Destination Education
00:34:22 · Ruth Benny
[00:34:22] S0: Yeah, good point. I think there's on UCAS, you can scroll through, there's a lot of different qualifications that they do accept, but really, really important to check. I mean, I was coming at this question with the assumption that if you're not British and you're studying overseas, then you definitely are going to be classified as an international student. I mean, we could do a whole other topic on home fees versus international fees. Let's assume for a moment that those students will be international. I mean, my instinct, mean, the university is increasingly reliant on the fees for international students these days. And what I've seen again, in my small sample is that those international students get early offers for lower grades. In a sense, it's easier for international students.
00:35:10 · Barbara Lestak
[00:35:10] S1: I think there are some universities that will definitely do that because as you said, and have rightly identified international students have a vast amount more to pay than a national student than a home student. Now, I think that stands for a large number of UK universities. I would always caution those who are wanting to apply to the top five. So G5, Russell, Oxford, Cambridge, as that is not the case. So you will have the same entry requirements as a home student. But if you are applying perhaps to not the G5, not the Russell and not Oxbridge, then you may find that you will have a little bit more flex and a little bit more freedom, especially I think if you aren't taking sort of the A Levels or the A Level equivalents, because then it's a slightly different system for you, education system for you. So they might be a little bit more relaxed in that case. The other element that you can consider is are the foundation courses. So for students who maybe aren't quite there or something happened in their academic life and schooling, etcetera, or they just missed out on the minimum requirement. And there are some universities now that are doing what they call foundation courses or foundation degrees. They are very competitive and you need to check because they don't do a foundation degree for every but it does give you an in and you go and you know you start with some very basic modules but also to increase that English language and to sort of get you used to that university schooling system, university system, the education system there. So if you are a student who sort of fits into that category, by all means, you know, take a look at the foundation courses because they are very useful. But I do warn you, they can be very competitive.
00:37:05 · Ruth Benny, Barbara Lestak
[00:37:05] S0: And the universities don't penalize, mean, there's no disadvantage in doing a foundation course? [00:37:11] S1: Nope, no, absolutely not. Because if you imagine the university wants the best of the best, right? So if they know that, okay, you had a hiccup here or you're almost there, but you just need a little bit of extra support. We want to have you in our system as a student. So let's give you that additional support that you need to get you going and then we can put you into the main degree. So yeah, absolutely. Doesn't, there's no Makes penalisation for [00:37:36] S0: sense. Do contextual admissions, does that apply to international students or does that only apply to home students? [00:37:44] S1: No, so you can have contextual offers. It does become a little harder and I'm not massively sort of clued up on which universities consider contextual offers as per international students. But I do know for example that there are some cases where they might ask for, if it is a contextual student, they might ask for some kind of government scholarship or support from their home country or proof of that so that the student can come over. That said, we have a foundation and we work with national international students there and from you know everything from asylum seekers to those who have some level of government funding because it is hard for a contextual student to come over and have to pay those large sums of money and without some kind of grant or support. But yes, they absolutely considered.
00:37:44 · Barbara Lestak, Ruth Benny
[00:37:44] S1: No, so you can have contextual offers. It does become a little harder and I'm not massively sort of clued up on which universities consider contextual offers as per international students. But I do know for example that there are some cases where they might ask for, if it is a contextual student, they might ask for some kind of government scholarship or support from their home country or proof of that so that the student can come over. That said, we have a foundation and we work with national international students there and from you know everything from asylum seekers to those who have some level of government funding because it is hard for a contextual student to come over and have to pay those large sums of money and without some kind of grant or support. But yes, they absolutely considered. [00:38:41] S0: Okay. We've skipped around a lot, so we're definitely going to need this timeline. So let's assume that I think it's, we're speaking at the end of April. So I think by the middle of May, all of the offers will have been made. Is that correct? Yep. Is it May 15 or something? Yep. Yes. And then August 15. Yeah. And then the IB results are sometime end of July, and then the A level results are August 15. And it's not until a child, a student actually gets their grades, that they will know whether they can go to the university that they've selected. It seems there's got to be a better way, surely.
00:39:22 · Barbara Lestak
[00:39:22] S1: Yeah, so they have often flirted with the idea of bringing it earlier. So almost during the UCAS process, either condensing it or just bringing it into almost sort of a year earlier than what it is now. The issue with that is, there's a number of issues with that. If you condense it, if you imagine universities get thousands and thousands of applications, if you're going to ask the admissions tutors who also teach and the administrative team to go through this in a much, much shorter time. It's almost impossible, know, they want to be thorough, don't want to make mistakes, to make sure that the places in the office go to the right students and the deserving students. So they have to go through that rigorous process. The second is that of course if you do it a little bit earlier, those students haven't, you know, they might have just started their A level journey. They might not yet be entirely certain where they want to go. So it's almost the onus on the student, the pressure on the student to go, come on, we need to know now. You know, and it'd be almost like asking a year nine student, okay, what do want to do for your A levels? Tell me now, tell me now. It's not, they're not quite there yet. You know, they've only just started their A level subjects. They haven't really kind of navigated massively, which is again where that earlier support comes in. If you can start earlier, fantastic. You'll be more certain of your pathway. But that said, that can change. You know, I've worked with students in year 10 and by year 11, they've gone, actually, no, I had this amazing conversation, or I watched this seminar, I did this, and now I want to go in this direction. It's not very fair on the student. It does make it a little harder and it does make it very exciting for students across the summer to sit their exams and then have to wait. But that's why that, you know, when you're making your university choices, make smart choices. So, you know, use all five, see where you get your offers across your five choices and then narrow down. So you have to make two choices out of the five. So first is your first choice and then your insurance choice or your second choice. And you have to drop the other three.
00:41:34 · Barbara Lestak, Ruth Benny
And that is also, you know, it's fair in the system because you need to allow for all the other students to also make those choices and then universities can say, okay, where are our places, etcetera. So it's interesting because it is something that I know they have toyed with and thought about the idea, but I'm not sure it's gonna happen. Certainly not anytime soon. [00:41:56] S0: As a parent of a child waiting for their results, I wouldn't call it exciting at all. That's not the choice of word that I would pick. [00:42:04] S1: Like school and just, [00:42:08] S0: Logistics, logistically, it's just so stressful, you know, trying to book accommodation for a university that you hope your child will go to, but you genuinely don't know until they receive their results. It's so, so late. Anyway, IB is earlier, which is a good thing. But I know there's a lot of talk about this PQA, post qualification admissions, whether or not they're gonna go for it, you're saying probably not.