Need help with the UCAS points Tariff new to UCAS.

To my parents it does matter I live with them so just doing what I want with no one to answer to is out of the question. September 2011 I take it you mean. As for taking time out I have been essentially a NEET nearly a year confused and lost as to what to do. An access course sounds good but I am still little in the dark as to why I just wouldn’t do real A levels they seem better educationally. As for choice of college it just seems illogical to go the same place and pay for it but yes different campus or departments could be better. Thanks for the how to quote information. Have also started chatting on this thread RE the idea of going back to my schools sixth form http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1601583 but you don’t seem to think A levels are the best idea and one of these access course would be best would that be correct?

A levels will take you longer as generally its a 2 year course. You can do them in 1 year, but that's not how they're designed to be studied and if you've struggled with education generally in the past, they're not really the right route for you as its presumed you'll have high GCSEs before entering the course. Right now, your GCSEs would not let you onto an A level programme as you generally need at least 5 A*s-Cs if not more, often with a B in the subjects you want to study at A level. The Access courses on the other hand are designed for people who do not have the traditional GCSE background and are older. The course programme encompasses the GCSE level study for things like maths and English, whilst also letting you study at a level equivalent to A level but in a way that's designed to acknowledge the fact the students might have been out of education for a long time or didn't study the subject at GCSE/struggled with it when they were at school. The Access courses are designed to be done over a year or longer depending on your needs as a student, so they're more set up for mature students who need to work/have a clear focus of university etc. A levels are only one route into university and they're not necessarily the best route to go down once you're beyond school age. This is why Access courses exist.

You'll be 20 by the start of the next academic year. Your school sixth form will point you in the direction of the local college. Schools are set up to cater for students up to the age of 18 (or 19 in some cases) but after then, any form of education will need to be done via a local higher education college. School is no longer the place for you and they will not have funding for you.

I see what you’re saying, shame I kind of had my heart set on a school like environment after my experiences at college. That’s the thing I feel school is still the place for me, as for not having funding I don’t understand that since id be paying for the course.

I see what you guys are saying, the thing with my Cs and Ds is that was nearly 4 birth years ago now I only took the BTEC because I felt pressured and was told it was the right place for me. If I don’t go to sixth form I am not sure what colleges are even in my area other than Wirral Met and I’m not keen to invest my time or money, I fell for their sales pitch last time.

I see what you’re saying, shame I kind of had my heart set on a school like environment after my experiences at college. That’s the thing I feel school is still the place for me, as for not having funding I don’t understand that since id be paying for the course. I see what you guys are saying, the thing with my Cs and Ds is that was nearly 4 birth years ago now I only took the BTEC because I felt pressured and was told it was the right place for me. If I don’t go to sixth form I am not sure what colleges are even in my area other than Wirral Met and I’m not keen to invest my time or money, I fell for their sales pitch last time. It’s a shame what you guys are saying in my mind going to college and doing BTECs where the college equivalent of A levels clearly that’s why I couldn’t get my head round it before clearly there not. Now I am really not sure what to do, I feel a school like environment is best for me considering college not a college environment it’s not set up for people who actually want to do well and not be crushed by bad tutoring. These access courses at college I can just imagine being another “job for the boys” college environments don’t seem academic to me, and I know my GCSE grade and passes at BTEC don’t help in proving that but you have to understand I became less and less motivated as the years went on with college out of frustration and as for school I moved into that one due to bullying and got stuck in a Maths class for example where I could not work due to disruption in the class thus couldn’t prove myself to move up set and was stuck in a class where only a D was available. I don’t know if that sounds like excuses or not but my point I’m trying to get across is even if I’m not one I can’t imagine a life whereby not trying to be learned and school was the last place I felt really comfortable to a degree with at least trying. So I need to look at colleges doing full time access courses in my area I suppose sigh if there even is a list lol.

State schools provide a free education to children aged between the ages of 4-16 and then to those children who have decided to stay on to 18. As an adult, you can not just turn up at a secondary school and expect that they will provide you with an education. At a state school, students do not have to pay for the teaching and exam fees are paid for by the school/LEA/government other than resits. You can ask a school if they'd let you sit the exams there as an adult as a private candidate, but you would not be allowed or entitled to any form of teaching. They would just literally act as the exam centre and let you turn up to sit an exam, but even then, this is just if the school agrees.



