Current Year 12 Thread Mark I (2013-2014)

Comprehensive. There are no Grammars in my county.

Really? What county is that?

We also have next to nobody on free school meals, and we send the most people to oxbridge of any state school, so that doesn't help either!

I've read your sticky before I think Very helpful, but it's not so much a matter of finding the money as not wanting to pay more when I could just go to uni here for less. I'm doing some research into the SATs so that may chance my opinion, though.

Could my fellow year 12s' do my survey on political participation please? It'd be fabulous. Thanks in advance!!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2QG7T8M

Ah, I see. In a way, that might be an advantage for you - does your school do practice interviews, by chance? Clearly your school is performing fairly well for it to send that amount of people off to Oxbridge, you shouldn't have a problem come actual application time, if you meet the requirements.

Really? I thought no-one read it, I haven't seen anyone post on the thread.

It wouldn't be about finding the money, the simple thing about financial aid grants is that you don't pay them back - unlike here. If your parents earn between £65,000 to £98,000 you are given a financial aid grant where your parents only end up paying 10% of their income! No more no less. Obviously anyone earning more than that would have to pay more thus staying here would be the better option for them. EDIT: check out this Harvard site to get an idea of this: http://www.harvard-ukadmissions.co.uk/Funding%20and%20financial%20aid

They aren't hard, just basic GCSE level stuff. All you would need to do is work on timing and vocabulary (there can be some obscure words in there). Just doing a practice test once a week should do the trick.

As for the SAT IIs, you would just choose subjects you do currently at A-level - 2 being the optimal number to take. These, again, are not too difficult either. Practice tests should be enough.

Sorry for the ramble.

i have just answered

Thank youu!

No problem

How is year 12 life going for you?

Not bad, I've been very busy which i enjoy my subjects are going well (going through the testing phase at the moment ) got a load of mentoring enrichment's too at the moment

yourself?

Oh gald to hear is! Yeah, mine finishes this week. All results/reports comes next week!
mentroting enrichment? :s

It's a helpful ramble! We definitely do get practise interviews - lots of them - and talks from oxford and cambridge interview specialist people to talk about the specifics. There's a whole oxbridge programme of specially designed extra work for each subject that takes lots of extra time and effort, but is ultimately very effective. We're very lucky.

I did a couple of the calculator thingies you linked but none said I would be eligible for more than about $4000 in aid. You do make the SATs seem easier than other people have said, I guess I'll look into them more. I know my college is a centre for sitting them and plenty of people take them each year so it's all well organised,

Oh my, I'm jealous. Is your school taking on any new students? The move from Scotland would be well worth it!

When you say 'extra work for each subject' what exactly do you mean? Would it be preparation for taking those subjects at university?

Ah, fair enough. If your parents earn that much, I would definitely look into merit scholarships like the Morehead-Cain, Jefferson Scholars, USC scholarships, WashU scholarships, etc. some people have turned down Harvard for the Morehead and Jefferson - granted they are incredibly difficult to get. You essentially get a free education, plus housing, plus a stipend, plus funded enrichment programs to do in the summer.

Great! Yeah, they really shouldn't put people off. It's multiple choice for the majority of the test (bar the essay and working questions in math), nothing compared to even GCSEs where you had to elaborate on answers.

Is bath a good university??

We genuinely do get a lot of out-of-area applications, but you may well be the first from Scotland to try!

I'm not totally sure what the extra work is yet since it doesn't begin until after exams, it's a year 13 thing, but I believe it's extra in-depth essays in humanities and assignments, investigations and experiments in sciences. I know the people on the programme take over the physics department one lunchtime each week to tackle extra challenging projects. It's less preparation for university, because you take it in all your subjects, not just the one you're applying for (I think?), and more designed to give an extended and stretched curriculum. The idea is that when you go to interview, you know the A level course inside out, have had significant experience and polishing for the interview itself, and you're able to talk in-depth about topics that most other applicants won't even have heard of, let alone studied, as well as being used to thinking about hard problems and tackling them above and beyond what's expected at A2. Mostly the topics aren't much harder than A level, they're just less well known, and the way they're presented is more challenging.

Oops, I seem to have written an essay

Interesting point about those scholarships - I'll look into it I can't help wondering, if the SATs are not much more difficult than GCSEs, how are they comparable to A levels?

You never know, I may end up in your A2 class next year.

Ah, that seems amazing! More like a thorough grounding within your subjects, such an ingenious idea.

You should definitely check them out. In fact, I forgot the Robertson Scholar, Emory scholar and UChicago's merit programs out of that bunch.

The standard SAT reasoning test is just that, an aptitude test, it's main purpose is to measure you're ability to tackle problems under a constraint of time. They aren't comparable to A-Levels whatsoever.

SAT subject tests (or SAT IIs) however are more based around a specific subject and it is more than likely you will encounter some A-level content in those. Americans applying to the UK usually sit AP tests and SAT subjects tests - hence they are considered similar to A-Levels.

On a side note, do you guys get the same two weeks off as we do? For October holidays that is, I'm just curious.

So the SAT IIs are the harder ones... that makes sense. Would I also need to sit these AP tests or would the A levels be enough?

We get one week for term beginning 28th October Some of the private schools get 2 weeks though. This is the longest half term, I believe.