How to: Applying to university with grades that are 'too low'

I've got 3 d's and therefore none of the universities will accept me. Greenwich school of management(not linked to greenwich uni) will accept me but if you have a look at their website, you can see that they accept almost ANYONE; i.e. people who only have GCSEs!! the degree is good, its awarded by plymouth university but the environment will not be the same as a uni. i was thinking of resitting but i obv don't how well i will do. most uni's require As and if i did resit i'd prob only get about C's or maximum B's with those it will still be the low universities that offer me places therefore there wont be much point in taking the year to resit and getting a place at a low uni!!

plus my friends have been asking what's going on because they all made into their unis, i don't know how to face them. i am so disappointed in myself. i admit i didnt work that hard in the st year, but in the second i did; but the improvement wasn't obv good enough

sorry about the long message but i really need advice

I've got 3 d's and therefore none of the universities will accept me. Greenwich school of management(not linked to greenwich uni) will accept me but if you have a look at their website, you can see that they accept almost ANYONE; i.e. people who only have GCSEs!! the degree is good, its awarded by plymouth university but the environment will not be the same as a uni. i was thinking of resitting but i obv don't how well i will do. most uni's require As and if i did resit i'd prob only get about C's or maximum B's with those it will still be the low universities that offer me places therefore there wont be much point in taking the year to resit and getting a place at a low uni!!

plus my friends have been asking what's going on because they all made into their unis, i don't know how to face them. i am so disappointed in myself. i admit i didnt work that hard in the st year, but in the second i did; but the improvement wasn't obv good enough

sorry about the long message but i really need advice

i want to a similar course to you, financial maths/accounting and finance; sometihng along those lines. what uni offered you this course? i asked greenwich university and the admission tutors are SO rude, they just say if you dont meet the entry criteria then you don't meet the entry!! i mean they could be a little gentle or sympathetic. im on the verge of a breakdown

I've got 3 d's and therefore none of the universities will accept me. Greenwich school of management(not linked to greenwich uni) will accept me but if you have a look at their website, you can see that they accept almost ANYONE; i.e. people who only have GCSEs!! the degree is good, its awarded by plymouth university but the environment will not be the same as a uni. i was thinking of resitting but i obv don't how well i will do. most uni's require As and if i did resit i'd prob only get about C's or maximum B's with those it will still be the low universities that offer me places therefore there wont be much point in taking the year to resit and getting a place at a low uni!!

plus my friends have been asking what's going on because they all made into their unis, i don't know how to face them. i am so disappointed in myself. i admit i didnt work that hard in the st year, but in the second i did; but the improvement wasn't obv good enough

sorry about the long message but i really need advice

I got AAD in my AS results. Just wondering if anyone knows whether I can realistically expect to be predicted a B in the subject I got a D in at AS. The D came as a bit of a surprise, it isn't my strongest subject but I'd have expected to at least have got a C. Not sure if this makes much of a difference when my teacher makes my prediction, but I was reasonably close to a C (113/200 UMS). How likely is it that I'll be predicted a B?

Being a mature student with experience in the subject also helps. I have been offered a place on a foundation degree course with just 2 GCSEs. I am a mature student, recovering from a long term illness (which is the reason why I only have 2 GCSEs) and I have quite a bit of experience in the subject which I applied for. The University obviously acknowledged this and offered me a place after reading my personal statement and reference.

I wasn't expecting it at all so I am very pleased.

ALTERNATIVE ENTRANCES (OUTSIDE OF UNIVERSITY)

- If you are sure that you want to do a course, regardless of whether it means university study or not, perhaps try alternative methods of getting into the field. TSR and thousands of websites online have help for this kind of thing. Let's use the example of Law again. Law is a competitive subject, but there are ways around it. If you cannot obtain the requirements, and cannot find a foundation year, you can always do another degree. Upon finishing this degree, specific places host 'Conversion Courses' that last a year. Despite having your Geography degree for example at the end of university, you can still be a qualified Lawyer at the end of the year, with an extra year of studying. This idea is perfect for those who want to meet the requirements, but cannot, and still want to experience university life.

