An interesting thread and its made me aware of what could happen it the cct when flying solo and what I would do. A few thoughts come to mind which some of you experienced guys may be able to clarify.
Option one - Continue further downwind before turning base. yep, I can see thats a good option. however, to play devils advocate, there is a danger of getting lost, especially for a second solo with presumably little knowledge of local area and none of nav. This would be the same if one was to fly away from the safety of "home" and the cct at this stage...how would you cope if you had not been taught PFLS (ok, so EFATOs probably have been taught by that stage). This course of action surely puts more stress on we Studes?
Option two (and what I think I would personally do) is fly to the landmark which ATC and everyone at our place use as a hold, mosey around there for a bit and inform ATC that I was "holding around the mast" they would know exactly what I meant and would hopefully give me new instructions.
Another option of course is to check on the ATIS again for rwy in use.
Another option is for the early solos at least not to go solo when the cct is busy or when ATC Is operating. This is how my instructor has played it with me, three weeks ago I went solo for the fourth time, but it was the first with ATC operating; and the cct was not that busy. Even then there was an issue
and the Tower got very stroppy with me for crossing 19 threshold without a clearance when both my instructor and I had definitely heard the clearance was through to 26!
Many thanks to the OP for starting this thread, it certainly does make one think!