Great excitement in the house - Jack has started to get some offers from Universities.

This is only one stage on the road to "the next chapter" in his life - but it is the most exciting so far...

Frankly I don't know if the process is more taxing for me or him.

Stage 1 : University visits - found this a bit scary - could my boy really live in this concrete jungle.

Stage 2: Complete the UCAS form. Not as easy as it sounds - he had to write a personal statement to sell himself - too much and they would think him arrogant - too little and he risked getting passed over. One admissions tutor told him to try and sound like an enthusiastic puppy - not the greatest advice - spell checker kept rejecting his yapping....

Stage 3: Choose the univerisites and send off the form. This proved to be rather complicated - lots of advice to listen to - not all good. How many choices should he make? What happens if he gets no offers? (obviously as soon as we had passed this stage I have become something of an expert to advise any-one who I meet with a child vaguely of an age to be applying to Univeristy)

Stage 4: Sit back and wait and see what happens......

Stage 5: Try not to check progress too much on the UCAS online tracker. I must admit to a bit of peeking to see how things are getting on. Can imagine the man at UCAS monitoring the site saying - ehh up that mum's on here again.

And now he has had 3 offers - hurray.

Now he just has to get the results he needs!

To be continued...............