Just a few things to point out from our perspective with regards to this thread, as whilst the pure basics have been pointed out, life isn't unfortunately as simple as it can appear.




A law conversion course costs £8,000 to 10,000 per year as a graduate and there are no student loans or additional funding available. The initial course is 2 years plus then there are 1 or 2 additional years after this on a training contract once the conversion course has been completed. This route is not a solution for someone who knows now that they want to do law - it is very expensive and a very prolonged way of studying law. If an applicant knows now that they want to study law, the sensible option would be to take a year out and do some resits before applying to an undergraduate law course the following year. There is no need to get into 3 years of debt for an undergraduate degree (~£45,000 now) plus then adding a similar figure to that as a graduate just to do law when taking a year out to improve A levels will be a much cheaper and easier option. Yes, the idea is great for people who decide later into their degree that they want to do law, although again, it is only really an option for people who are lucky enough to be able to afford it. The majority of people do not have a spare ~£30,000 upon graduation from their first degree.



A biomedicine degree does not lead to and can not simply be converted to a medicine degree. A biomedicine graduate could apply for graduate entry medicine in the same way as someone with an English degree could. The entry requirements are based on A level grades, so again, the applicant would need to have A grades in the relevant subjects at A level (which is why taking a year out to reapply for undergraduate medicine may be a better option) and also based on degree classification. Graduate entry medicine is even more competitive than undergraduate medicine and if an applicant does not have the grades to successfully get into undergraduate medicine, they will also struggle at graduate level. Similarly, funding is different due to the fact students already have a degree, so whilst they are entitled to some funding, they're not entitled to the same level of funding as a normal undergrad.

In both of these situations, our advice would be that if the applicant is seriously considering medicine or law as an A level student, then taking a year out to resit and reapply will be a better option to entering undergraduate study with the intention of doing a conversion course. However, particularly for medicine, there are increasingly few universities who will accept retake candidates so applicants should also consider other alternative careers within the NHS.



Applicants need to be very careful here as entry to top level universities may be affected by taking an additional year to take A levels. For example, Edinburgh will not consider students who have taken an additional year to achieve A level grades and many other universities have similar preferences, particularly for competitive courses.



Adjustment is not a guaranteed success option and applicants should not use it as a way to try and get around the system. Last year, 377 applicants out of around 650,000 to UCAS were placed via adjustment. Many of the top universities do not participate in adjustment and it is worrying that there have been cases on TSR of applicants putting lower graded universities as their firm on the pure basis that they plan to use adjustment to alter their place after results. Yes, adjustment is great if it works out, but for the majority of people it will not and should not be considered an "option" in that respect - its just an added bonus.

thankyou so much, when you spoke to them what did you say? becuase when i tried they said no, you dont meet the entry criteria, FULL STOP!

did you speak to the people on the clearing hotline or to an admissions tutor or someone?

i REALLY appreciate your help

i have been offered a course at london met which has a sandwich placement too, i was thinking i'll just apply to that course as it is similar to what i initially intended to do; Mathematical sciences/financial maths. however during the frist year at uni i was thinking of resitting a few modules of a levels and bringing my grades up too, that way i could consider applying to another uni next year too if i feel that this uni is not what i had hoped for.

Do you think thats a good idea?

The Common Problem: "My grades appear too low for the course I am applying to!"

Many people every year are faced with the problem of having to apply to university with grades that they wish they didn't have, whether it was due to not trying, a personal matter or just a bad season of exams, it's happened to most of us.

Whenever I am on a thread, I always offer my advice to people, and somebody recently posted something to me asking for my advice in a situation where their grades at AS are too low for the course that they want to apply for. In this thread, I've basically posted ways around poor grades and ways to recover your academia, because it really is never too late.


Universities base their offers on numerous factors: PREDICTED grades, actual grades (mostly predicted), personal statements, references and interviews are just a few examples.


