r/MatureStudentsUK

As I have previously posted, I have been rejected from all my uni choices and UCAS gave me an extra choice option but I do not know what to do. I cannot move out of London and there are only two universities in London that offer this course. Should I risk a gap year to reapply for the first year course next year, or apply for a foundation year?

I am getting distinctions in my Access course but I am 23, have already taken gap years and have poor track record with interviews. An extra year of debt feels daunting, especially for a degree that will only land me a poorly paid NHS job.

Hey guys, I was wondering if I would be eligible to do an access medicine course, my GCSE’s are fine for med but when I did my AS levels about 11 years ago, I got UUE in chem/maths/bio, (I was ill at the time, didn’t anyone or tell my school so had no support)

Would this make me ineligible to apply to any med unis, even if I do an access course and got the required marks, would they still reject me due to my bad AS level grades?

Thanks for any help or advice.

I’m looking into starting an access to HE in Science as like I’m sure most of you here, I want to make a change how life currently is and want to do something useful for myself. I’m 24 and have been out of education almost 10 years now. I left school with pretty much no GCSEs but mostly due to things going on in my life at the time.

But basically my question is how basic does the access course begin. I understand it’s A-Level equivalent but does it ease you in slowly and recap on the basics or is it straight into A-level standard immediately once starting. I’m just trying to weigh up my options and see whether I should do the GCSE course first or if I’d be okay going straight to the access course.

My sister is currently doing her GCSE’s and to help her find her biology revision a bit more fun before she took the exam we both did a higher biology past paper together, fully expecting to laugh at the score I got but I was pleasantly surprised and looking at the grade boundaries for that years paper I would’ve got around a grade 7 so I’ve got the basic GCSE level knowledge just not the piece of paper to prove it 🤣 but how important would it be for me to have the GCSE when applying to university if I was to pass the access course?

Also from what I’ve seen the access to science includes all three sciences. Is that set as standard and you have to do a mix of the three throughout the course or can you pick your preference and have it in one of the three sciences?

Has anyone gone from Access to HE straight into a top 10 university? What grades did you need?

ps. My end goal is an MA in Conference Interpreting.

I’m in first year at 21 and I became close with my flatmate since freshers who’s 20, they’re the only flatmate I get along with, the other seven are incredibly antisocial. I made a group of friends around that time from people in my cohort but then I also got introduced to my flatmates friends and became quite close with them over first term and we’d hang out regularly.

I came back in term two and we went out and handful of times and then they just stopped inviting me out. They still talk to me in the flat and they still do things with me outside sometimes but It feels like It’s literally only when their friends are busy or unavailable. I even explicitly told them casually to invite me out the next they go out, they said they would, and even when catching up with someone from the friend group I even mentioned it to them as well that I never get invited anymore. They still never invited me.

The result of this was I felt so lonely and depressed and abandoned, especially since the only other friend group I had has my ex girlfriend in it and we broke up in December, so I’m not close with any of them since. My grades tanked and I deferred several exams.

Today they literally had a barbecue since most of us are done with exams now and I never got invited. How I know is I messaged them to do something now that we’re done and they said they’re busy going to a barbecue, without inviting me to come along as well. Like how am I trying to hang out with you and you still don’t invite me?

It just makes me feel like the biggest loser alone all the time and cooling off exams by myself only, and not by choice either.

What advice do you guys have for making new friends at this stage in uni?

How do I even approach making new friends when groups are already established?

How am I supposed to act with this flatmate and this friend group when it literally feels like I’ve been snaked by them?

I'm wanting to go to university (for the first time but I have applied before and chose to pursue something else)

The course I want to do is very niche (prosthetics & orthotics) only two unis offer this and I don't reach the right a level grades.

I have tried contacting the universities but I'm struggling to get any sort of definitive answer.

I personally have experience with the course in question as I use a prosthetic daily, I also know my way around a tool kit so I have a good understanding of how and why things may be built in a particular way.

My grades aren't shocking but they're a way of the AAA they'd like.

I have been told I should do an access to higher education course to introduce myself back into education and doing well will sort my grades out.

Through the two unis it's not obvious if this can be done through them or where can provide the right certificate. I'd much prefer to do it where I would hopefully go to uni so I'm not stuck having to make friends for a year and then again later.

Is there anywhere that could help me get a more definitive answer? Would it be worth applying for the course anyway and would this affect applying again the next year.

Has anyone had experience doing a foundation year. Or this access course and how to go about it?

Has anyone done a medicine access here? I’m considering doing one but what worries me is most unis want 45 distinctions, how viable is that? It seems like any mistake or a piece of work not being good enough and you get a pass or merit and that’s it, you can’t get the needed 45D. There doesn’t seem to be any wiggle room and then you’ve limited your uni selection to very few unis left to choose from.

Any advice or am I worrying for nothing? Thanks.

Hey guys I just need a minimum of 10 people to partake in my assessment survey.

It’s just about social media and has 6 questions please help me out thanks!

I’m trilingual (English, French, Spanish) and want to specialise in veterinary/medical interpreting — where do I start?

I’m not a mature student yet, being young at only 17.

I’m due to sit my A levels, but have accepted the fact I’m going to fail them, thus leading me to explore my options.

Firstly, how would this rub on universities?

Secondly, what universities could I apply to with an access to HE?

And finally, what access to he course would be best suited for PPE, Law, politics, etc.

Lmk please!

