Advice for anyone who might consider resitting their A-Levels after results day

With A-Level results day looming, I know there will be plenty of people who end up missing both their firm and insurance offers and being entered into clearing.

Obviously this is far from the ideal situation but you have plenty of options; one of these you might consider is resitting your A-Levels.

Having just resat my A-Levels this year and awaiting the results of these on Thursday, I just thought I'd give my own personal experience and advice in the instance it could come in handy to anyone.

I originally needed AAA to get into Nottingham to do Law, with Liverpool my insurance at ABB. Due to personal issues as well as a lack of effort and focus, I ended up getting BBD. Even though this was very demoralising, I decided to look through clearing and received a few offers. However, nothing really appealed me so I decided to resit all three of my A-Levels independently at home, before going into school in June to sit them.

It's a huge decision and if you consider it, I won't bother sugar coating it
— it's far from easy. You have to motivate yourself to study without teachers setting work or trying to push you through it. While this may be good practice for the similar experience at university, if you're simply resitting because you were lazy the first time round, will this change enough for you to motivate yourself to work by yourself?

It's also pretty demoralising to see your friends off at university, having a good time while you're stuck at home resitting exams they've all done and flourished in. You need to treat it as a chance to fulfil your potential and a sense of redemption almost because I know if I do badly again on Thursday, I'll be completely crushed.

I'd also advise a part-time job and potentially travelling if you have time and treat it as a semi gap year; do this at the start though when the pressure isn't as big.

Consider hiring a tutor if it makes things easier for you, although again this can be expensive and may not be worth the investment if you can't motivate yourself efficiently.

Some unis will have specific policies towards A-Level resits but in most cases you're likely to be fine, although this depends on the course. Subjects like law and medicine would be harder to be accepted, while certain unis aren't particularly keen on them either. The best course of advice is to look on the website for the policies or if you're still uncertain, email them to check if you'd be considered.

Check if your school will allow you to sit them; if not, you may have to go to a local college to resit them, which could be pricey, while your specific A-Level may not be on offer. This is a necessity to check and you would have to fund the exams yourself.

Essentially, if you consider resits come Thursday, these would be my main steps:

1) Look at clearing and see if there's anything that appeals before rushing and deciding to resit
2) Ask yourself what went wrong last time and if circumstances would change this time round considering you'll have to motivate yourself
3) Check the resit policies (and email early if you're unsure) the places you'd want to aim for if you resit — nothing would be worse than deciding to resit only to discover your dream uni won't accept them
4) Check if your sixth form/college will allow you to resit A-Levels; if not you'll have to find a local college who would be willing to allow you to sit them there
5) Get a part-time job/hobby/travel as the year will drag unbearably if not
6) However hard it gets, don't give up; just think how crushed you were the first time round but having to go through that again.

I'll have to wait until Thursday to see if it pays off but I've definitely grown as a person this year, despite it undoubtedly being challenging.

Hope this'll be helpful to some of you and if you've got any further questions don't hesitate to ask.

This is so incredibly helpful. Thank you so much for sharing. I’m sure you’re going to help many others feel a lot better.

Are you applying to Nottingham again this year? Let us know how how you do on Thursday. You deserve happy news

Thank you so much, I’ll be sure to update the thread, I just thought it might help someone else who ends up in a similar predicament

I applied to Nottingham for Law and ended up getting an offer but decided to firm Exeter this year instead — goes to show you can get an offer with resits and it’s not always the worst scenario but definitely think it through!

That would be ace! Thank you

I’ll be watching out for your update - it takes a lot of courage and perseverance to do what you did. I really hope it pays off.

I think people seeing that you can still get an offer from a great university like Exeter when re-sitting is a really positive message and that will help them lot

Thank you, I really hope so

That’s what I hope to achieve from the thread — there are so many options if things don’t work out the way you want and resits can definitely be one of them.

They’re definitely not easy and it can be difficult to motivate yourself, especially when you see your friends having a good time at uni.
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It’s definitely an option to consider though!

In a way it's a harder option than just getting into whichever course you can in Clearing isn't it? But it could well be a better option in the long run since if you knew your A level grades hadn't matched your potential, you might always have felt like you had "settled" for something when you could have had a second shot at achieving better grades and getting into a better uni. Really hope you get good news on Thursday

With A-Level results day looming, I know there will be plenty of people who end up missing both their firm and insurance offers and being entered into clearing.

