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Please help meee

Hey, really really want to do medicine, got an A* in RE and a A in core science. With history, Spanish, art, English, maths and additional science this year; if I get a U in history will this hurt my chances of getting in to a good medical school. I'm worried (with a poor teacher) that I'll get a D. Is it better to get a U and not count it as a gcse than get a D trying to get on such a competitive course? Should I purposely get a U? Please please help!
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 1
Why would you want to get a U for your results, it would certainly look bad on your report... History isn't that hard, just practice explaining and remember the events, and work on your source work.
Reply 2
A U means that you sat the course.....and failed. This will not look good. If you don't want your History to count and look bad you would need to ask to be withdrawn. Don't let a bad teacher ruin your grades, you will need EXCELLENT results to study medicine as the competition is crazy. If your teacher is really terrible you will need to put the extra work in yourself to get that grade.
A U would look even worse than a C or a D. You either need to work really hard to get a higher grade, or withdraw from the course/exams altogether
It's better than getting a D, then my overall grades are dragged down. Getting a U goes down as 'unclassified' or it used to just wondering if this is still applicable or if you have to declare this result to the unis too? It also means I can focus more on my other subjects.
Original post by Clemm101
A U means that you sat the course.....and failed. This will not look good. If you don't want your History to count and look bad you would need to ask to be withdrawn. Don't let a bad teacher ruin your grades, you will need EXCELLENT results to study medicine as the competition is crazy. If your teacher is really terrible you will need to put the extra work in yourself to get that grade.

Can I withdraw if it's a full GCSE?
Reply 6
Your school won't actually 'enter' you until February. This means you're not even registered with the exam board yet. Once you are entered you can be withdrawn right up until the day of your exam. As you are doing Spanish the school might let you withdraw since your EBacc subjects are covered by Spanish and the double Science.
Original post by sineadmooney19
Can I withdraw if it's a full GCSE?


Yes, I did. A U will be a U. It's still a grade.
Reply 8
Original post by sineadmooney19
It's better than getting a D, then my overall grades are dragged down. Getting a U goes down as 'unclassified' or it used to just wondering if this is still applicable or if you have to declare this result to the unis too? It also means I can focus more on my other subjects.


You are supposed to declare U grades for UCAS - the declaration says that you must declare even those that you have failed. Your GCSE results will be passed to your Sixth Form or College electronically and they will have a record of that U. In the unlikely event that UCAS checked (and they can) you might be in trouble if you don't declare. Having said that certificates aren't issued for a U so if if you didn't declare it they would probably never know. Either way the best thing to do would be to withdraw rather than fail on purpose - especially if you want to study something like Medicine.

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