So I've been to a open day at my college, they said I need functional skills level 2 in Maths and English, I've done their practice test said I'm exam ready. I also did a practice test for GCSE said I could do the exam in November resits.

Then it's nearly a year at doing The Access to Higher Education Diploma.

Need HELP in picking a course??

I love Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

For the last 10 weeks I have been relearning them and getting level 8 and 9 on GCSE past tests.

After a few more weeks of learning I should be able to get 100% on them

Hello!

So... for context, I'm a 19 year old here and I've completely bombed my GCSEs and my A-levels.

From year 9 onwards I struggled ALOT academically and since then I have never really achieved any success in my studies at all.

I'm very much used to being below average and seeing a bad grade on my paper is normal to me at this point.

I only have two A-levels where I achieved grades C and D and my GCSEs aren't great either with all of my GCSEs at a grade 4, grade 5 in maths (I will be resitting this!), 66 in combined science and a 7 in english language (resit).

It would be my dream to study Chemistry at UCL but I really don't know if I have it in me to do so.

I've always struggled with balancing different subjects and I feel like I just genuinely don't know how to study. I've tried it all flashcards, mind maps etc but it never feels like its actually going anywhere. I can study for hours and it feels like I actually haven't properly studied ...

I can't lie it does feel quite isolating being the only person in my life in this kind of situation.

Does anyone have any advice for me on what kinds of assessments to expect? Any success stories? Tips on studying? And how the heck I'm going to get 33 distinctions out of my butt for UCL? :')

Thank you :)

Hey guys I have been doing an access course online at distancelearningcentre.com and have been achieving merits/distinctions till today I received pass on my 3 credit assessment,

My conditional offer says I need 45 credits at a merit or above to get in :( what do I do now?
I can’t get a resit of the assessment, should I withdraw my application and apply somewhere else?

My offer was from Huddersfield university I’m so sad I can’t get in now.

For background, I went to uni twice for undergrad - once for business, then dropped out and moved over to computer science a couple of years later. My family aren’t exactly the most accepting of change, being the type to believe you have to stick with the things you’re handed in life and that not everything can be the way you want. For them, switching degrees was a big deal and they tried many times to dissuade me from going to uni at all again. I went and did a masters after my undergrad but had to leave because of illness. Now, I realise I never was happy with any of my choices in the past decade. I lost my passion for tech completely, especially having seen the AI landscape change so much in such a short space of time. I’ve become really depressed with my choices because I knew in my second year of computer science that I hated my degree and the field of tech, but I was worried about leaving uni again so stuck it out. What I’ve always wanted to work with was drug development. Every project I did with uni was focused on some kind of health application, and now I have the opportunity to go back to study pharmacology part time. I REALLY want to do this. However, every time I think about it I get so much anxiety about telling my family. I’m not a very confrontational person and I do admit I’ve let them walk all over me for a lot of my life. But I’m 27, and it’s about time I stop letting fear of rejection stop me from making the decisions I want to. Life is too short to be unhappy. I’m thankful I have a very supportive partner helping me through this but I hate the face that I know I won’t have the support of anyone else in my life. I was wondering if anyone had a similar experience and if there’s any advice they could give on how to navigate this? Sorry this is so long-winded!

I(19F) did a foundation year at rhul this year and I’ve failed due to declining mental health. I want to do an access course in digital technologies and computer science. At the college open day they told me that the course has 15 maths credits which was the only thing I needed clarification on as the unis I wanted to go to require this.

I want to do an access course as a fresh start. I have had disruptions with my studies before during gcse is when my mental health issues arose. I didn’t get the grades I wanted at the time even though I was predicted all 9s and 8s, those issues persisted into college and now I’ve wasted a year of uni and put myself in even more debt.

So I was given an unconditional offer for an Access to HE science course and I'm just trying to brainstorm ideas for what I need to work on over the summer before I begin in September.

I was thinking about practicing GCSE past bio, chem, and maths papers and digging out my old revision booklets but what specific modules do you think I should prioritise or focus on. I'm not quite sure where to start with getting back in to everything. If anyone has suggestions or advice I'd be very grateful

Hi,

Not sure if this makes sense or not.

I’m a mature student looking to teach myself some GCSEs and A-levels, I’m looking to teach myself maths (foundation first, higher if I get along with maths), history, politics, chemistry, biology and physics. For A-levels, English literature, English Language, History, Politics, Chemistry and Physics.

I’m not signing up to courses online as I feel the price tag is usually ridiculous, hence looking to self-teach. Im struggling on finding the requirements and specifications for each subject, I’m planning on taking it with the AQA exam board. If someone could point me in the right direction, I’d be grateful.

Hey all,

Reading this Reddit forum has provided me a lot of comfort- I’m turning 26 this year and feel like I’ve fallen behind. I‘ve struggled mentally all my life and never had any idea of what I’ve wanted to do. I’m trying to change that now and am planning on potentially doing an access to HE course in radiography but will look at other things. I definitely want to do something related to medical field. I’ve heard about activate learning , learn direct and distance learning. I was leaning towards Activate Learning, is this a good one to go for?

Hi there,

Looking for some advice. I have passed Maths, English GCSE amongst other GCSE’s and some further qualifications since leaving school.

However, I want to study to become a Hygienst, and my most viable route is proving to do HE Health & Science course then go onto a uni course for Dental Hygiene.

Although I haven’t passed my science GCSE, would I be able to add this onto my HE course, will it affect uni entry.

Could I have some general guidance please.

TIA