August is always an exciting month at Studential HQ because it’s when we get to celebrate A Levels results with you lovely lot.
After, oh... 12-14 years of education, thousands of students across the country gathered to find out if the hard work, determination and feverish revision had paid off.
Some of you were thrilled with the letters on that bit of paper, others were just glad it’s all over. All in all, we couldn’t be more proud of Britain’s students.
Today on the blog we’ll be covering all the news from results day 2014. We’ll also be giving a little page space to the best advice we’ve heard.
A Level Results Day – August 14th 2014
Overall, grades slipped ever so slightly this year, with the proportion of students obtaining A* to E dropping by 0.1 percentage points.
However, a fantastic 98% of students passed their A Levels and the number of you achieving an A* went up by 0.6 percentage points.
During the weekend after results day, 20,000 students applied to university through clearing. Even some of the country’s finest institutions, including the University of Southampton and Cardiff Uni, offered last-minute spaces to top students.
More and more 18 year olds are waiting until they’ve received their results before deciding what to do next. We wonder if this will impact the university application process in the future.
And the award for weirdest way to open your results goes to...
Finding out your results is terrifying enough, but imagine doing it on a rollercoaster! That’s what Thorpe Park invited students to do this year. A few brave, brave students took them up on the offer!
Words of Advice
When your A Levels are finally complete, you find yourself teetering on the edge of a new path. Will you go to university, take a gap year, jump straight into employment or try something else altogether?
For many young people, the summer after college is time for reflection, planning and serious decision making.
It’s also the time when you’ll hear a lot of advice, from a lot of different sources. Some advice is better than others, it’s up to you whether you take it... or not.
My favourite piece of advice comes from a Boston based yoga instructor and writer. The advice encourages students to study what they love and to just really enjoy the process of learning:
“University is not job training. When you get a job, they’ll train you. College is for studying what you love, enjoy, and want to think critically about. It’s about learning and learning how to learn—so that you can learn to be an expert at what you choose to do.”
And for those of you who don’t want to take the university route, this article from Zen Habits offers some really sound advice, including this nugget:
“Figure out what you’re passionate about.This isn’t easy, because it takes a lot of trial and error.Try a lot of things.When you get good at something, by the way, you’ll like it much more. You’ll suck at everything at first.”
Good luck!
