Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

Botched A Levels, 220 Ucas Points, What Next?

I finished my A-Levels about a year and scored less than stellar results by the end.
I will give you a bit of background so that you can best judge what advice you can give me.

Here are a list of all of my qualifications from GCSE onwards.

GCSE Maths: B
GCSE English Language: C
GCSE English Literature: D
GCSE Tri Science: C, C, C
GCSE Media: A
GCSE Modern World History: B
GCSE Business: C
GCSE Graphic Art: D

A1 Media: C
A1 Psychology: C
A1 Computing: C
A1 Music Technology: C

A2 Media: C
A2 Psychology: D
A2 Computing: E
A2 Music Technology: C

Generally when i study i learn what interests me and tend to neglect the parts that do not the subjects probably most affected by this were Computing 2nd Year (Databases *yawn), Psychology (Particular Studies), Graphic Art (Forced to use paint where i wanted to use computers) and English Literature (Lack of interest and teacher Fued).

I would say that i did alright untill i reached College, where through a combination of rejecting the surreal institutionalised nature of the place i went to (Farnborough Sixthform College) and stuffing my face with as many hallucinogenic drugs as i could as a result of it, fell off the rails a bit.

I have since then been in and out of various jobs, moved house several times with the family and landed myself a job as a Landscape Gardener (man gardening for those who dont know :cool:

, heavy duty machinery, shrubberys and what not). For this whole time however in the back of my mind i have always though that i would eventually end up in university. Only now that the conservatives have gotten into power and the cost of education is about to tripple it would seem that this is my last chance to realistically do it.

So here we are now, the end of my "Matthew Kelly's: This is your Life" part, I have learnt a lot of lifes lessons (sometimes the hard way), became politicised, pondered un-answerable questions, attempted to tackle my fatal flaws and gained perspective from the people i have met and the places i have been. Now I want to go to university.

Subjects that have taken my interest have been: Psychology, Politics, Philosophy (less likely), Physics (less likely), Anthropology and History (less Likely).

With what i have: 220 UCAS Points, it looks like most/all of those courses are out of my reach.
The options i have seen are: Apply and hope for the best, Foundation year, Open University or ignore and aim for a vocational training.

Out of the above options (courses and methods of gaining access) are there any that you would recomend or could give advice on and what are the career perspectives of each? Obviously i am going to be doing some research of my own aswell, but it is good to hear from people who know better.

Thanks in advance

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 1

Dalejh01

Hey there, im pretty much in the same boat as you my friend. i searched through ucas for hours on end trying to find suitable matches for my 230 points, and im considering applying for 2 foundation courses, aswell as 3 regular courses as i believe there will be a high demand for people wanting to hit uni before increasing tuition fees? and foundation courses in theory are easier to get on to?

Reply 2

infernalcradle

open uni is your best shot imo

its well respected....much more so than the unis that accept 220 points....you can learn and earn, its in your own time etc.

all in all, I do believe the OU is the best option for you

Reply 3

burpleronnie

Original post by infernalcradle

Yeah i was considering that a little while ago but there is something much more appealing about studying on campus that i ruled it out to be an 'if all else fails' option. Although it does look pretty good.