Has anyone gotten into Oxbridge with a grade below a D at GCSE?

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goose123

I have 5 A*s, 5 As, 1 B and an E in Design Technology and an offer from Oxford. I think I have a U in some kind of IT qualification too, but seeing as for my coursework all I sent in was a picture of a moose there's a good chance my school didn't bother entering me.

The guy doing the interview did ask what kind of school I went to, but I just explained that it got an average of 37% 5 A-C grades and he said he thought it would be something like that.

What course?

Reply 21

goose123

im so academic

What course?

Modern Languages, so it's not uber competitive. It may have been different if I'd gone for medicine etc.

On the other hand, I found the work for most of my GCSEs really, really boring because I hated doing the coursework; a large part of getting a GCSE is presentation, and the rest is essentially jumping through hoops and learning off my heart. In my opinion GCSEs are a really terrible way of measuring intelligence, and I suspect many academics at Oxbridge think the same way.

Edit: just realised I forgot to finish my point. My personal theory is almost everything rides on the interview, and once they've seen you they'll know whether they like you or not regardless of your grades.