If Wirral Met is your only choice, then you either have to take it or leave it. There are other colleges in Liverpool you could go to instead if you were willing to travel, but going to a normal school isn't an option as they're not for adults. You will have to invest time and money into furthering your education, but that's how life in this country works. I'm £30,000 in debt to get to the position where I am now from an undergraduate degree and postgraduate course, but I know its money well spent and I wouldn't want it any other way. There will be funding available to pay for some or all of your course, but you'll only know if you look into it by asking the college.

You've had a bad experience at a college and I appreciate this has tainted your opinion of them, but if you seriously want to improve your qualifications so that you can eventually go to university you need to actually look at what there is on offer. Contact different colleges, ask to go to an open day or pop in to speak to current students, then see what you think. At the moment the only thing standing in your way of your ambition is all of the excuses you're coming out with - yes, okay, for what ever reason you didn't get the right grades in GCSEs and then went off to college and have been seriously misguided along the way.... but you're the one who has the control over whether this is going to be your excuse for the rest of your life.

This thread breaks my heart. Proper response later.

It's not that BTECs aren't equivalent to A levels, some of them (the L3 diplomas) are. Obviously not all unis accept them etc. but not all unis accept all A levels. Since BTECs are vocational, a L3 diploma will be fine for going into that vocation at almost all (if not all) universities.

The 'problem' with your qualifications is not that they are worse than A levels. The problem is that they are Level 2 qualifications, ie the equivalent to GCSEs at grades A*-C. So your qualifications cannot be compared with A levels, apart from your Pass in the BTEC L3 certificate.

You didn't have good enough GCSEs to do L3 qualifications. That's not the college's fault, as I'm assuming you took your GCSEs at school and not at college.

I do think you need to consider what your realistic career aspirations are. You said you want to be an academic - but there are very few academic/lecturer posts available, and they invariably require a 1st in your undergraduate degree. Vocational subjects tend to have far fewer academic posts. To be honest, you should be getting As at GCSE without really having to put in much effort to be in the right sort of % of students who are realistically going to have a chance of getting onto a PhD/etc.

There's no point going to university if you are not truly interested in a subject and are not academic. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being more talented at vocational courses or work rather than academic study, as long as you realise where your talents are and don't try and go to university just because you think it sounds like a good thing to do!

You can find access courses using google, a 2 minute google search will quickly give you the information you need!

I googled "access to HE course liverpool" - came up with Liverpool Uni's website http://www.liv.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/applying/access.htm

That gives you advice about picking a subject (tells you to check that your access qualification will be ok for the course you want to do. Eg don't do an access course in art if you want to do history at University.)

That page gives a link to this site - http://www.accesstohe.ac.uk/
That's the main site for UK access to higher education qualifications.

how does one at the age of 20/21 acquire three A levels? Must they pay for college tuition?

Strange I keep hearing people tell me of course I can go to sixth form at my school as long as I pay.

As for excuses point taken but I also dislike the every reason is an excuse approach. I guess your steps are the logical thing to do. You’re right. As for debt I’m one of them people who a life thinking paying for anything on credit is wrong no one in my family has even had a credit card and the thought of failing and essentially owing money or robbing an educational chance like that I just don’t feel old or mature enough to be taking on this kind of stress and decision making that could affect the rest of my life.

Like I said, you can pay to sit exams with some schools as a private candidate, meaning you sign up for the exams yourself and tutor yourself, but you need to do them at a registered centre. So some schools will accept private candidates. However, they're not just going to let you sign up like a regular sixth former and go to lessons/have tutorials etc because that's not what schools do. The examination fees go to the awarding bodies for giving you the qualification, they're not for the actual tuition.



I see your point and I'm from a very similar family situation myself. The crux of the matter is, however, that if you want a degree, you'll need to borrow money to pay for it unless you're in a very fortunate financial position... and we wouldn't be having this discussion if you were. From 2012, degrees will cost somewhere between £7000 and £9000 a year, so unless you have £21,000+ lying around at the start of a 3 year degree plus enough money for rent/living costs, you'll need to take out a loan. This is a totally different kind of loan to other ways of borrowing money though. Like I've said, you might find that the Access course would actually be free, depending on your financial situation when they assessed you

Shame I would have liked to have been tutor in a school environment clearly school didn’t prep me well for life without them but I did enjoy college to a point. Really good point there even if I was ready to go to uni now I would need to borrow money, and I think I’ll look into access courses, only worry now is how do I explain to my parents colleges wasn’t any use for what I wanted sigh.

Shame I would have liked to have been tutor in a school environment clearly school didn’t prep me well for life without them but I did enjoy college to a point. Really good point there even if I was ready to go to uni now I would need to borrow money, and I think I’ll look into access courses, only worry now is how do I explain to my parents colleges wasn’t any use for what I wanted sigh.

