The Student Room Group

Could you redo A levels in your mid twenties?

Im curious, i did not do as well in my A levels as i would have liked. Im entertaining the idea of trying to redo my a levels to get into a good degree programme. I know access courses are an option but theyre only recognised by select universities where i live.
Hi, it might be possible. You wouldn't be able to go to sixth form but you could ask around the FE colleges local to you and see if they accept adult learners. If not, you can study them online. It can be quite expensive so if you can't afford it, you could just teach yourself from the textbooks or websites like Seneca and pay your exam fees only. https://www.aqa.org.uk/student-and-parent-support/private-candidates/finding-a-school-or-college is a list of AQA exam centres that accept private candidates and OCR's website said that they could tell you which schools accept private candidates if you contact them.
Original post by Apep666
Im curious, i did not do as well in my A levels as i would have liked. Im entertaining the idea of trying to redo my a levels to get into a good degree programme. I know access courses are an option but theyre only recognised by select universities where i live.

Yes, its straightforward unless you wish to do science, languages or anything with coursework. If you are prepared to do the extra year then an ever decreasing small number of HE colleges do them or you can pay for an online course or teach yourself.
Original post by Apep666
Im curious, i did not do as well in my A levels as i would have liked. Im entertaining the idea of trying to redo my a levels to get into a good degree programme. I know access courses are an option but theyre only recognised by select universities where i live.

I didn't attend the greatest school and, with hindsight, I would have chosen completely different A-levels.

I still passed all my A-levels reasonably well, but I've been teaching myself a wide range of subjects - such as maths, chemistry, physics and economics - from scratch over the past year or so, with the intention of sitting the exams for A-level maths, at the very least, perhaps next year.

As mentioned, there are websites like Seneca.

If you can let us know which A-level subjects you would be interested in sitting, we should be able to tailor our recommendations to you.

And also as mentioned, the A-level sciences are undoubtedly a nightmare to manage as a private candidate, due to their being considered incomplete without the practical endorsements - I've seen a lot of private centres charge into the thousands for the practical sessions alone.
(edited 3 years ago)
Reply 4
Original post by Plaguedbyfoibles
I didn't attend the greatest school and, with hindsight, I would have chosen completely different A-levels.

I still passed all my A-levels reasonably well, but I've been teaching myself a wide range of subjects - such as maths, chemistry, physics and economics - from scratch over the past year or so, with the intention of sitting the exams for A-level maths, at the very least, perhaps next year.

As mentioned, there are websites like Seneca.

If you can let us know which A-level subjects you would be interested in sitting, we should be able to tailor our recommendations to you.

And also as mentioned, the A-level sciences are undoubtedly a nightmare to manage as a private candidate, due to their being considered incomplete without the practical endorsements - I've seen a lot of private centres charge into the thousands for the practical sessions alone.

I was entertaining the idea of doing them at the belfast met college starting 2021. I was intending on doing two science subjects chemistry and biology. I was also intending on doing english literature and maybe politics as well.
Reply 5
Personally I would not recommend it.
Too much hassle for very little reward.


I'd consider the access course again and email the universities your interested in. Because I have rarely heard of universities not accepting them even Oxford and Cambridge accept them. There is usually issues around the amount of mathematical content in them though.
Original post by Apep666
I was entertaining the idea of doing them at the belfast met college starting 2021. I was intending on doing two science subjects chemistry and biology. I was also intending on doing english literature and maybe politics as well.


For chemistry, the following websites are pretty good:

https://www.chemguide.co.uk/
https://chem.libretexts.org/
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/chemistry

Do also check out https://youtube.com/channel/UCEWpbFLzoYGPfuWUMFPSaoA - aka the Organic Chemistry Tutor.

I also recommend the following books (also for chemistry):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chemistry-Concepts-Problems-Self-Teaching-Guides/dp/0471121207
https://www.amazon.co.uk/George-Facers-Edexcel-Chemistry-Student/dp/1471807401

Also look at https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6469518, in which I have outlined a number of science educators who stream on Twitch - dryoungslab is really good, he is a chemistry professor at Johns Hopkins, but his degree in chemistry was awarded by Warwick, and thus he has attained both a GCSE and A level in chemistry.

There is also a good biology tutor on there - https://www.twitch.tv/drwd40

For politics, https://tutor2u.net/politics is pretty good.

Also check out BBC Parliament, they are usually pretty informative.

As well as the glossary of terms on the parliament website, which can be found at https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Glossary-UK-Government-Politics-Glossaries/dp/0748625550 also good.

Vis a vis English Literature, this is the current AQA specification for the subject at A-level.

Given that they still cover Love through the Ages, I can recommend the following two texts (which I also had when studying A-level English Literature a few years ago):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Student-Texts-Love-Through/dp/019832880X
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Truth-about-Love-Collection-Collections/dp/0521748348
(edited 3 years ago)

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