help?

Hi

At my college year 12 students are having to apply for university. The courses for 2015 students have changed so that AS grades dont count towards your final A level grade. Therefore, I dont know what universities would be looking at while considering our applications. I feel like I didnt do as well as I could have in my AS exams however I can reach my aspirational grades by next year. Can I still apply for the courses I intended to apply for (medicine) or will I now have to look into considering other course options with lower entry requirements?

You can still apply for Medicine, just as long as you apply wisely and avoid Med Schools that place an emphasis on AS levels (presuming worst does come to worst, but I'll keep my fingers crossed). I have no idea how AS levels will be looked into now after the changes, however - best to contact medical schools and ask them.

Thank you for the reply, I'll be calling some med schools today!Also, if I do apply for a med school, how long will it take for them to consider my application and offer me a place? Is this going to be before or after I get my A level grades. If it's before I get my grades and they decline an offer, what if I do meet the entry requirements afterwards?

You need to do some reading about how UCAS works. You will apply to university between 1st September and 15th October this year, to start in September 2017. Universities will then consider all the applications they receive, and will start inviting people to interview and making offers between roughly October and late March 2017, so before you have sat your A-levels. If you receive an offer and get the required grades, then you're in, great! If you don't receive any offers, then you will probably need to reapply the following year. There are a handful of people who get in post-results day having got the required grades, but this is incredibly rare, and they are usually offered places at unis they'd already been interviewed at.

The vast majority of medicine applicants will end up getting AAA or better at A-level, which is the standard offer at most unis. Unfortunately there just aren't enough places for everyone getting those grades, hence why they use other factors (BMAT/UKCAT, interviews etc) to decide who to make offers to.