I think you're frustrated because you don't think your college years were worth anything.

That's completely wrong.

You didn't enough have gcses (level 2 qualifications) to move onto level 3, so your college helped you to get more level 2 qualifications. That's a perfectly sensible use of your time - in fact the only thing to do if you eventually want to get higher qualifications.

With your gcses, there is no way you could have gone straight to 6th form or college to do A levels or a L3 BTEC diploma. You have to be at the right standard before moving on to the next qualifications.

I think you might be very surprised.

Some colleges are rubbish, I know that as my friends had a bad time at one near me, but I went to college to do my A levels and it was great. It was the best decision I could have made and I'm so glad I didn't stay at school as I wouldn't be where I am now if I had done. I also think that the atmosphere on an Access course (and the tutors) would be different to what you're used to at college. Everyone there will be adults who've given up work to do the course so that they've got a chance of going to university. A lot of them will probably have children and other responsibilities, meaning it'll be more of a positive working atmosphere than what you're used to because the students really really want to be there and succeed.

With regards to talking to your parents, I guess its just a case of properly explaining everything to them. I'd be inclined to leave off discussing it until you've got a full picture of where you can go, what you can study and how much it will cost you. Then you can present it to your parents and say "okay, I want to do this and this is where it will lead me to in the future" to show you've properly explored all of the options (such as why you can't just go back to school and do A levels) and really know what you're getting yourself into for September. My parents didn't really have any idea about university and my dad doesn't have any GCSEs let alone anything else, so when I started looking at universities I had to persuade them that it was a good idea, then when I wanted to continue into postgraduate study I needed my parents to support it which required even more explaining to say why I just wasn't off to get a job yet. In all honesty, you've missed the main application deadline for most university courses for 2011 entry anyway so even if you did have the right qualifications you'd struggle to get the exact course you wanted at the right university as it might not have any spaces.... so its basically a case of that instead of getting a job for a year whilst you apply to university you're going to stay studying. There's still 5 months between now and September where you could work full time if you're no longer at college.

Yes that’s exactly why I’m frustrated why couldn’t I have just taken an access course with my GCSE’s at 16 then? I’ll be happier if I knew I needed my currently qualifications beyond GCSE level to get on this access course.



I’m glad you don’t think I was just lazy or moaning then. Yes I do like adult environments most of my friends (of the few I had at college) seemed to be the older people. I suppose I could phone around before I speak to them, I am just not use to doing ANYTHING near enough without full parental involvement. My parents know what a university is but basically are family only direct experience of it is my brother living away from home partying and dropping out with loads of debt he still hasn’t paid. My Dad well a great provider left school at 15 to work at the local “market gardens” I think he is from the pay you way to get through life generation, I don’t consider this acceptable for me living in the 21st century for my dad yes it worked for him. My Mum is very educated but didn’t go to uni she could have as a child but her parents being from the background they were didn’t see it as acceptable.
As for missing the 2011 entry yer forgot that, a disadvantage of being from a non-university focused background. I suppose I can still apply for an access course starting September 2011 if I hurried up. Out of interest how do you go about paying for an access course and what are there general costs if I had to pay in full? I mean I don’t have an income as yet? Lastly what do I say if my parents would ask me what I planned to do at university “something”? When discussing my education in the past there response has always been “to do what”? Thanks.

Because access courses are designed for people who haven't been in education for a while. Also you probably wouldn't have done well in the access course if you only got Cs and Ds at GCSE. I think you need to face up to the fact that you didn't do well enough in your gcses, so you had to take a few more years doing level 2 qualifications. That may sound harsh but until you accept that, you'll just be frustrated which isn't helpful.

You'll have to go on the access website I linked you to for information about finance and everything. People on this forum will just give you advice, they won't look up everything for you!

You need to decide what you want to study at uni before you do an access course, so you know what subject access course to do.

Try doing the stamford test on the ucas.com website, that will help you work out what you're interested in. You need to take responsibility: if you're nearly 20 and want to learn as an adult learner and go to university, you will be learning independently and researching for yourself.

To be honest you right ill look it all up. Major problem there if I am supposed to decided what to study at uni in advance but this may be my parents talking but how can a 19 year old decided what on earth I want to do with my life when my sense of forward planning is next month it just seems a little silly to expect people who are 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 to make decisions based on like 5 years or more down the future when say if your 20 your living memory is only going to go back 15 year and 10 clearly you know is this making any sense.

People all seem to have their different ideas on picking a uni course, be happy; do what you like, it just overwhelming. I’m not one of them people who has dreams or if I do not one who believes they can be achieved on this planet. I use to think IT was the way to go and now I’m just lost.

