I was terrified for Results Day!
I’d spent the last two years working incredibly hard in the hope of getting a place at the university I wanted to go to. I spent hours every day revising for months running up to my exams. After exams, I spent far too much time panicking about what my results might be, even though I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. On Results Day, I arrived at my college at 8:30am, despite results not being released until 9:00. In that half hour, I hovered nervously around the table with the envelopes on. I couldn’t sit still or calm down. I think I must have driven my parents mad! Eventually, they released the results. I went into a quiet corner with my envelope, just in case the results were terrible and I needed a minute to accept it.
When I opened my results…
I saw that I hadn’t got the grade I wanted. I thrust the envelope at my dad and ran off to the girls’ loos to cry. A few minutes later my friend came and told me that my dad needed to tell me something about my results, that it was okay, and that I needed to hear this. So out I went, and it turned out I’d been incredibly daft. I’d not looked at the second page of the results, which showed the grade I needed to get into my chosen uni!! So, after all my panicking, it was all alright!
Changing courses and finding happiness
I actually went to UCL, not York, and spent two years there. Honestly, I was really unhappy. In the end, I came to the decision that I wanted to leave. That was when I chose York. York has a great History department and really strong mental health support, so I knew I could be happy here. So I went through the heartache of applying again but luckily York were great. They got back to me within hours. And within a week I was enrolled, part of a college, had a supervisor and a timetable.
If I had to give one piece of advice about applying for university, it would be to choose carefully. Make sure you look for a uni with a good student satisfaction rate and in a city where you can be happy. For me, it took two years to realise that London was not that city and that the university was a really bad fit for me. When I looked for a city I could happily live in, and a uni that would support me as I needed, I found York. I’ve been incredibly happy since.
My advice for results day would be to stay calm – don’t panic like I did!
No matter what your results are, you will still be able to go to a uni that you can be happy at, even if it wasn’t your first choice. I never considered York originally, and never dreamed I’d end up here, but it is such a fantastic uni and it’s been an amazing place for me.
Leave a Reply