Despondent niece

i went to a grammar school and only got 3 o levels. couldn't wait to get to technical college at 16 and get qualifications to be a secretary - all i wanted to be.
fast forward to my fourties when i started a degree course at my local university part time in the evening - a four year course in business studies to honours level. unfortunately although i couldn't finish the honours year [my father died and i couldn't concentrate on anything] i did get an ordinary pass after three years and graduated just after i'd had a complete hysterectomy following ovarian cancer.
my daughter did well at her school although she had to do retakes of her a levels but went to university and managed a creditable 2.1.
my son having got his gcse at one school then went on to take a levels at our local grammar school. he had predicted grades of AAA in his subjects and cambridge university tried to headhunt him! however he "only" got AAB i think and they didn't want him so he went to his original choice at brighton university where he got a first class degree in computers.
i'm very proud of both my children - and myself of course - although my daughter now works part time in a charity shop [she's the assistant manager] while being a stay at home mum the rest of the week - my son isn't working much with computers any more but is more than happy with his job.
and i retired ten years ago to be a lady of leisure!!
i still think of us as the three degrees.
but please, op, do encourage your grandaughter to consider other universities and courses - i'm sure she'll find somewhere where she can be happy.

She did well, but if she got a B in maths, it is a subject that is so different from all others, and is best done by the straight A* mathematicians. moxeyns is right. My Dd enjoyed maths as her favourite til GCSE, then was on target for an E at A level. She settled for an AS, went to college in the evenings to get a third a level in Sociology. Maths was a doddle for my DS - Oxford 1st in Maths, but you can't get by in maths at a high level unless you have that kind of mind.

My DD phoned her first choice uni, Liverpool, after getting quite poor grades, and accepted (=talked her way onto) a place for a different history course than she had applied, but still pure hons. She went on to do REALLY well. She too was devastated on A level day, and wouldn't go out or peak to anyone - til lunchtime, when she was off joining in with her friends at the pub. After all the drama, within a week of going to uni, she made about 4 of her best friends for life, and never looked back.

Ditch the maths and thrive on a more suitable course.

Don't despair and let her sit around wringing her hands - my niece scraped into a red-brick university, clunked her way to a degree in geography and got scooped up by the Environment Agency. Now doing pretty good!

It's down to an unpredictable mix of luck, hard work, fate, serendipity, hope, more luck, etc, etc.

She'll land on her feet in the end.

I've been an A level examiner for a number of years now and can assure you that the grade boundaries have been adjusted to soften the blow of the slightly more rigourous papers. Good luck to all our students.

The pressure on these poor kids is tremendous and I feel so sorry for them. Our daughter didn't do as well as she wanted to in her A-levels but she phoned me from school in floods of tears and I told her to get straight back home and we would get on to clearing. She had wanted to do English, but had done Art (Textiles) as one of her A-level subjects and she is mad about History and got a good result at AS level. She had an interview down the phone with Manchester University and was accepted immediately to study for a BA in history of Art. She did brilliantly and then accepted a place at Oxford to do a Master's in the same subject. she met her American husband there and now has a great job in New York working at Columbia University. So don't give up, even if your A-level results weren't as good as you had expected!

SusieB50: Hopefully, by today, your niece will have found a place that suits her interests either through phoning her first and second choices directly or through clearing. Her grades are good and she should be congratulated, not made to feel a failure. Exams are exams and disappointments happen. Certainly, she should not pursue Maths, as many others have wisely advised. I speak as a teacher in a 6th form college and a principal examiner and results Thursday in August has been a huge part of my life as a teacher and parent of 4 bringing highs and lows. M0nica's advice is excellent. Good luck to your niece and may this be the beginning of a wonderful world of discovery for her on whichever course and uni she finally chooses. And a good opportunity, once the choice is made, for a generous aunt to treat her niece to something special!

I do recommend gap years, but only if they are well-planned. If she takes this route, she needs to consider what she expects from the year out and in what way the year will influence her eventual uni course.

A and 2 x B's is a fabulous result and your niece should be proud.
But maybe she would enjoy Uni more if she did something biology rather than maths related.

Once upon a time, someone very dear and close to me applied to a highly competitive Engineering School here in the US and was rejected, so she decided to pursue a degree in Economics instead.

Today, she is VP of a very large, prestigious financial institution. Career wise, she amply outperformed the other two classmates who got into the E school.

Like someone once said "......if life hands you lemons, you make lemonade"

Susieb50
Would she consider nursing? We really need caring intelligent people and there is a wide variety of care options.

It's not the end of the world. I didn't get the grades I needed. I went to work instead. 35 years (!) on I have an HNC in Business Studies and Finance and an Open University degree in History. As well as two DCs and two DGDs which might not have happened if had gone to Uni when I was 18

3 years ago that was my DGD but she accepted a slightly different course at the same university but was convinced she was a failure the whole time. But this June came away with a First. They put so much unnecessary pressure on themselves I think.

persistentdonor I'm sorry but you can't compare biology with maths. for biology you need good /-excellent eyesight and be dextrous at using biological equipment some of which is very complicated.

I remember once listening to a professor on Tv who said that most people when looking back after many years have to admit that the best things that happened to them were not planned but were due to random circumstances.
Susi Your niece would do well not to take this all too seriously and go to another another university, and not to be where all the Maths students are near geniuses

Maybe life is better in Sheffield (my home town) Leeds, Bristol eg. than York.

There's a list somewhere (google...) of people who have 'made it' without a degree and without having been to university. From memory the list includes Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Warren Buffet and many others. Nil desperandum!

My oldest friend was unable to go to university because her widowed mother needed her out at work, but she got a job in a laboratory, took evening classes to get more qualifications and had a very successful career as a research chemist.

Your neice may find that the University she ends up in is a happier place than York, having a Collegiate system in place there, rather like Oxbridge, it can feel more formal and not so carefree.