This is what I get for having no social life, from my point of view sounds like I’ve been totally screwed. If I had been allowed into good GCSE classes and had been able to learn I could have taken A levels and got in any uni in the country, these access courses just look like a way to tie you down even before uni it’s like how is ANYONE and I know people do though supposed to make these kind of life changing decisions.

With an access course, you don't have to think 'right I want to study History at uni' or anything that specific. I think you just have to choose, say, a Humanities access course. Look at the website and you can see the courses available.

Most graduate jobs (about 2/3s I think) don't specify a degree subject, they just want an academic degree at grade 2:1 or above. So you can study whatever academic subject you are interested in and then go into these jobs. For example, you can study History and then become an accountant, or a banker, or a lawyer (after a conversion course), or go into marketing, or the civil service, or local government, etc etc...

So you can do a degree in whichever academic subject you are interested in (within reason, some are more preferred than others, etc. but I don't want to go off topic into the whole 'soft' subject debate) and then choose your career later.

The majority of graduate jobs with the 'big 4' accounting firms, for example, go to students who haven't studied Accounting at university.

Academic degrees aren't about training you for a particular profession. They're about giving you an academic education, in which you will learn about history/physics/sociology/etc, but also develop your analytical and evaluative skills, etc.

Vocational degrees/foundation degrees are more about training, whether you are studying Medicine (which has a lot of academic science learning in it) or are studying Accounting, or are doing a Photography foundation degree.

I appreciate that you are frustrated with your school and college but you do need to take some responsibility. Yes GCSE grades are affected by teaching but if you were naturally good at maths you could have just read the textbook and got an A or a B - maybe not an A*, but definitely not a D. There are 1000s of people who self-study for some of their GCSEs and A levels, I did that for one of my A2s and I'm definitely not a genius! That may sound harsh but you can't blame your school for everything. Just accept that you have those scores, and plan how you are going to move forward and improve your GCSE Maths and English Language scores, and do better in your Level 3 qualifications.

The idea that the majority of accounting jobs at the big firms go to people who haven’t studied accountant at degree level just shocks me. Maybe it’s because I’m coming in to this from a kind of outsider point of view just I think the average person on the street 99.9% of the time expects you degree to relate to your jobs. Strange idea. What you said isn’t harsh its true maybe I didn’t have the drive to self-learn back in school because I didn’t believe in its importance. I know it’s been suggested until I wait until I have a full plan in place but the practicality of me doing so (no secrets in this house lol) is virtually none existent thinking of bring it up over a pub launch in an hour or so anyone got any suggestions on how I can sell this to my parents and explain it to them it can be overwhelming to me at times.

If it shocks you then think of this: university used to be a kind of 'academic finishing school' where only academic subjects were taught. The purpose of education was (and still is to some extent) to teach students how to use their brains to analyse, evaluate, critique, etc. - transferable skills that can be used in a large number of jobs.

Vocational courses were taught at polytechnic and colleges. For the last 2 decades, all the higher education institutions have been merged, so some universities now only offer academic degrees, some only offer vocational degrees/training courses, whilst others offer both types.

Before you talk to your parents you need to think what subject (if any) you are genuinely interested in. If there isn't one then there's no point planning to go to university to study something you don't even like! Also consider your hobbies/etc: do you like reading newspapers, debating politics, etc? Or do you like website designing or some other IT related activity?

Good suggestions, I have been looking for access to HE "on the Wirral" (as we say) my thoughts being, 1: I cannot drive nor is public transport really an option for me 2: my parents would have to drive me and i doubt they are going to want to drive me miles out of the way for another year. With this in mind I have looked again at Wirral met the only HE courses they seem to offer I would be interested in is the science one here but it’s not physics and requires I be already employed in the field. So leaving Wirral met I feel a bit stuck as to what other non-sixth form colleges are even in the area..... googling. Liverpool would be a daily trek even living on the Wirral since I have never really taken public transport, don’t own a car and would need a medical assessment in order to even start learning, so in reality the best option would have to be parents driving me to said educational establishment, still have not told them of my idea yet. Not too sure since I can’t find a list but seems like where in Wirral met land with 3 campuses all located on the Wirral. Source for Wirral met http://wmc.ac.uk/courses/list-all-courses/ I typed access in my browsers search box. Update just did a search on https://ava.qaa.ac.uk/SubSites/PublicSearch/search.aspx just for wirral and no other options only 9 access to HE courses came up non of them jump out at me and all from wirral met.