Second references.


• September 2017


Filling in the online form





• This will be the most time-consuming and labour-intensive task for the student.

• They will fully appreciate the drafting process, perhaps for the first time.

• We will help with this in General Studies lessons.

• Once the Personal Statement is completed it is shown to the tutor who will write the reference.


• September 2017







• The reference is written by the tutor, based on detailed information from all your son/daughter’s subject teachers (including any subject that they drop this summer) plus their own knowledge of their tutee.

• References are ‘open’ and students will get to see them and check them.

• They will contain the predicted grades, which will broadly be based on their AS grades.


• September 2017






What is the deadline?

• The deadline for most students to complete their UCAS application is the Friday before half term (Friday 20th October).

• For students applying to Oxbridge or to study medicine, veterinary science or dentistry the deadline is much earlier. We need the application completed by Friday September 15th as the UCAS deadline for completed applications is October 15th.

• The UCAS deadline for other applications is January 15th.

• By having an earlier deadline we advantage our students against those from other schools.

What does a ‘good’ application include?

• Focused on the right subject;

• Focused on the appropriate grade levels;

• Accurately completed;

• Well-rounded individuals (mostly);

• Well-written personal statement: 2:1 ratio of academic to extra-curricular – if not more...

• School reference – positive but realistic estimated grades and comments.





• May 2018

• August 2018



▫ Using UCAS Track

▫ Getting offers

Grade offers

Points offers

▫ Student Finance

Using UCAS Track

• UCAS Track

▫ Once the application has gone to UCAS students can log in to UCAS Track to see their progress.

▫ Whenever there’s an update, UCAS will email the address supplied in the application.

▫ Track will record offers, invitations to interviews and open days and rejections.




▫ Getting offers

Grade offers

Points offers

▫ Student Finance


• January – April 2018

▫ Getting offers

All applications need to be complete with UCAS by January 15th.

Offers can come in from the moment a university receives an application.

Some will wait for the January deadline.

Getting offers

• Grade offers

▫ A grade offer will be just what it says. A university will offer a place to a student if they can get certain grades.

▫ This may be simple: BBB.

▫ It may have more detail: ABB with the A in chemistry.

▫ It may ask for an AS grade as well.

▫ It may exclude certain subjects – but don’t assume it will.

Getting offers • Points offers

▫ A points offer is slightly more complicated – but also more flexible. ▫ Each A level and AS grade is equivalent to a certain number of

points on the UCAS tariff. This tariff changed last year.

A level AS (now about 40% of an A level) A* 140 A 120 a 60 B 100 b 50 C 80 c 40 D 60 d 30 E 40 e 20

Other qualifications may be considered, such as the EPQ (counts as 50% of an A level) and the Cambridge Technical Diploma (counts as an A level while the Year 12 Certificate counts as 50% of this, ie more than an AS).

X 56

X 48

X 40

X 32

X 24

X 16

X 20

X 16

X 12

X 10

X 6

The flexibility of a points offer

• If a student is offered a place on condition that they get, say, 96 points, this could be made up in a number of ways: ▫ CCC

▫ BCD

▫ ACE

▫ BBE

▫ A*B (although there may be a condition of a minimum of 3 A levels)

▫ CCEb ….and so on

Case study

• A student is predicted ABB, with 12 AS points (a C grade) to count. They have conditional offers for Sports Studies at: ▫ Durham ABB ▫ Cardiff 120 points (= to BBB or similar) ▫ Worcester CCC ▫ Winchester CCC ▫ Brighton BCC

What should this student do? Why have they chosen many relatively low offers?




▫ Getting offers

Grade offers

Points offers

▫ Student Finance

Student Finance

• In March/April of 2018 students will be able to apply for student finance.

• They only do this if that are planning to go to university in 2018 (people on a gap year will apply the following year).

• We cannot help with the finance application.





• May 2018

• August 2018


• May 2018

▫ Responding to offers

Keep an eye on deadlines

▫ UCAS Extra

Responding to offers

• Only when students have heard from all five of their universities do they need to decide how to respond.

• Students will choose one firm choice and one insurance choice.

• The firm choice should be their first choice – the one they actually want to go to.

• The insurance choice is there if they don’t meet the conditions of the offer for their firm choice.

• Students should not put down an insurance choice they don’t wish to go to, or one with a higher grades offer than their firm choice.

Responding to offers

• When deciding on their firm and insurance choices, students should be very realistic about their expectations.

• It is sensible to wait until after the mocks so they have an idea of how they are doing.

• But keep an eye on the deadline, which is usually sometime in May. If you haven’t responded by your personal deadline then all your offers will be withdrawn.


• May 2018

▫ Responding to offers

Keep an eye on deadlines

▫ UCAS Extra

The application process: the best laid

plans... • If you are not holding any offers by May then you can

apply for more courses, one at a time, using UCAS Extra.

▫ If Extra is available, it will show up as a button in UCAS Track.

▫ Search for courses with Extra availability.

▫ Get in touch with the university or college to check they can consider you.

▫ Then add the details in Track.

• In UCAS Extra you can only apply to one course at a time, meaning you cannot have an insurance choice.





• May 2018

• August 2018

Results day

• Students will be able to come into school from 8.30am to collect their results.

• They will hear from their university whether they have been accepted or not. Usually they will have to meet their entry criteria; occasionally they are accepted even if they have just missed the grades/points.

• If they don’t get enough for their firm choice they go to their insurance choice.

• If they don’t get enough for their insurance choice they can go into clearing.

Clearing

• Clearing is how universities and colleges fill any places they still have on their courses. It’s an ideal way to find another course.

▫ If you had conditional offers but your exam results didn’t go to plan, you can use Clearing from results day, when vacancies will be listed in the UCAS search tool.

▫ If your exam results are reasonable and you’re flexible on subject/location, there’s still a good chance you'll find another course.

• We can help with:

▫ General Studies lessons to take students through the process;

▫ Clear deadlines;

▫ Helping with personal statements, once drafted and checked;

▫ References;

▫ Mock interviews if required;

▫ Results day.

• We can’t help with:

▫ Student finance;

▫ Talking to UCAS about individuals;

▫ Making the application for them.

Our role throughout this process

Don’t rush...

• There are some very complex decisions to be made.

• These will be life-changing choices.

• Think about all the options and listen to the advice given.

• Take advantage of the summer to do the research necessary before Year 13 work commitments kick in.

Parents can help by…

• Encouraging open day visits – we are taking a trip to UEA on July 7th and this is an excellent way of experiencing what a university feels like – even if UEA is not a contender.

• Talking to your son/daughter about their plans – this can help them work out what they really want.

• Keeping an eye on the deadlines with them.

• Encouraging full engagement in the lesson support they have available.

a parents’ guide to higher education€¦ · timeline for the next 14 months •june-september...

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