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How bad are my GCSE results?

I was predicted As and Bs but came out of school with

Eng lit - A
English - B
R.S - B
Science - B
Additional science - C
Maths - C
French - C
Geography - C
History - C
Drama - D

I've always been really ambitious and was thinking maybe law, but now there's no chance of that!

For my A - levels I'm doing geography, history, biology and psychology so if I do really well in these, will that outweigh not so good GCSEs? Can I still get into a top uni and have a decent career and also can you suggest any careers I should go into with my a level options?

Thank you!

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All fine except for Drama.

How about mine?

A* Sociology
A Psychology
B Drama And Theatre Arts
B Law
B Science (Single Award)
B Citizenship Studies (Short Course)
C English
C English Literature
C Geography (IGCSE)
C History (IGCSE)
C Mathematics
C D & T: Food Technology
E German
Reply 2
Atrocious.
Original post by Maya331
I was predicted As and Bs but came out of school with

Eng lit - A
English - B
R.S - B
Science - B
Additional science - C
Maths - C
French - C
Geography - C
History - C
Drama - D

I've always been really ambitious and was thinking maybe law, but now there's no chance of that!

For my A - levels I'm doing geography, history, biology and psychology so if I do really well in these, will that outweigh not so good GCSEs? Can I still get into a top uni and have a decent career and also can you suggest any careers I should go into with my a level options?

Thank you!


Firstly your GCSE results aren't bad at all on the whole. Although they may not have been what you hoped for, you should still be happy, especially as you did challenging subjects (history, sciences, french, etc).

As for your A levels they sound like a decent combination (as long as you don't mind writing), and if you get good grades in them your GCSE's will lose almost all significance. Even Uni's like Cambridge know that people can be 'late developers' :smile:
Irrelevant.
you need 6 A*-B grades to get into any decent colleges so I pity you
atleast you did okay in the easy stem subjects. Just goes to show drama is harder.
Original post by Maya331
I was predicted As and Bs but came out of school with

Eng lit - A
English - B
R.S - B
Science - B
Additional science - C
Maths - C
French - C
Geography - C
History - C
Drama - D

I've always been really ambitious and was thinking maybe law, but now there's no chance of that!

For my A - levels I'm doing geography, history, biology and psychology so if I do really well in these, will that outweigh not so good GCSEs? Can I still get into a top uni and have a decent career and also can you suggest any careers I should go into with my a level options?

Thank you!


They're pretty reasonable to be honest! If you're that worried than just forget about them because you can't change them and focus on getting As for alevels.
Reply 8
Original post by AdAbsurdum
Firstly your GCSE results aren't bad at all on the whole. Although they may not have been what you hoped for, you should still be happy, especially as you did challenging subjects (history, sciences, french, etc).

As for your A levels they sound like a decent combination (as long as you don't mind writing), and if you get good grades in them your GCSE's will lose almost all significance. Even Uni's like Cambridge know that people can be 'late developers' :smile:



This made me feel better, thanks you guys I guess I'll just have to get straight As for my A levels now!
Reply 9
Original post by KettleMan
All fine except for Drama.

How about mine?

A* Sociology
A Psychology
B Drama And Theatre Arts
B Law
B Science (Single Award)
B Citizenship Studies (Short Course)
C English
C English Literature
C Geography (IGCSE)
C History (IGCSE)
C Mathematics
C D & T: Food Technology
E German


They kind of follow the same pattern as mine and from my point of view they look decent, the E doesn't matter as it's only a language. It's not as if you failed english and maths. What are you planning on doing at college?
by tsr standards - terrible

by real life standards - pretty good apart from drama

just ignore the idiots on here telling you that your grades are bad, they're perfectly fine
Wow. They're horrific.

Should have tried harder :frown:
Original post by Arithmeticae
by tsr standards - terrible

by real life standards - pretty good apart from drama

just ignore the idiots on here telling you that your grades are bad, they're perfectly fine


This sums it up really.
Original post by Maya331
I was predicted As and Bs but came out of school with

Eng lit - A
English - B
R.S - B
Science - B
Additional science - C
Maths - C
French - C
Geography - C
History - C
Drama - D


You didn't do badly at all. By the old O level standards you passed every subject except drama and that doesn't really matter with the A levels you've chosen.
You can still get into a good uni if you do well at A level, in fact it can even be an advantage as it gives you something to talk about if you get an interview. You could talk about what you did to improve and it would show the university that you can learn from your mistakes etc.
Don't worry about it. :smile:
Reply 14
Original post by Thinking_Aloud
You didn't do badly at all. By the old O level standards you passed every subject except drama and that doesn't really matter with the A levels you've chosen.
You can still get into a good uni if you do well at A level, in fact it can even be an advantage as it gives you something to talk about if you get an interview. You could talk about what you did to improve and it would show the university that you can learn from your mistakes etc.
Don't worry about it. :smile:


Yeah! That what I was thinking, could I kind of blame it on the fact that the school wasn't too brilliant (it was quite rough) or will they just think I'm . . . looking for someone else to blame haha
Original post by Maya331
Yeah! That what I was thinking, could I kind of blame it on the fact that the school wasn't too brilliant (it was quite rough) or will they just think I'm . . . looking for someone else to blame haha


They probably will think that, even if the school environment did affect your grade, it will be seen as you passing the buck. You can mention it, but don't use it as an excuse for what you got. What you got is fine.
If you do mention it, it will be best to also include something you could have done better as well, or perhaps connect the two, it will be seen as you taking responsibility and the uni's will love it. :smile:
I didn't care about GCSEs so I got average results: 5As, 5Bs and 1C. The reason for getting a C in History was because we had 3 different teachers in one year who didn't have a clue where we were at and so I just gave up when it became to stressful.

Anyway, those results got me into the best college in my area, so that's great (--:
OP you can defo do law i don't know why you're so worried!
Sorry but I don't care about your GCSE results :colondollar: After you get into college, your GCSEs mean nothing other than a minimum of C in Maths and English which means a lot.
Explain?

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