The Student Room Group

poor a-levels want to resit...

hi guys, need some advice just graduated got 2.1 in Elec.Eng which is decent but only have 18(old school) A level points. been looking @ job / graduate vaccancies they usually ask for no less than 24points even with a 2.2. Im posting on the postgraduate bit cos im doing an MSc this year. What i wanted to know is can i just resist some exams (in the old a level system)- i don't need to/don't have time go back to school and learn the stuff again. i reckon my A level results are really gonna hold me back. Has anyone had any experience with this kind of situation?
thanx
Reply 1
Hi,

If you want to resit your A levels, you have some options.

a) go back to college full time. ANY college would take you with a degree, though they might question why you want it. Expect to pay around £100 per yr per AS subject for tuition. You would have to put up with 16-18 yr olds though, so im guessing you dont want to do this. Some colleges might offer you intensive 1 yr retake programmes though.

b) go back to college as an evening attendee. Good news is that there wont be any annoying 16 yr olds, bad news is that it will cost slightly more (~£120-150) and your severly restricted in subject choice. Most colleges only offer things like English, Maths and a couple of other humanities like History.

c) Sit them as a private candidate. You do the work yourself via self study. For this you can use things like ICS etc though I would seriously discourage you from using these or just get the exam specification and teach yourself. ICS and other such companies are grossly overpriced (around £350 for 1 A level and that doesnt include exam fees) and the tuition they give you probably isnt all its cracked up to be (they send you a booklet of 300 pages or so for your £350). I am speaking from impression rather than experience about them so take this with a pinch of salt.

Anyway, you then have to phone up a college and get them to enter you as a private candidate which basically means you get to take your exams with their own students. Expect to pay a fee of about £10-20 per module, so that would be ~£80 for a full A level. Officially the exam board fee is £10 and the college will charge you an admin fee of whatever they like, tho it is usally low. Downsides of this are: Colleges wont enter you for exams that their own students arent sitting, so if you want to do edexcel history then you have to find a college that does that spec. A college doing AQA wont put you for edexcel. Also, coursework and practical components are nigh on impossible to arrange since it is a lot of extra work for the college. This means you will be restricted to doing just written exams at most centres, excluding subjects like physics which have practicals and languages which have orals. You can find colleges that do these if your desperate, but they may charge you extra and you have been warned how hard it is to find them.

Im in a similar position and I would reccomend option C, its the cheapest and since you have a degree you should be able to teach yourself fairly easily. If you email AQA or Edexcel for a private candidates information book they should send you a pack of all colleges that accepted private candidates last academic year. This isnt vital, since you could just randomly phone colleges up but it might direct you a little better.

Im sorry if my grammar waned a little bit or I rambled but Iv done so much research on this I got bored by the end of typing it! Any other questions PM me and ill try to help out further.
Reply 2
Oh, I forgot to add two things in. Firstly, Im not sure whether resitting A levels counts. Surely anyone with a degree should get a minimum of an A at A level anyway. What Im saying is your degree is a much higher qualification, Imagine doing A levels and then going back and resitting GCSEs....

Secondly, I think theres a limit to 'retaking' modules which is what you mentioned in your original post. After 3 years (I think - check with AQA/Edexcel) you cant retake and claim some of your original module scores. Thus, if you wanna do an A level your gonna have to sit the WHOLE A level from scratch.
Reply 3
Wow, I didn't know you could do that. I have a question. I'll be an international postgrad student (LLM) and of course I didn't take A levels or equivalent. But I see everyone attaches such importance to A levels. If I was planing to find a job in London, should I take them, or having a degree (five year law degree) and postgrad studies (I also took some postgrad courses here) should cover it...
Reply 4
anabelle
Wow, I didn't know you could do that. I have a question. I'll be an international postgrad student (LLM) and of course I didn't take A levels or equivalent. But I see everyone attaches such importance to A levels. If I was planing to find a job in London, should I take them, or having a degree (five year law degree) and postgrad studies (I also took some postgrad courses here) should cover it...


Im no expert on what employers want, but I dont think you would need them. I cant see how someone with a law degree, a masters and other 'postgrad stuff' would be turned down for a training contract/pupillage on the basis that they have no A level results. You probably have too much on your plate anyway, but if you wanted to do them purely out of interest it wouldnt hurt since everything you can get makes you more competitive in the job market.
Reply 5
anabelle
Wow, I didn't know you could do that. I have a question. I'll be an international postgrad student (LLM) and of course I didn't take A levels or equivalent. But I see everyone attaches such importance to A levels. If I was planing to find a job in London, should I take them, or having a degree (five year law degree) and postgrad studies (I also took some postgrad courses here) should cover it...



If its law stuff, in most cases, a good performance in an LLM will do the job for you. Remember if its a job in practice you will neeed to do the CPE/ PGDL tho
Reply 6
chriswhit
If its law stuff, in most cases, a good performance in an LLM will do the job for you. Remember if its a job in practice you will neeed to do the CPE/ PGDL tho


Thank you. Yes I know. I thought about working as a paralegal first (part time if I can get anything). I was just worried there would be empty spaces in a job application. But I guess the LLM should cover it.
Reply 7
hmm..I've been thinking about A levels again too! I will find out about private candidates, but do you know what happens about coursework marking? Or has it all changed now and there is just an exam?
Cheers
Reply 8
Find out from the exam board ! Write to them directly !

However, It may be unlikely with the new AS system and modular system out at the moment !

But if u do need to retake them with a 2:1 and a possible MSC u should do it privately and u could probably do all the exams in 6 months and get it done depending on the subject and ur intelligence of course !
Reply 9
In my experience, asking for a minimum number of A-Level points + Degree is synonymous to asking for a degree from a University within a certain tier*. Because of this, I can't see going back and doing them again would be of any use.

*Because better Universities will have higher entrance requirements.
It is my experience that once you get a postgraduate qualification under your belt people rarely look at your A-levels. The UCAS points thing is generally to sort out the tons of applications from 2:1 graduates. I am in the ususual position of having a first from a prestigious university and not having 24 UCAS points - it didn't stop me from getting invited to interviews from companies that requested UCAS points.
Reply 11
Well, I can only speak of the investment banks I've had experience with. My girlfriend has just got her training contract (Law), and she's had similar experiences. :smile:
dont be fooled by the reuqirements
even people with 2:2 managed to get jobs
you just need to show them how good you are
You have to do all your exams again unfortunately (when you say declared, you mean you didn't decline the grade right?)
Reply 14
I'm doing my first year @ Surrey in BEng Civil Engineering. My A levels were not at all good, except in Maths.

My A level grades were: Maths - B, Physics - D, Chemistry - D, and Biology - E

My UCAS points (considering 3 subjects) = 100 + 60 + 60 = 220; otherwise it's 260.

Should i worry abt my A level grades to get a relevant job after graduation?
retaking A-levels ain't much use to many, I am pissed off with mine. Still I guess if u took a new subject by distance learning, it adds some thing to your CV.

I would do this as a self esteem issue because I had very serious problems at the time and am expected to get a first for my degree.