Why did you not do as well?

Let's use the example of Fliss who is studying AS. She needs AAB to study Law, but obtained CCC.

Firstly, why did Fliss not get the grades? Was it due to a special circumstance, e.g. death/family troubles? If the answer to this question is yes, inform your college, they will thus know and should know that you were under stress, hence the lower grades. Your subject teachers could then predict grades for you and know that it's likely that you can obtain them, whilst universities can be informed of why you didn't do as well as expected. If the answer to this question is no, then ask yourself about the whole scenario. If you obtained these grades, can you do even better and obtain A's at A2? As someone who has completed her A2 exams, I can tell you that they are not easy. At GCSE you basically do the same standard of work throughout two years, but despite the jump from AS to A2 being tiny compared to Year 11 to AS, the jump is still rather huge, A2 only gets harder. That's not to discourage you to not try, but more that when applying to university, you need to think about the big question "CAN I DO IT?"

Fliss wants to apply for Law, and it is a popular subject, and with grades like that, the harsh truth is that she may not be predicted what is required for the courses (universities base their offers mostly on predicted grades). So, I can suggest a few alternatives:

RISK IT

- You could risk it and hope that you can somehow get the predictions and obtain them in A2 (Some teachers may resist predicting you these grades, as if they are wrong and aim too high, they may get in trouble). This was you could continue with the course, but it seems unlikely that it would happen. (If universities get predictions of ABB from a student with C/D grades, they may become suspicious).

A FOUNDATION YEAR

- Find another way in. Is there a foundation course you can do for a year at college/or for an extra year at university? Go on http://www.ucas.com for more details, search for your course and see if there is a "Law foundation course". If there is, universities often offer lower requirements with this degree (there is an added introductory year). This way, you can still go to school with your friends at the same time as them, but just spend an extra year studying.

ALTERNATIVE ENTRANCES (OUTSIDE OF UNIVERSITY)

- If you are sure that you want to do a course, regardless of whether it means university study or not, perhaps try alternative methods of getting into the field. TSR and thousands of websites online have help for this kind of thing. Let's use the example of Law again. Law is a competitive subject, but there are ways around it. If you cannot obtain the requirements, and cannot find a foundation year, you can always do another degree. Upon finishing this degree, specific places host 'Conversion Courses' that last a year. Despite having your Geography degree for example at the end of university, you can still be a qualified Lawyer at the end of the year, with an extra year of studying. This idea is perfect for those who want to meet the requirements, but cannot, and still want to experience university life.

This is true of Medicine too. For instance, some often opt to go for "Biomedical Science" as an option, as it can be converted or leads to Medicine upon completion. There are always options, you just need to know what they are. If you are struggling with this, speak to your career adviser, a teacher, a parent or perhaps us on TSR, as it is likely someone will know the answer to your query!

RESITTING EXAMS/DEFERRING FOR A YEAR

A popular option for some students is to resit their AS year and opt for some easier subjects. For example, you may decide to change colleges and opt to study English as opposed to Further Mathematics. Resitting modules is likely to stress you out and may mean that results are not given to the school in time to change your predictions, so perhaps you can defer for a year. Would you prefer to sit the year again and go to a university that you specifically prefer or would you prefer to go to another without resitting the year? Ask yourself this, and there's the answer.

ADJUSTMENT AND RE-APPLICATION (TRANSFER)

You need to get serious in this situation. It's not the end of the world if you don't obtain the grades that you want. A girl in my year obtained AAAC at AS and still does not have a university place, whilst people with DDDD have places.
Work out which of the options above (if any) work for you.

If you have DDD and need BBB for example, perhaps you could try applying for a course with lower requirements. If you desperately want to go to another university, there are still options. Upon possibly obtaining AAA, you can go into UCAS adjustment, a system that gives you the choice of moving to a better university after getting your final results. You could obtain brilliant results and drop your university choice and simply go to a better university upon applying for a better place upon hearing your results.
If not, why not try going to the university? You might love it! If you do not, you can retake exams, and reapply the following year as stated above, or alternatively stick with the university for a year and apply again through UCAS for a second year entry but with the "Entry Point: 2" indicating your wish to study your second year there.








