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Do i have to have english gcse at C to enter universty

well for universty i would like to do a course on software engineering i am studying a level at the moment they are maths, finance studies and computing but i have heard that i need english gcse at C grade to enter universty is that true here are my gcse grades i had.

business studies- C
Resistant material- B
information technology(I.T) - A*
maths-c
science-e
english-d
welsh(wales language im in wales)-d
Relgious studies-e

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Reply 1
Most universities require a C in English and depending on the course may want a higher grade than the one you achieved in science. Check the websites of the universities you want to apply to or compare on the UCAS website and it'll tell you.
Reply 2
For really competitive places you will. For others it's debatable. I was told I had to have GCSE Maths when applying for university so far none of my offers have mentioned it.:confused:
It depends, you'd have to check with the Universities that you are thinking about applying to.
Reply 4
thanx people
I've never come across a university that doesn't want a C in English. Normally you're not allowed to do A-levels unless you get C's in English and Maths. My insurance choice is the University of Bedfordshire and their average entry points are 186 which seems to be the lowest on the league tables and they don't except people without C's in maths and english. My friend got turned down for a job in River Island (clothes shop) because she doesn't have them lol it's totally ridiculous but you don't seem to be able to do very much without your C's unless you slip through the net somehow. It's definitely work re-taking it.

Even if you find a university that doesn't ask for it, it's a good idea to work on English skills anyway and sort of be the best that you can be in that department before you go to university because you will probably have to do quite a lot of essays and things. If an essay/dissertation reads well and has good grammar and everything then in my opinion even a software engineering lecturer (rather than english lit for instance) is more likely to mark it optimistically. It's important to be able to make things sound good and it can take practice.

Also you got a C in maths gcse. How are you coping with it at A-level? Just asking because I got an A at GCSE and couldn't hack it at AS and the only people I knew who passed it got A*s at GCSE lol
Reply 6
thanx littleone271 i will resit and yeah matsh its veery hard but im trying to get the hang of it lol what did u get in alvel
Reply 7
I got a D in GCSE English and only have unconditional offers from uni's because of my key skills level 2 in communication. I really regret not resitting GCSE English as if I did I would be probably be going to my first choice of uni now, even though that uni didn't state on their website i needed English they just stated GCSE maths and science at a*-c.
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 8
sorry abotu that mattamz i will be resitting by the way what u doing in uni what course
Reply 9
I've got a friend who got rejected for not having a GCSE in English lang C or above
so I think it's best to retake it in june :wink:

Original post by littleone271


Also you got a C in maths gcse. How are you coping with it at A-level? Just asking because I got an A at GCSE and couldn't hack it at AS and the only people I knew who passed it got A*s at GCSE lol


I got an A at GCSE at maths and I am now predicted to get A* in maths and A in Further Maths :wink: it depends on if you put in the work :smile: or it maybe the lack of working in GCSE and eating cheese in the lessons and no revision :L compared to now where I listen and revise and don't even eat D:
Reply 10
Original post by Zargham
sorry abotu that mattamz i will be resitting by the way what u doing in uni what course
Computer science, at first i thought English wouldn't be that important in a computing course but i realized uni's want it because essays need to be of a decent standard.
Original post by JordanS94
I've got a friend who got rejected for not having a GCSE in English lang C or above
so I think it's best to retake it in june :wink:



I got an A at GCSE at maths and I am now predicted to get A* in maths and A in Further Maths :wink: it depends on if you put in the work :smile: or it maybe the lack of working in GCSE and eating cheese in the lessons and no revision :L compared to now where I listen and revise and don't even eat D:


I worked really hard actually but my teacher was a nutcase. He was a doctor of theoretical physics like sheldon from 'the big bang theory' except older and crazier. He used to write a load of crap on the board that was full of weird symbols we'd never seen before and then he'd be like 'this is all rubbish! I'm not really a mathematician! I'm a baker!'.

There was one person in the class who got a B at gcse and he dropped it after 2 weeks lol At least I held out til after christmas... I was getting my head around mechanics ok actually because I had something I could apply it to in my mind and it wasn't just a load of bs that nobody really needs to use but I was still getting Es and Us on the core 1 tests because I was constantly being confused and told to do things in a weird way and I ended up forgetting everything all the time. To be fair I was kinda going through a bit of a rough time as well and my other subjects were biology, business studies and statistics which was the easiest.

I remember some of it being really easy like finding the derivative, quadratics etc. We had these really ancient text books though and for some reason diffrentiation with the circles and the lines going through the graph... totally threw me lol. I really would love to have another go at A-level maths one day though because I used to really like maths and I think I sort of owe it to myself to get it done and dusted. I don't know when though because hopefully I'll be going to university this September.
Original post by littleone271
I worked really hard actually but my teacher was a nutcase. He was a doctor of theoretical physics like sheldon from 'the big bang theory' except older and crazier. He used to write a load of crap on the board that was full of weird symbols we'd never seen before and then he'd be like 'this is all rubbish! I'm not really a mathematician! I'm a baker!'.

