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St Dominic's Sixth Form College 2014- 2015 thread

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Original post by CBftw
I go to Doms (1st year) - feel free to ask any questions :smile:

What do you think of St Doms. What subjects are you currently studying for AS. What is the teaching like? What were your predicted grades. When did you find out the outcome of your application and why st doms?

thank you
Original post by YounesB
those sound like interesting questions :biggrin:D

Just to be clear - this was this year right?

what is your offer? 6.5?

were there a lot of people who were rejected?


Lol yea, it was this year

not sure about the average, migh of been lower exclusively for us. But I think that the average score to get in is around 6.5 though


Don't think many people were rejected from our school cos we are the feeder school and encouraged to go to St.Doms
The only people that were rejected were the people that didn't want to go and the people that didn't get higher than a D/C in the mocks
(edited 9 years ago)
Reply 42
Original post by UltimateLad1
What do you think of St Doms. What subjects are you currently studying for AS. What is the teaching like? What were your predicted grades. When did you find out the outcome of your application and why st doms?

thank you


I love Doms lool! Its a really chilled atmosphere & I love the independence we get. We get a lot of support from the staff & the college itself is really beautiful (although the hills around it are killer!). The only annoying things about the college is the TERRIBLE mobile reception & the irregular bus services (H17 & 258 are the only two buses & they come every 20 minutes - bus strike days are hell :/)

I do English lit, History, Politics & Psychology. The teaching varies from teacher to teacher. E.g. In my politics lessons, with one teacher our lessons are more discussion based, whilst the other teacher we more listen to him talk and take down notes. I think overall, the teaching is of a high standard. The teachers are always there to help, you can email them if you're stuck & there's workshops for different subjects and units during lunchtime which is very useful.

My predicted grades were 9 As & 2 A*s - (didn't get this at all loool). I found out on the 31st of march via email. I'd never actually heard about St Doms until I googled 'best sixth form colleges in london' and came across a thread on TSR and read so many comments about St Doms - so I went on their website, checked the subjects I wanted to do & decided to just apply & see what would happen. So many people told me how hard it was to get into Doms - which is why I was SO shocked when I got in. I guess I wanted a challenge looool.

sorry if I didn't answer your questions properly lool :smile:
Original post by CBftw
I love Doms lool! Its a really chilled atmosphere & I love the independence we get. We get a lot of support from the staff & the college itself is really beautiful (although the hills around it are killer!). The only annoying things about the college is the TERRIBLE mobile reception & the irregular bus services (H17 & 258 are the only two buses & they come every 20 minutes - bus strike days are hell :/)

I do English lit, History, Politics & Psychology. The teaching varies from teacher to teacher. E.g. In my politics lessons, with one teacher our lessons are more discussion based, whilst the other teacher we more listen to him talk and take down notes. I think overall, the teaching is of a high standard. The teachers are always there to help, you can email them if you're stuck & there's workshops for different subjects and units during lunchtime which is very useful.

My predicted grades were 9 As & 2 A*s - (didn't get this at all loool). I found out on the 31st of march via email. I'd never actually heard about St Doms until I googled 'best sixth form colleges in london' and came across a thread on TSR and read so many comments about St Doms - so I went on their website, checked the subjects I wanted to do & decided to just apply & see what would happen. So many people told me how hard it was to get into Doms - which is why I was SO shocked when I got in. I guess I wanted a challenge looool.

sorry if I didn't answer your questions properly lool :smile:


Wowowoowowow thank you so much for that really appreciate it. What were your conditions for really gcse grades in August
Reply 44
Original post by UltimateLad1
Wowowoowowow thank you so much for that really appreciate it. What were your conditions for really gcse grades in August


No problem - since I'm here on TSR instead of revising, might as well help someone out loooooool (the procrastination is real :frown:)
I had to get a GPA of 6.4 minimum to get in :smile:
Original post by CBftw
No problem - since I'm here on TSR instead of revising, might as well help someone out loooooool (the procrastination is real :frown:)
I had to get a GPA of 6.4 minimum to get in :smile:


How much do you procrastinate?
2nd year at Doms doing Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Psychology. Happy to answer any questions :smile:
Reply 47
Original post by UltimateLad1
How much do you procrastinate?


Waaaaaayyyyy too much.
Original post by Peregrine falcon
2nd year at Doms doing Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Psychology. Happy to answer any questions :smile:


Is physics hard
Original post by UltimateLad1
Is physics hard




To give a brief question a brief answer: Yes, Physics is hard. In all seriousness, it's not an easy subject. Unis wouldn't respect it as much as they do if it wasn't hard. However, it does depend on the person. If you're taking maths (like 99.9% of the people taking Physics), then you should be fine with it, since it's a lot more mathematical at A Level than at GCSE. If you're taking further maths, that also helps with Physics (not necessary though).
Most importantly though, you should love the subject. That applies to any A Level subject you're taking, but especially so Physics. It shouldn't be a subject you're taking just for the sake of it. At Doms we do Physics on Edexcel (not the best exam board for Physics to be honest) and the teaching is alright. We had an amazing teacher but he left at the end of last year. Though none of that should affect you if you love Physics and have some academic ability with it.
So all in all, it's hard, but no harder than you'd expect from an A Level science. If you do maths as well you should be fine (saying that as I do it at A2 and I only did Maths up to GCSE, so A2 Physics is killing me as a result. You should be fine though!). Hope this helps! :smile:
Original post by Peregrine falcon
To give a brief question a brief answer: Yes, Physics is hard. In all seriousness, it's not an easy subject. Unis wouldn't respect it as much as they do if it wasn't hard. However, it does depend on the person. If you're taking maths (like 99.9% of the people taking Physics), then you should be fine with it, since it's a lot more mathematical at A Level than at GCSE. If you're taking further maths, that also helps with Physics (not necessary though).
Most importantly though, you should love the subject. That applies to any A Level subject you're taking, but especially so Physics. It shouldn't be a subject you're taking just for the sake of it. At Doms we do Physics on Edexcel (not the best exam board for Physics to be honest) and the teaching is alright. We had an amazing teacher but he left at the end of last year. Though none of that should affect you if you love Physics and have some academic ability with it.
So all in all, it's hard, but no harder than you'd expect from an A Level science. If you do maths as well you should be fine (saying that as I do it at A2 and I only did Maths up to GCSE, so A2 Physics is killing me as a result. You should be fine though!). Hope this helps! :smile:


Thank for that I would like to do A level maths. Does mechanics overlap with physics. I'll probably drop physics at AS its my weakest a level subject out of the 4.
Original post by Peregrine falcon
2nd year at Doms doing Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Psychology. Happy to answer any questions :smile:



can you give us a brief review of each department?

do you know anything about the languages department?
Original post by UltimateLad1
Thank for that I would like to do A level maths. Does mechanics overlap with physics. I'll probably drop physics at AS its my weakest a level subject out of the 4.



Mechanics does overlap really well with Physics, since the Unit 1 Physics paper is mainly mechanics. Topics like projectiles, energy transfer and SUVAT pop up in both M1 and Physics, so there is a significant overlap
Original post by YounesB
can you give us a brief review of each department?

do you know anything about the languages department?



I'll start off with what I don't know: The languages department. Since I don't do any languages, I don't really know much about the departments so I don't think I'm in a great position to say anything about them.

As for the departments for the subjects I do (it's worth noting that other people may disagree since these are my opinions):

-Biology (OCR): AMAZING. By far my favourite subject both at AS and A2 and in no small part thanks to the teachers. You get two teachers at AS and one at A2, and whichever ones you get, you're bound to be fine. They're all really helpful, know their subject well and are really approachable if you don't get something. Workshops are run during lunchtimes where you can drop in and ask a teacher to explain something one to one.

-Chemistry (AQA): I think the Chemistry department at Doms is really good. All of the teachers who've taught me have been amazing. Like someone else previously mentioned, they're very open to questions related questions as long as they don't diverge too much from the lesson. Workshops are also done at lunch (similar to Biology). The teachers I know are all very happy to explain something again to you if you don't get it.

Physics (Edexcel): The smallest of the sciences in terms of department size and class sizes. Admittedly, Edexcel is not the best board for Physics (their mark schemes are infuriating sometimes) and it is a small department, so it's a pretty big student:teacher ratio. However, as for the Physics itself, the teachers both are experienced teachers and know the subject really well, so can answer pretty much any question thrown their way (provided the answer to that question has been discovered). It also has the most practicals out of the sciences; expect a practical at least every couple of lessons. Workshops are also available, like the other sciences.

Psychology (AQA A): There's not much to say about the department itself, since compared to my other three subjects, Psychology is the most straightforward (no practicals and so on). The teachers are helpful since again, they know their subject really well which makes it really useful because if there's this one thing which you can't get your head around, they'll come up with an analogy of different way of wording it which makes all the difference. In terms of the subject, it's a lot of content, but the vast majority of it is interesting. Quite a lot of people take the subject, so the classes are equal in size to Biology or Chemistry. I'm sure there are workshops as well, though I don't know if they follow the same manner as the sciences (at Doms, Psychology is in the Ancient and Modern studies department).

So that's my review of each department. Bear in mind that because it's only based on what I think, it's very subjective; someone else may have the exact opposite to say about some of the departments (though I doubt many could disagree with me about Biology, seriously). The major selling point of this place for me was its teaching, since I came from a school which wasn't too great and the teaching here was a massive step up in quality for me. Anyway, sorry for the long post and I hope this helps :smile:
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by DanielBaranowski
Oops! I meant 19th Jan not Feb, but yea, I got my offer straight after the interview

Well some of my friends got different questions to mine but the questions they asked me were:
- Your mock grades (why do you think you got what you did, are you happy/sad about them etc.)
- future aspirations (what you want to study at uni, what job do you want to have)
- A level courses (why did you choose what you chose, do you want to change them etc.)
- Hobbies
- Why did you choose St doms (what you think is good about the sixth form, how you think it will help you get to higher education etc.)

That's generally it, questions might differ but that is what I was asked!
gl when you have your interview!



Sorry to question you, but how did you get an interview on the 19th of January? The closing date for all references was on the 31st January. So, is this the wrong school that I'm talking about, perhaps? I've heard of a St.Doms in another area. I'm talking about St. Doms in Harrow.
Original post by Graysamaicemage
Sorry to question you, but how did you get an interview on the 19th of January? The closing date for all references was on the 31st January. So, is this the wrong school that I'm talking about, perhaps? I've heard of a St.Doms in another area. I'm talking about St. Doms in Harrow.


I didn't need to do the reference because im from the feeder school which is already catholic
Just got the email about the seminar next week. Who else received it?
Original post by CBftw
I go to Doms (1st year) - feel free to ask any questions :smile:

My point average is 6.3 atm, do I have a chance of getting in? Also, I'm predicted As in subjects that I chose for A levels, is that mainlybwhat they want?
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by UltimateLad1
Just got the email about the seminar next week. Who else received it?



yup. wgich group are you?
Original post by YounesB
yup. wgich group are you?


Group A you?

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