I hope this has helped you all, don't be put off by university grade requirements. Just think about what is most important to you. Don't judge a university by its cover too, visit them before you make an informed decision. You shouldn't knock a specific place before you have visited it, you may love it.

Good Luck in the future, if you have any questions, please quote me.


I'll read over this later to check for errors, please excuse them currently however, I am tired!



.

hey,

Im in year 12 and I recently recieved my AS results: CCDD (bio, maths, chem, french). I will be dropping french, but keeping the rest.

I was just wondering if you think that I should apply for foundation year pharmacy, or if you know of any universities that would allow me to transfer?

I will be working incredibly hard in A2 and retaking exams etc; but I do have to apply soon!

Thanks

Thank you for sharing that. You are a prime example of how people shouldn't give up even after an illness or issue in life. I hope you're recovering/have recovered, and enjoy your work!

This situation is the perfect example of how grades do not matter guys, and that universities really do care more about other aspects of your work, so obtaining lower grades is NOT the end of the world!

The Common Problem: "My grades appear too low for the course I am applying to!"

Many people every year are faced with the problem of having to apply to university with grades that they wish they didn't have, whether it was due to not trying, a personal matter or just a bad season of exams, it's happened to most of us.

Whenever I am on a thread, I always offer my advice to people, and somebody recently posted something to me asking for my advice in a situation where their grades at AS are too low for the course that they want to apply for. In this thread, I've basically posted ways around poor grades and ways to recover your academia, because it really is never too late.


Universities base their offers on numerous factors: PREDICTED grades, actual grades (mostly predicted), personal statements, references and interviews are just a few examples.


Why did you not do as well?

Let's use the example of Fliss who is studying AS. She needs AAB to study Law, but obtained CCC.

Firstly, why did Fliss not get the grades? Was it due to a special circumstance, e.g. death/family troubles? If the answer to this question is yes, inform your college, they will thus know and should know that you were under stress, hence the lower grades. Your subject teachers could then predict grades for you and know that it's likely that you can obtain them, whilst universities can be informed of why you didn't do as well as expected. If the answer to this question is no, then ask yourself about the whole scenario. If you obtained these grades, can you do even better and obtain A's at A2? As someone who has completed her A2 exams, I can tell you that they are not easy. At GCSE you basically do the same standard of work throughout two years, but despite the jump from AS to A2 being tiny compared to Year 11 to AS, the jump is still rather huge, A2 only gets harder. That's not to discourage you to not try, but more that when applying to university, you need to think about the big question "CAN I DO IT?"

Fliss wants to apply for Law, and it is a popular subject, and with grades like that, the harsh truth is that she may not be predicted what is required for the courses (universities base their offers mostly on predicted grades). So, I can suggest a few alternatives:

RISK IT

- You could risk it and hope that you can somehow get the predictions and obtain them in A2 (Some teachers may resist predicting you these grades, as if they are wrong and aim too high, they may get in trouble). This was you could continue with the course, but it seems unlikely that it would happen. (If universities get predictions of ABB from a student with C/D grades, they may become suspicious).

A FOUNDATION YEAR

- Find another way in. Is there a foundation course you can do for a year at college/or for an extra year at university? Go on http://www.ucas.com for more details, search for your course and see if there is a "Law foundation course". If there is, universities often offer lower requirements with this degree (there is an added introductory year). This way, you can still go to school with your friends at the same time as them, but just spend an extra year studying.

