The &quot;Are my grades good enough for Maths...&quot; Thread

Original post by Gilsenan

Would they mind me resitting C4 for instance to get the A* in maths?

Neither of those three universities have specific requirements about resits so that would be acceptable (as long as you got the offer).

However, if you didn't get the A* the first time round then you would be applying with AAB, which may give them some doubts about whether you would be able to meet the much higher maths offer with your new A-levels. But you would be given predicted grades for further maths/physics and if those are sufficiently high then you may still be in with a good chance anyway. Warwick, in particular would most likely be ok with it since they base their offers off predicted grades.

I am just guessing here, since you're not doing your subjects in a very standard order. But it would be better if you could get that A* first time round.

Reply 563

Gilsenan

1

Original post by ttoby

Neither of those three universities have specific requirements about resits so that would be acceptable (as long as you got the offer).

However, if you didn't get the A* the first time round then you would be applying with AAB, which may give them some doubts about whether you would be able to meet the much higher maths offer with your new A-levels. But you would be given predicted grades for further maths/physics and if those are sufficiently high then you may still be in with a good chance anyway. Warwick, in particular would most likely be ok with it since they base their offers off predicted grades.

I am just guessing here, since you're not doing your subjects in a very standard order. But it would be better if you could get that A* first time round.

Yeah. This is all due to indecisiveness >.< Thanks. I've e-mailed them.

Reply 564

Odd situation for me:

My GCSEs are terrible with 3B,6C,1D,1E however luckily I managed to turn it around for AS and received high As in the January results and should hopefully go on to achieve 4 As (or perhaps 3As) at AS:

Maths AS: A
Biology AS: A (hopefully)
Chemistry AS: A
Economics AS: A

These were my predicted grades, but we will see. I'm also self teaching myself further maths over the summer so will join my schools A2 group at the start of the next academic year, so I'll probably take Maths, Economics and Further maths for A2 and probably be predicted A*AA, or A*A*A depending on AS results. Now with my bad GCSEs (due to laziness, no real excuse ) I'm not quite sure of where I want to apply to. I've already started looking at STEP papers, and will start preparation for them after finishing teaching myself AS further maths (should be done in 2-3 weeks). The universities I'm thinking of applying to are:

UCL
KCL
Queen Mary
Manchester
Nottingham

I'd love to go to Imperial but unfortunately due to only a C grade in GCSE English, I wont even be able to apply, which sucks. I'm just wondering if I'm being too ambitious here. Thanks.

Reply 565

Original post by TDL

Odd situation for me:

My GCSEs are terrible with 3B,6C,1D,1E however luckily I managed to turn it around for AS and received high As in the January results and should hopefully go on to achieve 4 As (or perhaps 3As) at AS:

Maths AS: A
Biology AS: A (hopefully)
Chemistry AS: A
Economics AS: A

These were my predicted grades, but we will see. I'm also self teaching myself further maths over the summer so will join my schools A2 group at the start of the next academic year, so I'll probably take Maths, Economics and Further maths for A2 and probably be predicted A*AA, or A*A*A depending on AS results. Now with my bad GCSEs (due to laziness, no real excuse ) I'm not quite sure of where I want to apply to. I've already started looking at STEP papers, and will start preparation for them after finishing teaching myself AS further maths (should be done in 2-3 weeks). The universities I'm thinking of applying to are:

UCL
KCL
Queen Mary
Manchester
Nottingham

I'd love to go to Imperial but unfortunately due to only a C grade in GCSE English, I wont even be able to apply, which sucks. I'm just wondering if I'm being too ambitious here. Thanks.

If you get the grades you're expecting to get at AS then these universities' grade requirements would match them well. However, your GCSEs aren't so good and this most probably will count against you (I'm assuming maths GCSE was a B?). If you do well in your AS exams then one university you could consider is Warwick - they have a policy of giving an offer to anyone with sufficient predicted grades so your GCSEs wouldn't be as much of an issue here although the offer would be quite hard to meet.

How has further maths gone so far? From what I've read on here, people without an A/A* at maths GCSE don't tend to do well at it so hopefully you'll be the exception!

Also, for Imperial, where did you hear that they wanted a certain GCSE English requirement? It's not mentioned on http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/mathematics/admissions/ug/applications_and_offers

Reply 566

Original post by ttoby

If you get the grades you're expecting to get at AS then these universities' grade requirements would match them well. However, your GCSEs aren't so good and this most probably will count against you (I'm assuming maths GCSE was a B?). If you do well in your AS exams then one university you could consider is Warwick - they have a policy of giving an offer to anyone with sufficient predicted grades so your GCSEs wouldn't be as much of an issue here although the offer would be quite hard to meet.

