Universities and GCSE results...

Does it look bad to oxbridge or any other top unis if you have a few Grade C's at gcse?

I looked at my school on there but I couldn't work out what the numbers meant what do they call it??

You have v. similar GCSE grades to me (5A*s, 3 As and a C) and I'm more worried about my A in history than my C in maths!

Yeah, it was Richard. I thought he was really nice too, and he told us loads of funny stories about people who completely messed up their interviews, like someone applying for SPS who didn't know there'd been a General Election!!! I'm hoping for 280+ in sociology since my coursework was 55/60 and I was getting 54, 55 and 56/60 in mocks, but I doubt I'll get it in anything else. French would be great, but apparently it's really rare to get higher than 260 in that

I just thought of something; could you apply through CSAS? They say you're eligible if your schooling has been disrupted through illness, but I don't know how long-term they mean. It might have to be something life-threatening like cancer or something that's still happening now. Their access scheme is so vague! You're also eligible if very few people from your family and school/college have gone on to HE, but I don't know how few they mean; not that many people from my school go, but I wouldn't say it was 'very few.'

I get pretty bored in holidays actually, but I have a lot of reading and stuff to do in case I apply to Cambridge and get an interview, plus I need to choose my unis! What do you have planned? When do you break up? For me it's the 22nd, so another 2 weeks to go yet.

You would have thought an A at AS would be more important though, considering AS is harder, and you have an explanation for the A at GCSE

he told us some stories like that too; did you hear the one when the girl applying for Biology wrote on her PS that she was particularly interested in the biology of fish, then was asked how they swim (fairly predictably) which apparently is a gift because you can discuss all these theories like buoyancy, but she said, "Oh, big fish sink to the bottom because they're heavier and little fish stay at the surface, so it's all evenly distributed"; then she was asked, "So how do the big fish swim up again?" and replied airily, "Oh well scientists don't know that because the fish go deeper than they can track" ... Sounds like you can't fail to do fabulously in Sociology; I know it's really hard to score highly in French, but when you think how bad a lot of people are, that an A grade can be 60% on the board and that you always score so highly in the mocks, I'm pretty confident you'll get a high score.

I know, I don't really understand what they're on about!! I'll just apply normally I think, and maybe get my tutor to mention in my reference that I was ill during the exams.

Same here, and I haven't started writing my statement yet and still have tons of reading to do before I can write it properly

I think I have another 2 weeks to go too Actually I usually get bored and depressed by the end of the holidays, but the beginning's always fun off on a non-exotic non-abroad ( ) family holiday, then a couple of parties and things planned but mainly just have to work and read...ah the joys

I'll help you with your P/S ...tons of reading? Like what?

Do what I did... say you've read books you haven't

Then read them over the year. Nobody's the wiser!

what if they asked you in-depth questions about the book? then what would you do? not such a wise thing to do is it.

I assume you mean at interview, which is usually only at Oxbridge. If this is the case then obviously you make sure you know the books before the interview Doesn't take a prospective law student to work that out, mate.

he told us some stories like that too; did you hear the one when the girl applying for Biology wrote on her PS that she was particularly interested in the biology of fish, then was asked how they swim (fairly predictably) which apparently is a gift because you can discuss all these theories like buoyancy, but she said, "Oh, big fish sink to the bottom because they're heavier and little fish stay at the surface, so it's all evenly distributed"; then she was asked, "So how do the big fish swim up again?" and replied airily, "Oh well scientists don't know that because the fish go deeper than they can track" ... Sounds like you can't fail to do fabulously in Sociology; I know it's really hard to score highly in French, but when you think how bad a lot of people are, that an A grade can be 60% on the board and that you always score so highly in the mocks, I'm pretty confident you'll get a high score.

I know, I don't really understand what they're on about!! I'll just apply normally I think, and maybe get my tutor to mention in my reference that I was ill during the exams.

Same here, and I haven't started writing my statement yet and still have tons of reading to do before I can write it properly

I think I have another 2 weeks to go too Actually I usually get bored and depressed by the end of the holidays, but the beginning's always fun off on a non-exotic non-abroad ( ) family holiday, then a couple of parties and things planned but mainly just have to work and read...ah the joys

I'm still awaiting my GCSE results, and I wanted to just ask if anyone knew how the universities look at the GCSE results..



Do universities always look for the people who got A*s in everything? Because judging by the number of people on here who seem to have achieved 10A*s or more, I am feeling quite undermined, thinking that they will get all the top universities.

I mean, if someone for example got mostly Bs, and a few As, and another person got A*s, As Bs and Cs, who would the university consider?

Do any top unis accept people who do not have all A stars?

You would have thought an A at AS would be more important though, considering AS is harder, and you have an explanation for the A at GCSE

not everyone declares there AS results so it is hard for the Uni to use this as a factor as it is unfair for this reason

If it helps, my school's average GCSE points score is about 30 (46% A*-C), so I should get 2.7 added on, and if it's 20, you get 4 added. You should be able to find the statistics for your school somewhere on the DfES website.

Do you have a link to this section on the website? I can't seem to find it

Thanks visesh

This is the page I found:

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/cgi-bin/performancetables/fetch_04.pl?Postcode=M6+8FR&Dist=1&Phase=1&X=0&Mode=Z&F=1&L=200

My school was Buile Hill High school. It says 29% (5 or more grades A*-C). Is this right?