Destination Education
00:23:33 · Ruth Benny, Barbara Lestak
[00:23:33] S0: It's going going to replace the TSA, did you say? No, [00:23:37] S1: no. It won't replace TSA. TSA still stands for Oxford, but the Tara will be used with UCL at the moment, as far as we're aware, and we're expecting a couple of other G5 universities to come into that too. And that's a critical thinking based admissions test. So if you're worried about it, you can find some information on the UCL website already. You can take a look. We have an article as well. So if you want to have it, it's on there and it explains everything we know so far. And if you wanted to have a look and see what that test is like, I highly recommend going onto the Oxford site, having a look at the TSA pass papers, and it will probably give you a pretty good idea of what that's going to be. That's a brand So new [00:24:30] S0: what I'm hearing is that these tests, that the process is always changing. It's always evolving and the iterations, but it's really so, so important that you're getting the right guidance, whether that's from school or you're doing your own research or you're engaging an external consultant. Yeah, it's not as straightforward. I mean, it can be rather straightforward, but depending on what universities you're applying to, I mean, I suppose for a lot of our parents and their children, they're super ambitious. And so if they are applying to the very top universities in The UK, it is super competitive. And so the process is becoming more complicated. Would you agree?
00:25:08 · Barbara Lestak
[00:25:08] S1: Yes. Yeah, exactly that. And yeah, it's exactly that. So students who have admissions tests, they have to prepare almost, if you imagine a year in advance at least, of all of the other students who are sort of doing normal UCAS applications that just require a personal statement. It's an added layer. It's the layer where universities like to use that because it's the one area that's fair game for all students. So every student will sit the same test, every student will have the same environment, etcetera, etcetera. So there's no sort of way that you can go into that, you know, or ask someone to do it for you, you know, it doesn't work. So you have to go and go through that as every other applicant. And every single year, those raw scores do go just an inch higher, a little bit higher, a little bit higher. And so the most important aspect is you've got to, as you said, Ruth, you've got to ace it. You need to absolutely maximise those points and there are ways of doing that. So timing strategies, looking at the questions that can maximise your points on, going back to the ones that you're not certain about but they have minimal points. So, looking at that and being able to digest that, it's not easy, especially under really pressured time conditions. That's hard to do for anybody. Even I get stressed if I have to do a timed exam now. You know, for somebody who's also going through all of the school curriculum and all of that, it is a lot, which is why that preparation, that run up as early as you can start is so, so valuable.
00:27:01 · Ruth Benny
[00:27:01] S0: Yeah, I want to ask you about that actually. So, we said that you're going into upper six or last year of school it's time to start the applications, but going back, I mean, when do you think is the right time to start preparing? Because I would even wonder, I'd ask you that even choosing A level subjects or IB subjects. So we have to go back even further, don't we? Because whatever subjects you choose, you may be keeping the doors open or unfortunately closing certain doors for certain courses. Is that right?
00:27:34 · Barbara Lestak
[00:27:34] S1: Yeah, absolutely. You're spot on. So it's vital. And even at GCSE stage, you have to make sure that you're picking because what you... If you pick the wrong GCSEs, as an extreme example, if you to apply for computer science at Cambridge, you will need to have certain A levels. Also, you imagine GCSE you might pick, oh I'm going to pick history, geography, economics. But your school offers computer science, statistics and further maths. But you haven't picked those because that's not what you like at that moment in time or you want an easy GCSE or however you spin it. That then might close your door at the A level subjects that you get to choose depending on how your school processes, what your pathway is. And what you might end up doing is closing that A level door and having to do it privately as a private student outside of the school. Now some schools aren't that controlling with that pathway but you need to have that conversation as early as GCSE to really understand. And then looking at your A levels exactly as you say, you need to make sure, you know, again Cambridge Computer Science is your dream, must have maths, you must have further maths and one other, you know, sciency STEM based subject. And if you look at the entry requirements for the subject and the university that you want to go to it will tell you clear as day these are the basic requirements and underneath they will have recommended subjects. Now, very niftily, underneath those recommended subjects it will give you very openly the statistics of how many students take those recommended subjects and what other subjects students might take. I promise you now, what they recommend is what is required. Because if you want to join the other top cohort, you need to have those in the bag. So if the university is saying to you, okay, for example, if you're applying for Economics and Management at Oxford, you don't need further maths, but the majority of students will be taking further maths. So you kind of need to make that decision, you know, and have a very good reason perhaps for why you didn't take further maths. You might choose philosophy or something else, which is again fine for economics and management.
00:29:53 · Barbara Lestak, Ruth Benny
They need a humanity subject as well as your maths and further maths, but you have to cut, you know, you've got to make those decisions and they will change the pathway that you've chosen if you're not careful. [00:30:06] S0: So it gets earlier and earlier. So just to recap, you know, children will choose their GCSE subjects in the latter half of year nine. Do you think that's a really good, but they're so young and they're so immature. They don't really, I mean, they are so young at year nine, aren't they too? But do you work with students of that age? Do they generally have a sense of what they want to do?
00:30:27 · Barbara Lestak
[00:30:27] S1: Yeah, yeah, really good question. We do work with some students as early as year nine. It's a very relaxed programme. There's nothing that we sort of give them that they can't manage. So, we don't give them sort of high level access to things because what that does is it does the opposite effect. It completely freaks them out. They get completely scared and go, I can't do this. I'm not ready for this, etcetera, which isn't what we want to do. But it is very important that we guide them through that and say, okay, is that what you love? All right, let's find out if that really is, or maybe there's a tweak in here somewhere. We can go down a whole other path and allowing the student to have that fun, and it should be fun, you know, it should feel like fun for that student, like an exploration of, okay, where do my interests really lie? Because exactly at that age, they're so young, but they're in their absolute formative years. That end of year nine, my son's just gone through it. That end of year nine is so critical, you know, and we went through it together and we decided what his GCSEs would be. And, you know, and he said like, this is what I love. This is what I want to do. Fantastic. You need to explore that a little bit with them because you know, one month they love one thing another month they'll fall in love with something else.