The Student Room Group

Sixth Form or College?

Hi all!
I am in year 11 and have been accepted into a college that offers Environmental Science, a subject I love and am really interested in doing.
However, the problem arises that this college is a while AQA, and with require 2 trains and a door-to-door travel time of 1hr 15 mins. As one who intends to get all A*s, I know that this will seriously affect study time and keep me constantly busy, as well as making it harder to have a social life and do extra-curriculars (which are crucial for oxbridge).
When I went to the college open day, I immediately loved the feel of it and felt so welcomed.
However, when I attended the open day for my sixth form, the head of Sixth Form was so rude to me. You see, we had a sixth form open morning and I had the leaflet in my hand, whilst I put my hand around my other friend to see what she was pointing at (on her copy of the same leaflet). Then, the head of sixth form grabbed my leaflet out of my hand and yelled at me for not reading it and said “if everyone was gonna read there partner’s I’d only have printed half the amount”. He then asked if I wanted to stay, and I said no, and then he yelled at me basically saying that my school would still accept me even with low grades so I don’t have to leave. (FYI, he doesn’t know any of us GCSE students but he just looked at me and assumed I was getting poor grades even though I’m predicted almost straight 9’s (not me showing off just explaining the situation plz don’t troll me)). It's bad enough that my current school is understaffed and I feel like a need a change of both friendship circles and scenery desperately but now the head of sixth form is just annoying to me for literally no reason which put me off even more.

I just don’t know if I’m gonna be able to commute every day to college. And realistically, my current school is ofsted outstanding and most do pretty well at A-Level so it’s not like I’m going to flop A-Levels. Another reason that I should stay at my school for sixth form is that I live outside it. Like literally I walk out of my house, down the road and I’m at the gate. Moreover, the teachers know me rlly well so they can write a good reference. I also know ppl so I won’t need to waste valuable study time settling in. Also, whilst I want new friendship circles at Xmas this year I finally found a group of ppl who I love and I’ve never had friends as great as these guys and it’s unfortunately ironic because just as I finally make friends I have to leave them…

But my heart is so set on the college because I can do environmental science which is my passion but I can’t do that at my school. However, YET ANOTHER factor is that to get to and from college the trains will be so expensive and whilst I can get a railcard that only discounts it rather than making it free and idk how my parents will be able to afford that with our current financial state.

All in all it’s just a big load of crap. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and I’m so sorry this is rlly long

Have a good rest of your day everyone :smile:
Reply 1
I think this really depends on what you wanna do at 18. If you want to go to Oxbridge then 100% do A-Levels, especially with how prestigious your school sounds and you'll be able to spend your time with your new friend group too. Also you should check with your parents to see if they can even pay for your trains for college because if not then you don't really have a choice.

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