private candidate, predicted grades and reference

So I will most likely be a private candidate next year, I'm slightly confused as to where to get predicted grades from, do I set them myself? :P And how do I fill the UCAS application as a private candidate? There are things that don't seem to apply to me. Can I get reference from someone other than my old sixth form tutors (I'm sure they're terrible as I hardly went to lessons, failed almost everything, and didn't do much classwork) Thanks

UCAS website explains everything. Your referee should be someone who knows you academically and can comment on your abilities and potential for university study.

You enter your referee's email and they then logon and fill in the reference and your predicted grades.

I see, where will I get the predicted grades from, the same people I get references from? I don't see how they could predict grades for me since they're not teaching me or seeing my progress

If you have a private tutor, your referee will most probably want to talk to them to discuss grades. If you're teaching yourself, your referee will discuss it with you and agree a grade - they know what you're like as a student so will know roughly what you're able to get. Generally students get similar grades in subjects, so if you're a C grade student you're likely to get that in your new subject, although self teaching is hard so it could go down. You might be able to convince them you'll work hard and achieve better, but they're unlikely to predict drastically higher.

There are even things that predict your A Level score from previous results (like gcses) so your school may use one of those.

I see, thanks for the info... :/ Looks like my predicted grades are going to be terrible, I didn't do much classwork, missed a lot of lessons and didn't hand in even one piece of homework, but that's not how I'm like now!

Should I consider not applying to unis with predicted grades but put an application up and find something through clearing? Or do you have to apply to unis to get anything through clearing?

But if you have good gcse results you can discuss with your school that your previous study was just a blip - and you can discuss reasons why you did badly and what you'll do better this time. If you can show that you're approaching this new start as a new start and you're being mature about it they may predict you better grades. If you go in demanding high predictions but with no reasoning behind it they won't be impressed and will give you low predictions.

So yeah, think about why you did badly - you've identified that you did no work, but why did you do no work? How do you know that will be different this time? How are you going to motivate yourself and keep on track? Studying on your own is known to be difficult. What resources are you going to use?

You do need to apply through UCAS to apply through Clearing, but if you apply after June 30 you don't pick unis in the usual way and you just go through Clearing. But since you pay the same fee for that as you do for a normal application, and since you use Clearing if your normal application isn't successful, you might as well try the normal route and see what happens.