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Should I hide A grades on my UCAS form?

So basically I'm hopefully applying to Oxford to do Maths and like I know its super competitive but still worth giving it a shot right? Anyway my grades are pretty good and at GCSE my school entered me in for the excessive number of 13 subjects from which I achieved 7 A*s and 6 As which is not too bad I don't think considering the workload and the fact it was a shabby state school. However, I have been warned that Oxford algorithms only take into account PROPORTION of A*s at GCSE, meaning that all those As I got would now count against me instead of helping! Would it be to my advantage to not put down most of those As in order to boost my percentage of A*s? It seems ridiculous and a terrible system and doing this may also influence my chances with other Unis badly but like what should I do? Anyone who has any knowledge of how Oxford and other Unis calculate scores pleeeeeease help me out thanks

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Reply 1
Avatar for GrabDrop
GrabDrop
7
You're not allowed to, even if you wanted to. If Oxford find out you haven't declared everything, it's an instant-rejection at best,
---
(edited 6 years ago)
Reply 3
Avatar for S2M
S2M
22
Original post by TheTree0fDeath
So basically I'm hopefully applying to Oxford to do Maths and like I know its super competitive but still worth giving it a shot right? Anyway my grades are pretty good and at GCSE my school entered me in for the excessive number of 13 subjects from which I achieved 7 A*s and 6 As which is not too bad I don't think considering the workload and the fact it was a shabby state school. However, I have been warned that Oxford algorithms only take into account PROPORTION of A*s at GCSE, meaning that all those As I got would now count against me instead of helping! Would it be to my advantage to not put down most of those As in order to boost my percentage of A*s? It seems ridiculous and a terrible system and doing this may also influence my chances with other Unis badly but like what should I do? Anyone who has any knowledge of how Oxford and other Unis calculate scores pleeeeeease help me out thanks


You can't hide any of your grades. Long story short, if any of the universities find out you will be rejected from all of them.
Original post by TheTree0fDeath
So basically I'm hopefully applying to Oxford to do Maths and like I know its super competitive but still worth giving it a shot right? Anyway my grades are pretty good and at GCSE my school entered me in for the excessive number of 13 subjects from which I achieved 7 A*s and 6 As which is not too bad I don't think considering the workload and the fact it was a shabby state school. However, I have been warned that Oxford algorithms only take into account PROPORTION of A*s at GCSE, meaning that all those As I got would now count against me instead of helping! Would it be to my advantage to not put down most of those As in order to boost my percentage of A*s? It seems ridiculous and a terrible system and doing this may also influence my chances with other Unis badly but like what should I do? Anyone who has any knowledge of how Oxford and other Unis calculate scores pleeeeeease help me out thanks


No. You have to declare all of your grades

The first rule of declaring grades is:
You MUST declare ALL qualifications you hold - yes, even that random NVQ you took 3 years ago or that GCSE you took early and you did really badly in. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s not relevant. That’s up to the university to decide. Hiding grades and pleading ignorance later is a really bad idea. It can result in you losing your place even after you’ve enrolled at uni. You won’t be rejected - even by a top ten uni - just because of one anomalous poor grade.

All the following must be entered in the Qualifications section of the UCAS form:

•

All GCSEs graded A* to U (yes, including that embarrassing D for ICT you got in Year 9).

•

All your AS Levels (A-E, and any U grades). AS levels are now routinely certificated as a qualification in their own right except by a (very) few private schools. Therefore, even if you have taken the full A level in the same subject, or are planning to resit, these AS Level grades need to be declared.

•

All your A level grades (A*-E, and any U grades).

•

IB overall score, subjects and levels and points achieved

•

Any other certificated qualifications, even if they are vocational, or weren’t sat in the UK.

do it so youll help me get into uni, one less competitor
Original post by TheTree0fDeath
So basically I'm hopefully applying to Oxford to do Maths and like I know its super competitive but still worth giving it a shot right? Anyway my grades are pretty good and at GCSE my school entered me in for the excessive number of 13 subjects from which I achieved 7 A*s and 6 As which is not too bad I don't think considering the workload and the fact it was a shabby state school. However, I have been warned that Oxford algorithms only take into account PROPORTION of A*s at GCSE, meaning that all those As I got would now count against me instead of helping! Would it be to my advantage to not put down most of those As in order to boost my percentage of A*s? It seems ridiculous and a terrible system and doing this may also influence my chances with other Unis badly but like what should I do? Anyone who has any knowledge of how Oxford and other Unis calculate scores pleeeeeease help me out thanks


That would be breaking Ucas's t&c's to leave grades out so it's not an option. It will look better than having less gcses, many people won't have 13 gcses and if your school is pretty bad for results then they will take that into account.
Original post by GrabDrop
You're not allowed to, even if you wanted to. If Oxford find out you haven't declared everything, it's an instant-rejection at best,


Original post by cc85734
No. You have to state all of your grades.



