Should I take a gap year?

To keep it short, long term circumstances have had a huge impact on my grades with just above average GCSE's and then pretty bad AS levels. Im expected to get 3 A*'s at A2 but I highly doubt any universities are going pay much attention to that looking at my AS grades. So the questions is, it is worth putting off applying and taking a gap year so that I can apply with my good grades a year later?

And would it ever be worth apllying to any of the high end universities even with A* 's?

What are your AS grades and what degree are you going for?

CEE in Maths, F.Maths and physics, and I want to study physics. I know they're awful but I do have reasons as to why 😞

But you got predicted A*A*A*? I'm assuming you are re-taking a few exams then? If you have reasons why they are not as good as they could have been you should be able to include that on your application for this year? It may be worth noting some universities offer unconditional offers to those predicted A*A*A* such as Birmingham (or so I was told when I went there for an open day) so it may be worth calling up the specific uni's that you are looking at applying for to get to know what they have to say about it.

Im retaking maths modules and my physics AS doesnt count anyway. Ive been told that universities dont pay much attention to predicted grades which is what worried me. Ive never heard of unconditional offers like that so I will definitely do some research on that thank you