How has further maths gone so far? From what I've read on here, people without an A/A* at maths GCSE don't tend to do well at it so hopefully you'll be the exception!

Also, for Imperial, where did you hear that they wanted a certain GCSE English requirement? It's not mentioned on http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/mathematics/admissions/ug/applications_and_offers

I'd like to stay in London, else I would probably apply to Warwick, thanks for the suggestion. Further maths so far is fine, I've done FP1 so far as well as M1, just D1 left to do and I'll probably start on C3/C4. I haven't really found anything difficult as of yet (pretty much the same as AS maths, slightly more fun though), but I do seem to be procrastinating often (i've been self teaching for 3 weeks now) which I should hopefully sort out :P

As of the Imperial GCSE English Language requirement: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/registry/admissions/ugenglish

Though I've searched online and it seems that they don't really care as long as you speak fluent English, but I'll probably email admissions after I have my AS results to see what they think.

Reply 567

M2k13

Original post by TDL

Odd situation for me:

My GCSEs are terrible with 3B,6C,1D,1E however luckily I managed to turn it around for AS and received high As in the January results and should hopefully go on to achieve 4 As (or perhaps 3As) at AS:

Maths AS: A
Biology AS: A (hopefully)
Chemistry AS: A
Economics AS: A

These were my predicted grades, but we will see. I'm also self teaching myself further maths over the summer so will join my schools A2 group at the start of the next academic year, so I'll probably take Maths, Economics and Further maths for A2 and probably be predicted A*AA, or A*A*A depending on AS results. Now with my bad GCSEs (due to laziness, no real excuse ) I'm not quite sure of where I want to apply to. I've already started looking at STEP papers, and will start preparation for them after finishing teaching myself AS further maths (should be done in 2-3 weeks). The universities I'm thinking of applying to are:

UCL
KCL
Queen Mary
Manchester
Nottingham

I'd love to go to Imperial but unfortunately due to only a C grade in GCSE English, I wont even be able to apply, which sucks. I'm just wondering if I'm being too ambitious here. Thanks.

I have the odd situation like you because of my utter laziness too :frown:

GCSE's - A*,5B's, 5C's(one was resitting english :frown:

) and a Distinction in Ad Maths.

My A levels I taken are
Maths
Further Maths
Economics
Computing

My January AS exams went well... Only 3 Maths exams with high 90+'s.

My summer ones should be good hopefully >.< (except computing, completely regret it)

Try to look into Warwick :redface:

, they would be easier to get into i suppose, also accommodation and such is much cheaper than London >.>.

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Reply 568

James004

3

I really want to study maths at Nottingham university next year, as I only live about 10 minutes away.

My GCSE grades are very poor I have 5 C's including Maths, English and science. It was due in honesty to a lack of motivation and naivety.

I have been studying A level accounting and maths, and I'm about to start futher maths. I aim to get all A's in my exams but my question is are my GCSE's good enough if my A levels results are good?

Reply 569

Rahul.S

14

Original post by TDL

Odd situation for me:

My GCSEs are terrible with 3B,6C,1D,1E however luckily I managed to turn it around for AS and received high As in the January results and should hopefully go on to achieve 4 As (or perhaps 3As) at AS:

Maths AS: A
Biology AS: A (hopefully)
Chemistry AS: A
Economics AS: A

These were my predicted grades, but we will see. I'm also self teaching myself further maths over the summer so will join my schools A2 group at the start of the next academic year, so I'll probably take Maths, Economics and Further maths for A2 and probably be predicted A*AA, or A*A*A depending on AS results. Now with my bad GCSEs (due to laziness, no real excuse ) I'm not quite sure of where I want to apply to. I've already started looking at STEP papers, and will start preparation for them after finishing teaching myself AS further maths (should be done in 2-3 weeks). The universities I'm thinking of applying to are:

UCL
KCL
Queen Mary
Manchester
Nottingham

I'd love to go to Imperial but unfortunately due to only a C grade in GCSE English, I wont even be able to apply, which sucks. I'm just wondering if I'm being too ambitious here. Thanks.

nice improvement (many arent bothered to learn during GCSE's- guessing this applies to you). I would say apply imperial for sure- you might be asked to get a 2 in step II/III duo :tongue:

or A*A*AA - if thats something you feel you can get- I would take the punt. I wouldn't think your GCSE english grade should hinder your application- especially for Maths.

