How many subjects do you need to do in GCSE??

One of my friend said that we need at least 7 GCSE subject to get into uni but the UCAS website just mentions around 5 grades. So please help me before i am too confused.
Thanx a lot!

You need a minimum of 5A*-C including English and Maths to be considered at most unis, however the better ones will expect you to have more, and its standard at most schools to take 8-10 GCSE's.

so in general its just 5 right?

so in general its just 5 right?

From what we did a few years ago, as compulsory you will do:

English (worth 2 GCSEs - English Literature and English Language)
Maths (worth 2 GCSEs IIRC - Maths and Statistics)
Science (worth 2 or 3 GCSEs depending on if you take the short course or the full course. I did the short course as the full course took up another GCSE timetable slot)
R.E (worth 1 GCSE, but the exam was optional and I did not do it)


Then 4 optional subjects:

I did IT, Spanish, Product Design Technology and Business Studies. The business one was a BTEC and was worth 2 GCSEs, but I did extra work and scored a 'First Diploma' which is worth 4 GCSEs.

Depending on ability + those weird GCSEs that somehow count for, like, two or three, I would expect most people to have taken 7-12 GCSEs.However, some would take less if they're doing alternative qualifications such as BTECs as well. That's based on my experience at a pretty decent state school. Private school pupils may take loads more (as may those extremely clever ones at state schools), and those in less affluent areas ma take less. Universities will take your educational background into account.

well it depends where you want to go!! 5 is the bare minimum.

i think it depends what school you go to as well - unis judge performance based on general school performance so if most people in your school only manage 5, and you do 7, then that's pretty good. in some schools people do 14 or 15! i reckon 7 A*/A grades are worth more than 10 B/C grades though!

wow dats gr8! what grades did you get? what u doing recently?

In total I got 8 A*s, 2 As, a B and 2 Cs. 4 of the A*s were from Business Studies though! Haha! That course is so easy for picking up grades - No kidding, they literally give you all the answers. One of the Cs was from statistics, but I didn't even realise that was a real exam until I got my mark back... And I did the coursework for that in the lesson when we were handing it in

I even made it into the newspaper for my grades! One of the top in the year!



I've just finished my A-levels this year. Well, it was a re-sit year. I already have an A in Product Design Technology and B in Electronics. I had a C in AS physics (hoping to get C overall at A2) and I did AS maths too. In 6 weeks I'll know what I'm doing, but hopefully going to university to study engineering.

Although the minimum GCSE requirement for uni is apparently quite low, I would recommend doing a few more otherwise you'll really struggle at A Level with the step up of work in terms of volume and difficulty!

You need 5 or more A* to C to get into sixthform, the more gcses at A* to C you get then I suppose if you want to go to somewhere like Oxbridge or Durham or any other high grade ones it counts in your favour.

You need a minimum of 5A*-C including English and Maths to be considered at most unis, however the better ones will expect you to have more, and its standard at most schools to take 8-10 GCSE's.

well it depends where you want to go!! 5 is the bare minimum.

i think it depends what school you go to as well - unis judge performance based on general school performance so if most people in your school only manage 5, and you do 7, then that's pretty good. in some schools people do 14 or 15! i reckon 7 A*/A grades are worth more than 10 B/C grades though!

You only need five, and officially that is all a lot of universities require. In reality, most people have more.

thats great. So you took gap year? Did you apply to university or is it already fix?

Not a gap year as such - I did 2 years of A-levels on the normal timeline, then did a 3rd year for re-sits when people started to go to university.

I've just applied this year, so I don't have a guaranteed entry at this point - I need my results back for that.