Good enough GCSE's

Hi guys I am currently doing my AS levels (actually I've just finished them), and wanting to dentistry in the future. I was wondering however if my GCSE grades are good enough, as many candidates that have lots of A*s, and I well.....don't.

My grades were:

Physics- A*
Biology-A (5 away from A*)
Chemistry-A ( 1 away from A*)
Maths- A
Geography-A
English language- A
English literature-A
RS-A
Spanish-B
OCR ICT- Merit (equivalent of a B)

Any advice would be appreciated.

Hi guys I am currently doing my AS levels (actually I've just finished them), and wanting to dentistry in the future. I was wondering however if my GCSE grades are good enough, as many candidates that have lots of A*s, and I well.....don't.

My grades were:

Physics- A*
Biology-A (5 away from A*)
Chemistry-A ( 1 away from A*)
Maths- A
Geography-A
English language- A
English literature-A
RS-A
Spanish-B
OCR ICT- Merit (equivalent of a B)

Any advice would be appreciated.

Dont dwell on it too much, its not a huge problem. If you do well on the UKCAT your GCSEs will not matter as much. Some universities are much more lenient on GCSE grades and so apply wisely. Just make sure you work hard at AS and get those AAA predictions. Also, make sure you do a lot of work experience and volunteering.
PS your GCSEs aren't 'bad', even for dentistry

Hi guys I am currently doing my AS levels (actually I've just finished them), and wanting to dentistry in the future. I was wondering however if my GCSE grades are good enough, as many candidates that have lots of A*s, and I well.....don't.

My grades were:

Physics- A*
Biology-A (5 away from A*)
Chemistry-A ( 1 away from A*)
Maths- A
Geography-A
English language- A
English literature-A
RS-A
Spanish-B
OCR ICT- Merit (equivalent of a B)

Any advice would be appreciated.

EASILY good enough if you take a look here: http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Dentistry_Entry_Requirements

You will see that they are going to get you in almost everywhere ^_^

Those are MINIMUM entry requirements.

I don't care if you're 0.01 off an A*, they're below average.


Should you have any chance of getting 5/6 A*s at A2 and 5/6 As at A2, maybe, maybe you'd portray glimmers of hope of stepping through the gates of Oxbridge/ICL/UCL

maybe they aren't aiming to go to those unis, anyways why do you keep coming into the medical thread and putting people down when you want to be a petroleum engineer?

yeah what is your point? That means that the application goes through to the university to be looked at by admissions tutors which means you can make up your application in other ways. I swear I won with argument with you yesterday or the day before.

Why do you have to put people down if they make their grades they make the grades. Also there is a point that they are the minimum, they would not have them as the minimum if you could not get in with those grades would they... so good job.

Look at the minimum entry requirements for cambridge at GCSE. Im not putting the person down at all. There is no reason for them not to apply to dentistry, Im just saying that those are minimum entry requirements and the vast majority of applicants will have ~5A*s+

Also I don't know why this person keeps going on about Cambridge. They don't have a dental school and shouldn't make comparisons between Cambridge/UCL etc and a uni with a dental school.

Different universities, different courses.

Also I don't know why this person keeps going on about Cambridge. They don't have a dental school and shouldn't make comparisons between Cambridge/UCL etc and a uni with a dental school.

Different universities, different courses.

I'm proof that GCSEs aren't the end of the world, even for dentistry. I got 3A*s, 4As, 2Bs and 1C (in p.e so I guess it wasn't that important) and I'm a current second year at Birmingham and I've managed to do fairly well.

I had 3 interviews out of 4 as well, the place that turned me down was Bristol and that wasn't for my GCSEs it was for something else. I know entry requirements have changed since I applied back in October 2011 and so I probably wouldn't get in now but basically what I did was I knew my grades certainly weren't perfect so I had to do everything possible in the rest of my application to make sure I got in. I got 9 work experience placements which included specialties, hospital work (maxillofacial and oral surgery), with hygienists, receptionists, lab technicians, NHS and private dental practices (and lots of them!) I went every school holiday I had and started early. Competition for these places is very high. I worked really hard during sixth form and got predictions of A*A*AA (one being in EPQ which I would also recommend doing) and I also did volunteering, DofE etc
Look at the requirements and bring up the rest of your application as much as you can to show you're dedicated and a hard worker and give it a go. You'll always be wondering 'what if?' If you don't!
Feel free to pm me if you want. I'm very into helping people out when it comes to applying etc

My point was that minimum entry requirements do not mean that they are 'fine' for the course. You had exceptional work exp/volunteering and A level predictions - this would have obviously balanced out your GCSE grades, which again, are not bad at all.
Some of the unis will substitute 'worse' GCSE grades with a higher UKCAT.
Its the overall application that matters, I was just saying the averages

They are most definitley "fine" for the course, otherwise the MINIMUM GRADES WOULD BE HIGHER!!!!

Do you not understand what competition means? Those grades mean you can handle the course, however competition for places far outweigh the places available and so they have to use gcses and the like to differentiate between applicants. Every year plenty of great dental applicants get rejected not because they weren't good enough, but because there were far too many applicants

Moved to the dentistry section for you

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