There was one person in the class who got a B at gcse and he dropped it after 2 weeks lol At least I held out til after christmas... I was getting my head around mechanics ok actually because I had something I could apply it to in my mind and it wasn't just a load of bs that nobody really needs to use but I was still getting Es and Us on the core 1 tests because I was constantly being confused and told to do things in a weird way and I ended up forgetting everything all the time. To be fair I was kinda going through a bit of a rough time as well and my other subjects were biology, business studies and statistics which was the easiest.

I remember some of it being really easy like finding the derivative, quadratics etc. We had these really ancient text books though and for some reason diffrentiation with the circles and the lines going through the graph... totally threw me lol. I really would love to have another go at A-level maths one day though because I used to really like maths and I think I sort of owe it to myself to get it done and dusted. I don't know when though because hopefully I'll be going to university this September.


yeah the graphs threw a few people in my class off track :/ but mechanics was really bad at my college the teacher last year taught us nothing... i got straight U's in it until the exam where I got a C I have no idea how but because me cores were so high i still got an A and only C3 and C4 are counted towards getting an A* and that's why I'm predicted an A* but I retook mechanics to get an A but there was no hope the teacher is terrible so I have to teach myself the subject which I'm not very good at :L
Original post by Zargham
thanx littleone271 i will resit and yeah matsh its veery hard but im trying to get the hang of it lol what did u get in alvel


I dropped it after christmas lol. I think I was too used to being in the GCSE maths mindset and working things out by applying it to things in my head. When I tried AS maths I couldn't really find things to apply the logic to so I couldn't visualise any of it or work it out as quickly as I was required to in order to keep up.

I could do all of it if I spent long enough with it but it took a lot of time and I was still getting E's in core 1 tests when we'd started learning about mechanics and I knew that passing it at the end of the year with a half respectable grade just wasn't going to happen lol.

Maths was my core subject really so when that went down the toilet I didn't know what I wanted to be anymore so I bunked most days for pretty much the rest of the year. I dropped business studies, failed biology and got an E in statistics despite being top of the class and thrashing everybody on all the past paper questions in all the S1b stuff in the first term. I remember one time I was the only person in the class to get 100% and out of the people in that class there are quite a few who did further maths and who ended up getting like 3 or 4 A*s in their A2s. In terms of natural ability I was the top of the class in stats but I lost interest and forgot all the stuff so my results were C,D,U in the exams lol 1 mark off a D overall.. but if I'd turned up a bit more often then it could easily have been an A. (we didn't have A*s in those days haha)

Anyway... I totally fked up year 12 and I wasn't going to stick around to do subjects I hated so I decided to do something else. I'm now in my second (final) year of college doing a BTEC extended diploma in forensic science. It's worth 3 A-levels and in a lot of ways I think it's better than the A-level system. Hopefully I'll get DDM (equivalent to AAC) and go to Portsmouth uni to study forensic psychology in September!
Original post by JordanS94
yeah the graphs threw a few people in my class off track :/ but mechanics was really bad at my college the teacher last year taught us nothing... i got straight U's in it until the exam where I got a C I have no idea how but because me cores were so high i still got an A and only C3 and C4 are counted towards getting an A* and that's why I'm predicted an A* but I retook mechanics to get an A but there was no hope the teacher is terrible so I have to teach myself the subject which I'm not very good at :L


Yeah... Does your school use a website called 'mymaths' by any chance? I found that really helpful for certain topics.. there was a limited amount of A-level resources on there when I did my AS's but that was a couple of years ago now so they've probably added more stuff to it. If you find the mymaths online lesson for the topic that you're stuck on then you won't need a teacher to help you.

If your school doesn't use it then ask around and see if anybody you know has siblings whose schools use it. All you need is the school username and password which is often displayed on posters put up all around the school for it's students and you can use their account sneakily without them knowing. It's not hacking as such because you can't access their data without their individual passwords. You'd just sort of be getting a piggy back on their subscription so you can use the online lessons and have a go at the worksheets.
Reply 15
Can you still resist the exmas? Cos I heard that the exam board has changed, so you can't just take the exams... You have to do the whole course.
Reply 16
Most courses think you're illiterate of you don't have a C in English :L as for you computer studies you should be all right.
Reply 17
not for all unis but some may require it
Reply 18
You maaay need a C in English. For most of the courses I applied for it was stated that I'd need a C or above in English. I got a D in GCSE Maths however and still got onto a course...but I do have an A in GCSE English. Just make sure you check before you apply...also, it would be ideal to at least get it up to a C. English at GCSE is easy...!
Reply 19
thanx people hlped alot

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