What will Cambridge's position be for next years applicants regarding AS's?

Hello, my school has decided not to cover the charge of the exams of decoupled AS's this year if students are expected to exceed a certain grade or are dropping the subject at the end of the year. However, i am expected the exceed the grade and the subjects in question for me are Biology and Chemistry, both of which i am keen to take through to A2, especially as i'm considering applying for Natural Sciences. As a result I wondered if anyone's heard about whether Cambridge will maintain their current system of SUMS based on AS grades and thus that i should pay for my entry for AS biology and chemistry, or whether I should not do the AS and just do the A2 exams if Cambridge will use another system for entry (as though I've heard they're adding tests for entry i assumed it could still be initiated beside the current system in place). Any help would be much appreciated

Hello, my school has decided not to cover the charge of the exams of decoupled AS's this year if students are expected to exceed a certain grade or are dropping the subject at the end of the year. However, i am expected the exceed the grade and the subjects in question for me are Biology and Chemistry, both of which i am keen to take through to A2, especially as i'm considering applying for Natural Sciences. As a result I wondered if anyone's heard about whether Cambridge will maintain their current system of SUMS based on AS grades and thus that i should pay for my entry for AS biology and chemistry, or whether I should not do the AS and just do the A2 exams if Cambridge will use another system for entry (as though I've heard they're adding tests for entry i assumed it could still be initiated beside the current system in place). Any help would be much appreciated

It possibly depends on how well you think you would do at the AS's. If you get 100% UMS in the AS's, that is certainly an advantage over having no AS's. If you get 85% that is a disadvantage.

Ahh ok, i think i might do them then as i should be getting around 93% if not above, so at that middle ground i guess it wouldn't hurt.

Would 85% really be a disadvantage? What sort of UMS do Cambridge expect from an applicant?

Would 85% really be a disadvantage? What sort of UMS do Cambridge expect from an applicant?

I don't think it would be an advantage for any course. Most successful applicants go on to get A*A*A, and thus have a possible minimum A2 UMS average of 86%.

There are some graphs somewhere that show your chances of success for each subject with a given UMS%. Until someone links them, I think it's fair to say that 85% is insurmountably too low for a medicine applicants, probably too low for most sciences applicants (and maybe other courses like law and economics), and somewhat lower than average for other humanities applicants. A science applicant with 85% UMS and no extenuating circumstances probably won't get an interview.