Obviously this is far from the ideal situation but you have plenty of options; one of these you might consider is resitting your A-Levels.

Having just resat my A-Levels this year and awaiting the results of these on Thursday, I just thought I'd give my own personal experience and advice in the instance it could come in handy to anyone.

I originally needed AAA to get into Nottingham to do Law, with Liverpool my insurance at ABB. Due to personal issues as well as a lack of effort and focus, I ended up getting BBD. Even though this was very demoralising, I decided to look through clearing and received a few offers. However, nothing really appealed me so I decided to resit all three of my A-Levels independently at home, before going into school in June to sit them.

It's a huge decision and if you consider it, I won't bother sugar coating it
— it's far from easy. You have to motivate yourself to study without teachers setting work or trying to push you through it. While this may be good practice for the similar experience at university, if you're simply resitting because you were lazy the first time round, will this change enough for you to motivate yourself to work by yourself?

It's also pretty demoralising to see your friends off at university, having a good time while you're stuck at home resitting exams they've all done and flourished in. You need to treat it as a chance to fulfil your potential and a sense of redemption almost because I know if I do badly again on Thursday, I'll be completely crushed.

I'd also advise a part-time job and potentially travelling if you have time and treat it as a semi gap year; do this at the start though when the pressure isn't as big.

Consider hiring a tutor if it makes things easier for you, although again this can be expensive and may not be worth the investment if you can't motivate yourself efficiently.

Some unis will have specific policies towards A-Level resits but in most cases you're likely to be fine, although this depends on the course. Subjects like law and medicine would be harder to be accepted, while certain unis aren't particularly keen on them either. The best course of advice is to look on the website for the policies or if you're still uncertain, email them to check if you'd be considered.

Check if your school will allow you to sit them; if not, you may have to go to a local college to resit them, which could be pricey, while your specific A-Level may not be on offer. This is a necessity to check and you would have to fund the exams yourself.

Essentially, if you consider resits come Thursday, these would be my main steps:

1) Look at clearing and see if there's anything that appeals before rushing and deciding to resit
2) Ask yourself what went wrong last time and if circumstances would change this time round considering you'll have to motivate yourself
3) Check the resit policies (and email early if you're unsure) the places you'd want to aim for if you resit — nothing would be worse than deciding to resit only to discover your dream uni won't accept them
4) Check if your sixth form/college will allow you to resit A-Levels; if not you'll have to find a local college who would be willing to allow you to sit them there
5) Get a part-time job/hobby/travel as the year will drag unbearably if not
6) However hard it gets, don't give up; just think how crushed you were the first time round but having to go through that again.

I'll have to wait until Thursday to see if it pays off but I've definitely grown as a person this year, despite it undoubtedly being challenging.

Hope this'll be helpful to some of you and if you've got any further questions don't hesitate to ask.

This was very insightful, thank you.
So did you study at a local college or did you study at home? If you studied at home, how did you get help with certain problems that may have cropped up. For me personally, I tend to ask my friends rather than teachers, though, if considering a retake, I wouldn't be able to ask them either. Did you buy all course material books etc yourself? Do you choose your own exam board? Did you take the same exam board? Or does exam board depend on the college you're going to sit the a levels at?
One more question: How did you apply without having predicted grades?

No worries, glad it helped you; I’ll answer each question individually.

1) I studied at home and went in and sat my exams at my old sixth form in June. I got the help of tutors in around March to just make sure I could keep up.

2) If I ever got a problem with work or anything, I tended to go to my tutors as this was closer to the end but if I had any major problems, I emailed my old teachers and they helped me out.

3) I was allowed to borrow all the books I needed in September at the start of the year.

4) The exam boards were exactly the same as I did the previous year as they were the ones still being sat at my school. If you go somewhere new, it’s possible they wouldn’t be able to take your exam board.

5) I was given predicted grades through my old sixth form as they were also my UCAS referee.

As you can tell, my old sixth form were very accommodating towards the situation and allowed me to resit the exams there and borrow books. There are no guarantees your school/college would be the same you must check with them beforehand. It’s definitely something you need to think about.

What grades do you need tomorrow and where are you holding a place from?

I’d also only resit if you feel you can improve significantly — going from BBD to AAB is a significant improvement. If you needed A*AA, insurance AAA and you got AAB, would a whole year out be worth it?