Ok thank you for your help. It seems quite annoying though that all the time spent on my shoddy D.T resistant materials project will now actually affect my chances negatively. I wonder if there is anyway to get un-awarded grades?
Original post by TheTree0fDeath
So basically I'm hopefully applying to Oxford to do Maths and like I know its super competitive but still worth giving it a shot right? Anyway my grades are pretty good and at GCSE my school entered me in for the excessive number of 13 subjects from which I achieved 7 A*s and 6 As which is not too bad I don't think considering the workload and the fact it was a shabby state school. However, I have been warned that Oxford algorithms only take into account PROPORTION of A*s at GCSE, meaning that all those As I got would now count against me instead of helping! Would it be to my advantage to not put down most of those As in order to boost my percentage of A*s? It seems ridiculous and a terrible system and doing this may also influence my chances with other Unis badly but like what should I do? Anyone who has any knowledge of how Oxford and other Unis calculate scores pleeeeeease help me out thanks


Stop worrying. You must declare them all. Do well in the MAT and you'll get an interview.
Reply 9
Avatar for S2M
S2M
22
Original post by cc85734
No. You have to declare all of your grades

The first rule of declaring grades is:
You MUST declare ALL qualifications you hold - yes, even that random NVQ you took 3 years ago or that GCSE you took early and you did really badly in. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s not relevant. That’s up to the university to decide. Hiding grades and pleading ignorance later is a really bad idea. It can result in you losing your place even after you’ve enrolled at uni. You won’t be rejected - even by a top ten uni - just because of one anomalous poor grade.

All the following must be entered in the Qualifications section of the UCAS form:

•

All GCSEs graded A* to U (yes, including that embarrassing D for ICT you got in Year 9).

•

All your AS Levels (A-E, and any U grades). AS levels are now routinely certificated as a qualification in their own right except by a (very) few private schools. Therefore, even if you have taken the full A level in the same subject, or are planning to resit, these AS Level grades need to be declared.

•

All your A level grades (A*-E, and any U grades).

•

IB overall score, subjects and levels and points achieved

•

Any other certificated qualifications, even if they are vocational, or weren’t sat in the UK.



You know since A-Level qualifications are linear now, and schools may have internal exams in school do you also have to declare them?
As others have said, you need to declare ALL of your grades. Whether you passed or failed them, or whether you think they're good/bad or not worth mentioning, you still need to declare every single one.

Oxford look at each application contextually as well, so if your school was as under-performing (grade-wise?) as you say, then the fact that you took 13GCSEs and received 7A*s and 6As will actually be an advantage to you, if anything.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket, though. It's understandable that you'd do what you can to increase your chances of getting an offer from Oxford, but you need to be realistic too. Doing what you said you would do would not only get you a rejection from Oxford, but it'd do the same for other universities too so you'd be unlikely to receive any offers at all and it could affect you in the future as well.
Original post by Black Water
You know since A-Level qualifications are linear now, and schools may have internal exams in school do you also have to declare them?


No... You don't declare internal exams, because they're not proper exams. You don't get a grade for them. The internal exams go towards your teachers' predicted grades for you.
Reply 12
Avatar for S2M
S2M
22
Original post by GrabDrop
No... You don't declare internal exams, because they're not proper exams. You don't get a grade for them. The internal exams go towards your teachers' predicted grades for you.

Oh ok thanks.
Original post by GrabDrop
No... You don't declare internal exams, because they're not proper exams. You don't get a grade for them. The internal exams go towards your teachers' predicted grades for you.


Pretty much this. You will get a grade for your exam, but it won't be cashed in (i.e. it won't be a certified grade). It'll be equivalent to taking an end-of-unit test or a mock, so you don't need to declare it.

The grades that you'll have on your UCAS form for A-levels will be your predicted grades that your teacher gives you, based on your performance during Year 12 and what grade you can potentially achieve.
(edited 6 years ago)
you could get found out for not declaring all your grades, yes they do look at the proportion of a* but you have to remember that only some candidates will have a clean sweep of top grades, any a is still good and if it is English and you werd for example applying for math then I doubt they would reject purely on that.
Thank you all for the replies. I can see that I definitely shouldn't hide my grades. However, if anyone does have concrete information on whether proportion of grades is really more important than quantity for Unis it would just be good to know whether the As are bad, even if I'm stuck with regardless.
Reply 16
Avatar for Doones
Doones
21
Original post by TheTree0fDeath
Thank you all for the replies. I can see that I definitely shouldn't hide my grades. However, if anyone does have concrete information on whether proportion of grades is really more important than quantity for Unis it would just be good to know whether the As are bad, even if I'm stuck with regardless.


The MAT is much more important than GCSEs for Maths at Oxford.
Original post by TheTree0fDeath
Ok thank you for your help. It seems quite annoying though that all the time spent on my shoddy D.T resistant materials project will now actually affect my chances negatively. I wonder if there is anyway to get un-awarded grades?
Nonsense. No university makes decisions based entirely on GCSE grades, and Oxford certainly doesn't. As @Doonesbury has pointed out, the MAT will be far more important. If you don't do well enough in that, you won't get an interview, and having 13 A* grades at GCSE with or without stellar predictions for your A levels would not change that.

You have far more important things to be worrying about than declaring your GCSE grades. Just accept that you must provide complete and accurate information about them, and take it from there.
Oh my goodness, get a grip of yourself.
Reply 19
Avatar for xx1t35
xx1t35
14
Original post by TheTree0fDeath
So basically I'm hopefully applying to Oxford to do Maths and like I know its super competitive but still worth giving it a shot right? Anyway my grades are pretty good and at GCSE my school entered me in for the excessive number of 13 subjects from which I achieved 7 A*s and 6 As which is not too bad I don't think considering the workload and the fact it was a shabby state school. However, I have been warned that Oxford algorithms only take into account PROPORTION of A*s at GCSE, meaning that all those As I got would now count against me instead of helping! Would it be to my advantage to not put down most of those As in order to boost my percentage of A*s? It seems ridiculous and a terrible system and doing this may also influence my chances with other Unis badly but like what should I do? Anyone who has any knowledge of how Oxford and other Unis calculate scores pleeeeeease help me out thanks


Just don't apply to Oxford. It is too much work, especially for such a competitive course.

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