Uni

I have to talk about something funny which happened to me regarding Uni.

Here in England we do our A-levels(Advanced levels), It's a certificate of education for people who have opted to do two years of secondary school and the grades received after those 2 years are very often used by Universities to decide if they want you or not. universities will almost always give you a conditional offer such as for example "achieve a grade A in music" or "get a B in English literature as well as Spanish.

After receiving your conditionals(somewhere in January for me), you will need to do a decision regarding which Uni you want to go to.

The proccess is such:

1. Go online to the ucas website

2. Select the two universities you want to go to the most.

3. Make one of those universities
you "Firm Choice" and the other your "insurance"

4. Wait for results(yesterday)

The way it works is that you put the better uni(which will usually have steeper entry requirements) as "Firm" and if you don't make the grades then it's not the end of the world since you can still go to your insurance choice.

Now I want to do a Maths degree and at one point I was split into 2 uni's, the prestigious Warwick university or the less know but still great Surrey. Both asked me for the equivalent of 2 A's and a B but Warwick also wanted me to get a level 2 in a university exam called Step. Warwick just gave me the conditional without an interview while the one at Surrey was pretty good and went incredibly smoothly.

There are also many studies in England meant to access how good each uni is and give them a ranking. They change from paper to paper but for maths Warwick is usually between 6 to 10 and surrey between 8 to 13.

I put Warwick as my firm and Surrey as my insurance but then a few months later I changed my mind. Turns out that Warwick is quite literally in the middle of nowhere. There is nothing wrong with Warwick but I'm not completely anti-social, I'd much rather be close to my friends(both old and hopefully new) and not have to go through a 4 hour drive if I want to go to London or more importantly, I want to be able to visit my family.
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After changing my mind I thought to myself "no problem, I'll just switch my firm with my insurance" but it was too late, If Warwick accepted me then I am forced to go there instead of Surrey.

This is where I hatched my most Ironic plan ever: To go study maths in the uni I want, I have to fail my most important exam(Step). How.....freaking......sweet. I mean while everyone else was slaving away with petty things like "studying" I was preparing myself to commit academic blasphemy. Needless to say I gloriously failed the exam with a capital U, got rejected by Warwick and went to surrey.

I already have my university number and am making arrangements for living accommodations there so I'm no longer a lazy bum but a very happy undergraduate or freshman as my American friends would call me.