Thanks,
Did the school charge you? Apart from the cost of sitting the exams.
Also, how did your new predicted grades differ from your previous ones, were they the same? How do they even determine them, do they consider the results you achieved?
I really don't know what I'll be getting and if or by how much i'd miss out on the offer. I've applied for CS, and both my requirements for firm and insurance are fairly high and similar. That was my main concern. Though it'd probably filter down to whether my "dream" unis accept retakes. Only issue is that since CS is fairly competitive, I can't seem to find any clearing courses available through unis such as Warwick, Bristol etc. My firm and insurance don't participate in clearing, so I'm worried they'd be adamant on meeting the grade requirements strictly.

I wasn’t charged apart from the cost of sitting the exams.

With predicted grades, as I’d been at the school 7 years and had (apart from A-Levels) dome consistently well, they predicted me AAA and explained in the reference where things went wrong before.

I know CS is competitive and before thinking of doing resits, check (or email to make sure) their policy on resits.

While the likes of Warwick, Bristol and the “better” unis may not be in clearing, you can still find some pretty decent places.

If you achieved ABB say, that’s still a good set of grades and resitting when you’ve got those seems a bit much in my opinion but it’s your call.

Thanks,
Did the school charge you? Apart from the cost of sitting the exams.
Also, how did your new predicted grades differ from your previous ones, were they the same? How do they even determine them, do they consider the results you achieved?
I really don't know what I'll be getting and if or by how much i'd miss out on the offer. I've applied for CS, and both my requirements for firm and insurance are fairly high and similar. That was my main concern. Though it'd probably filter down to whether my "dream" unis accept retakes. Only issue is that since CS is fairly competitive, I can't seem to find any clearing courses available through unis such as Warwick, Bristol etc. My firm and insurance don't participate in clearing, so I'm worried they'd be adamant on meeting the grade requirements strictly.

I wasn’t charged apart from the cost of sitting the exams.

With predicted grades, as I’d been at the school 7 years and had (apart from A-Levels) dome consistently well, they predicted me AAA and explained in the reference where things went wrong before.

I know CS is competitive and before thinking of doing resits, check (or email to make sure) their policy on resits.

While the likes of Warwick, Bristol and the “better” unis may not be in clearing, you can still find some pretty decent places.

If you achieved ABB say, that’s still a good set of grades and resitting when you’ve got those seems a bit much in my opinion but it’s your call.

I’ve just looked now for you and Newcastle, Cardiff, Sheffield and Surrey offer CS through clearing, while the likes of Bath, York and Southampton have variants of it.

While it may not be exactly what you dreamt of, they’re still good unis which you should consider rather than rushing into resits.

I'll probably email some unis about resits and see what happens tomorrow


I've looked through, and have made a document comprising of the courses, requirements and unis that do clearing and are of somewhat interest to me. Warwick etc offer Electronics instead of CS, and there must be more to it, such as changing courses the following year if spaces are available, since they share similarities. Thanks for your efforts though. Much appreciated.

Do update the thread and share your retaking experience, if you're comfortable with it tomorrow. Thanks

Another anecdote here

I also resat this year - last year i applied to do medicine and didn't meet the 1 offer I had -I needed AAAa but got AABb
sufficient to say that results day last year was one of the most depressing time of my life - but I persevered and eventually decided to resit and reapply

now after 4 interviews this year, I have another offer this time I only need to get 1 A (in the subject I got a B in last year) - I don't want to celebrate prematurely but its quite likely this year was more than worth it

will update tomorrow

Another anecdote here

I also resat this year - last year i applied to do medicine and didn't meet the 1 offer I had -I needed AAAa but got AABb
sufficient to say that results day last year was one of the most depressing time of my life - but I persevered and eventually decided to resit and reapply

now after 4 interviews this year, I have another offer this time I only need to get 1 A (in the subject I got a B in last year) - I don't want to celebrate prematurely but its quite likely this year was more than worth it

will update tomorrow

Another anecdote here

I also resat this year - last year i applied to do medicine and didn't meet the 1 offer I had -I needed AAAa but got AABb
sufficient to say that results day last year was one of the most depressing time of my life - but I persevered and eventually decided to resit and reapply

now after 4 interviews this year, I have another offer this time I only need to get 1 A (in the subject I got a B in last year) - I don't want to celebrate prematurely but its quite likely this year was more than worth it

will update tomorrow

So is it possible to only retake specific subjects?

absolutely - you can even just retake specific modules