Just as our youngest Snowdrops begin their journey at ESMS Nursery, our class of 2024 Leavers are getting ready for their academic adventure. This year, 98% of our Sixth year students were accepted into their firm choice of university.
This ambitious group of leavers are not holding back. The courses they have chosen are wide ranging, including everything from Law, Medicine and Zoology to Product Design Engineering, Neuroscience and Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. In addition to this, some of our students take on challenging apprenticeships across the UK, with a specific career in mind.
The destinations are just as exciting, with five students venturing overseas to Paris, Hong Kong, New York, Canada, and 37 making their mark down south at universities including Cambridge, Durham and Kings College London. 191 of our leavers are choosing to study at top-tier Scottish institutions, including the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow. With the University of St Andrews always being a particularly competitive field, we are pleased to see 30 of our students take up spaces there this Autumn.
These impressive results are an accumulation of years of hard work from our students, and our incredibly dedicated teachers. Throughout their Senior School journey, our students are supported by our experienced Careers team. Not only are they guiding students through the university application process, from as early as S2, the team begin helping students to identify which subjects fuel their enthusiasm, where their strengths lie and what types of jobs might inspire them.
Mr Garden, our Higher Education Co-ordinator works closely with the students on their choices: “When students arrive in Sixth Form, they are often worried about the future – what path to take, what course would suit them, what university would make the best choice, and it's really about reassuring them to play to their strengths. What are they good at? What are their skills? What motivates them in terms of the next stage of their educational journey? Most employers are looking for transferable skills from their university degree, so it's really important they do something they're going to enjoy and something which they're going to be good at as well.”
Sophie, one of this year’s leavers, has been accepted to study Engineering at Columbia University in New York, and much of her application was above and beyond what was required for UCAS applications: “The school helped me to get in touch with pupils who are studying in the US so that I could understand what the process was like. Throughout, there's always been a teacher there willing to help me out, whether it’s with an SAT or an interview, there's always been someone there.”
We can’t wait to see what this latest group of students go to do next, and we wish them the very best of the luck!
