Economics at Uni with bad GCSE Maths and English

In fact, I still have the email from Warwick, and it stated:

"Thank you for your enquiry and for your interest in study at the University of Warwick.



We would always accept your highest level qualification in a subject, so if you meet the A Level requirement then we would not be concerned with your GCSE grade.



We hope this helps, but please let us know if you have any further questions regarding the application process."


I would imagine that if this was true for one of the best Economics courses in the country, it would be true for other Economics schools, as well. In fact, from memory, most of the RG Economics courses that require A-Level maths, say nothing about GCSE Maths, but they do usually require an English pass at grade 4/C.

Alright so, back when I sat my GCSE's I didn't take them seriously enough, so ended up with 5's on both maths and English. Thereon, I didn't even dream of taking Maths A level. I recently got my Summer grades, which were Distinction, B in Biology and C in physics - and i am currently set to sit autumn exams for biology and physics.

Recently learnt about economics and out of all the degrees it seems the perfect fit, however I have not taken A level maths nor gotten a good enough GCSE maths grade to apply to decent Unis.

I'm conscious of the fact that some Unis do not require maths a level to do economics but they do require a grade 7 and up for GCSE's and in some cases a 6 in English.

So now I'm left to sit the autumn exams to reach an A for both subjects to apply for economics with bad GCSE's. Now, i thought that i could retake GCSE maths and English - as my grades were simply due to a lack of bother or laziness, but if i'm taking them in the summer (october i have autumn exams for a levels, i wouldnt possibly be ready for november) then uni applications will have long gone by and i'd have to take yet another gap year which i'm not too keen on. What do you reckon?

Hey, kinda intrigued by this email. Thanks for posting it.So they’re basically saying that they don’t put much/or any at all weightings on GCSE grades right?

No - they are saying their requirement of a grade 7 in Maths is satisfied by having A level Maths.

correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t a level physics have some of a level maths level maths. as long as you can differentiate, you’ll be fine at uni. I think ppl here are referring to the likes of LSE but any uni that doesn’t ask for a level maths will not expect you to be the strongest mathematician and the content won’t be as mathematical. I know someone with a 6 in gcse maths doing a joint honours including econ at a good uni so maybe look into some joint honours

Many good universities that don't require A-Level maths still require maths at grade 7, e.g. Nottingham. Even then, the mathematical content is bound to be rigorous and difficult, especially econometrics and econometric theory. Elementary knowledge of differentiation is not enough - a fluency in calculus is almost essential as this crops up everywhere from Statistics, to Microeconomics, to later stage Macroeconomics.

Statistics and probability in particular is very important to be able to grasp, because this is usually where people face significant difficulties - even people who did do A-Level maths.

OP got ABC in their mocks and 5’s at gcse. Nottingham is probably top 10 for econ in the country. Even if they did do maths it would be a stretch. Doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of other unis in say the top 30 which are more achievable but still respectable.

if you get onto a course, the faculty thinks you’re capable of doing okay on it and they are going to have a much better idea at what is required for their course than anyone on here

So if Nottingham is top 10 for Economics, still requires a grade 7 in maths - so I don't know what the relevance is of them being top 10 or not.

My point was that many good universities for Economics that don't require A-Level maths, still require a 7/A at GCSE. Another example is Surrey - ABB A-Level requirements, with a 7/A at GCSE maths (unless taken for A-Level).

To get on to the course, these requirements have to obviously be met first.

the relevance is that the example you used of a uni that doesn’t require a level maths is a top tier uni and that doesn’t mean OP can’t go to a good uni for econ.
The first uni that came to my head when I was thinking about unis viewed as around 20/30th was UEA. I just looked it up and they require ABB with a 5 in maths. I’m sure half of the unis in that sort of tier have similar requirements.
I really don’t get what you gain from trying to convince OP they aren’t good enough to study econ when it’s clearly possible to find unis that will accept them

You completely missed my point. Skipping past what is/isn't a 'good' university, I did not say that OP was not good enough to study at university. What I did do was correct your misconceptions of what mathematics is actually required for a B.Sc Economics degree.

I just had a look at UEA's Economics programme, which includes:

etc ...

I had a look at one of their past papers, too. I find it to be straight-forward, and quite easy for first year, but that's because I did A-level maths, and quite a lot of what's in the paper is rehashing A-level maths. If OP only got a 5 at GCSE, they'll need to work quite hard to keep up and understand the mathematical concepts in the course. It's not as easy maths as you think, even at a university such as UEA.

What I did do was correct your misconceptions of what mathematics is actually required for a B.Sc Economics degree.

I hate to be that guy but I just had a little stalk of ur account and realised I’m in the same year as you, got 3 grades higher in gcse maths and a grade higher at a level and am also an econ undergrad so I’m not sure why you’re down to me like you invented game theory or something