Reply 570

Original post by James004

I really want to study maths at Nottingham university next year, as I only live about 10 minutes away.

My GCSE grades are very poor I have 5 C's including Maths, English and science. It was due in honesty to a lack of motivation and naivety.

I have been studying A level accounting and maths, and I'm about to start futher maths. I aim to get all A's in my exams but my question is are my GCSE's good enough if my A levels results are good?

Universities do focus primarily on how you do at A-level so, although the GCSEs aren't so good, they probably wouldn't rule you out completely.

Also, about your choice of subjects, on http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ugstudy/courses/mathematicalsciences/mathematics.aspx they ask for maths and two more 'academic subjects at a-level'. When I checked online to see what is considered an academic subject, accounting didn't tend to come up in lists of the most academic subjects. However, there is no fixed criteria as to what counts as an academic subject and I expect that it would most probably be accepted anyway. But you should probably contact the university to see if it's ok, just to be on the safe side.

Looking at how you're doing in general, the university would most probably get loads of applicants with the same set of grades to you, so when they're comparing applicants, the fact that you're doing further maths would count in your favour and would probably help counterbalance the above points I mentioned. However, you should still make sure you have plenty of material for your personal statement that's maths-related so see if there's anything you can do over the summer (e.g. reading books if you haven't already) to have something to talk about.

Reply 571

James004

3

Original post by ttoby

Universities do focus primarily on how you do at A-level so, although the GCSEs aren't so good, they probably wouldn't rule you out completely.

Also, about your choice of subjects, on http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ugstudy/courses/mathematicalsciences/mathematics.aspx they ask for maths and two more 'academic subjects at a-level'. When I checked online to see what is considered an academic subject, accounting didn't tend to come up in lists of the most academic subjects. However, there is no fixed criteria as to what counts as an academic subject and I expect that it would most probably be accepted anyway. But you should probably contact the university to see if it's ok, just to be on the safe side.

Looking at how you're doing in general, the university would most probably get loads of applicants with the same set of grades to you, so when they're comparing applicants, the fact that you're doing further maths would count in your favour and would probably help counterbalance the above points I mentioned. However, you should still make sure you have plenty of material for your personal statement that's maths-related so see if there's anything you can do over the summer (e.g. reading books if you haven't already) to have something to talk about.

Thanks for the help, I have contacted them about the accounting A level just to make sure they accept it. I'm going to have a look around the forum to find
Some good books to read is there anything else I can do to strengthen my application?

Reply 572

Original post by James004

Thanks for the help, I have contacted them about the accounting A level just to make sure they accept it. I'm going to have a look around the forum to find
Some good books to read is there anything else I can do to strengthen my application?

Apart from reading books, if you have the opportunity to participate in any maths-related competitions between now and when you submit your application then those would be worth mentioning. Also, one thing you could try doing is to go back through the a-level material and, every time a formula is presented without justification, see if you can prove it. You would probably find that you can do this in some cases but not others.

Reply 573

31541

Does the fact that my only extra-curricular maths is reading the odd book pose a problem? :redface:

Reply 574

Original post by CD315

Does the fact that my only extra-curricular maths is reading the odd book pose a problem? :redface:

I was at the Villiers Park Mathematics course for 5 days and I spoke to one of the tutors (who goes to Cambridge) and they said that for extra-curricular you just have to show passion for the subject. So for example, it would not be a good idea to say you read so and so books, but it'd be a good idea to say you read 1-2 books and discuss what you took out from those books and why it fascinated you.

Reply 575

31541

Original post by TDL

I was at the Villiers Park Mathematics course for 5 days and I spoke to one of the tutors (who goes to Cambridge) and they said that for extra-curricular you just have to show passion for the subject. So for example, it would not be a good idea to say you read so and so books, but it'd be a good idea to say you read 1-2 books and discuss what you took out from those books and why it fascinated you.

Yeah I understand that, however that's all I seem to have. The majority of other applicants have a lot more than this! :colonhash:

Reply 576

Original post by CD315

Yeah I understand that, however that's all I seem to have. The majority of other applicants have a lot more than this! :colonhash:

Well there is still a few months till applications, do something then? Though i'm not quite sure what you could do except for mathematics competitions when you start sixth form again.

Reply 577

JNV

Maths A
F Maths A
Politics D
as AF Maths c

Im from Bristol applying as a mature student to study mathematics for next year. I would really like to stay in Bristol if i can but if not in south of England. So i was thinking of applying to the following unis

Bristol
Sussex
Exeter
Reading
Not really sure about my 5 choice

Reply 578