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

Not sure what to do

Hey everyone

I am currently in year 12 at my local Sixth Form which was also the school I've been to for the past 5 years. I am currently studying, Computing, Maths and History but am facing a massive Dilema.

Basically Sixth Form is not at all what I expected it to be and am hating every second of it, I'm not putting in the effort because I don't enjoy it and just want to give up on it altogether and because of this I am not doing too well, I am trying in Maths as I know thats important for the CS courses but still doing pretty bad with C's & D's being predicted at the moment and the worst thing is that because I do not enjoy sixth form I cannot get out of this rut of not putting in all the effort I can.

I have been looking at a local college where I can carry on my Maths A-Level, no problem, however they do not do A-Level Computing and the closest thing they have to it is a BTEC National Diploma IT Practitioner's which my older brother has done and is now at uni doing Computer Science with Games Design and has said that many of the modules in the BTEC have helped him out with his uni course. But then on the other hand BTEC's aren't always seen as being on par with A-Levels and so may later hinder my uni application.

Having been round the college and getting that feeling that you know that the place is right I am now trying to convince my mum that it is the right thing to do and the latest barrier that she has set up, which is understandable, is whether the uni's will see this change in a bad way and be less likely to offer me a place, I have talked to U+WE about it as they have a course I really like the sound of and they have said that they look at the points and the PS but U+WE is known for being a mediocre uni (or thats how its always been presented to me) so I was wondering if this is the general case or if it is different.

I have already said to her that if I apply at the college I have up until the very first day of term to accept or reject but she won't listen to that and I need her to sign the application form.

Reply 1

TheQueenOfComputerScience

Oxford Schmoxford. Whats the point in replying to him with an Oxford specific post just to say; "Clearly you aren't looking to go to Oxford though, and so I gather universities such as UWE (and plymouth, swansea, portsmouth ect.) would place more prestige and value upon this Diploma.". Clearly you are just trying to do that Oxford thing and subtly put other people down!

To the OP, lots of Universities accept it fine and from what i've heard its meant to be a pretty good course. You will just have to research the Universities that you would be interested in and see if they do accept it. If you think you could do better on the BTEC then why not?

Reply 2

jtanz0

I did the BTEC for IT Practitioners - now doing CS at Bath (ranked 9th-13th by the papers) so you should be ok at most unis :smile:

Reply 3

INTit

When I did it there wasn't much programming and the programming we did was in VB6 which was old and outdated at the time! the course seems to vary from college to college. There was a lot of work and report writing which I guess goes some way to preparing you for uni.

To be blunt the top unis like Oxford wont consider it, high ranking university's like Birmingham will require 3 distinctions(equivalent to AAA) and the A-Level maths. It should be fine for anywhere else.

A-Levels are the more respected choice but if sixth form isn't working out for you and you think you'd do better studying a single subject then go for it.