ALTERNATIVE ENTRANCES (OUTSIDE OF UNIVERSITY)

- If you are sure that you want to do a course, regardless of whether it means university study or not, perhaps try alternative methods of getting into the field. TSR and thousands of websites online have help for this kind of thing. Let's use the example of Law again. Law is a competitive subject, but there are ways around it. If you cannot obtain the requirements, and cannot find a foundation year, you can always do another degree. Upon finishing this degree, specific places host 'Conversion Courses' that last a year. Despite having your Geography degree for example at the end of university, you can still be a qualified Lawyer at the end of the year, with an extra year of studying. This idea is perfect for those who want to meet the requirements, but cannot, and still want to experience university life.

This is true of Medicine too. For instance, some often opt to go for "Biomedical Science" as an option, as it can be converted or leads to Medicine upon completion. There are always options, you just need to know what they are. If you are struggling with this, speak to your career adviser, a teacher, a parent or perhaps us on TSR, as it is likely someone will know the answer to your query!

RESITTING EXAMS/DEFERRING FOR A YEAR

A popular option for some students is to resit their AS year and opt for some easier subjects. For example, you may decide to change colleges and opt to study English as opposed to Further Mathematics. Resitting modules is likely to stress you out and may mean that results are not given to the school in time to change your predictions, so perhaps you can defer for a year. Would you prefer to sit the year again and go to a university that you specifically prefer or would you prefer to go to another without resitting the year? Ask yourself this, and there's the answer.

ADJUSTMENT AND RE-APPLICATION (TRANSFER)

You need to get serious in this situation. It's not the end of the world if you don't obtain the grades that you want. A girl in my year obtained AAAC at AS and still does not have a university place, whilst people with DDDD have places.
Work out which of the options above (if any) work for you.

If you have DDD and need BBB for example, perhaps you could try applying for a course with lower requirements. If you desperately want to go to another university, there are still options. Upon possibly obtaining AAA, you can go into UCAS adjustment, a system that gives you the choice of moving to a better university after getting your final results. You could obtain brilliant results and drop your university choice and simply go to a better university upon applying for a better place upon hearing your results.
If not, why not try going to the university? You might love it! If you do not, you can retake exams, and reapply the following year as stated above, or alternatively stick with the university for a year and apply again through UCAS for a second year entry but with the "Entry Point: 2" indicating your wish to study your second year there.








I hope this has helped you all, don't be put off by university grade requirements. Just think about what is most important to you. Don't judge a university by its cover too, visit them before you make an informed decision. You shouldn't knock a specific place before you have visited it, you may love it.

Good Luck in the future, if you have any questions, please quote me.


I'll read over this later to check for errors, please excuse them currently however, I am tired!



.

Just a few things to point out from our perspective with regards to this thread, as whilst the pure basics have been pointed out, life isn't unfortunately as simple as it can appear.




A law conversion course costs £8,000 to 10,000 per year as a graduate and there are no student loans or additional funding available. The initial course is 2 years plus then there are 1 or 2 additional years after this on a training contract once the conversion course has been completed. This route is not a solution for someone who knows now that they want to do law - it is very expensive and a very prolonged way of studying law. If an applicant knows now that they want to study law, the sensible option would be to take a year out and do some resits before applying to an undergraduate law course the following year. There is no need to get into 3 years of debt for an undergraduate degree (~£45,000 now) plus then adding a similar figure to that as a graduate just to do law when taking a year out to improve A levels will be a much cheaper and easier option. Yes, the idea is great for people who decide later into their degree that they want to do law, although again, it is only really an option for people who are lucky enough to be able to afford it. The majority of people do not have a spare ~£30,000 upon graduation from their first degree.



A biomedicine degree does not lead to and can not simply be converted to a medicine degree. A biomedicine graduate could apply for graduate entry medicine in the same way as someone with an English degree could. The entry requirements are based on A level grades, so again, the applicant would need to have A grades in the relevant subjects at A level (which is why taking a year out to reapply for undergraduate medicine may be a better option) and also based on degree classification. Graduate entry medicine is even more competitive than undergraduate medicine and if an applicant does not have the grades to successfully get into undergraduate medicine, they will also struggle at graduate level. Similarly, funding is different due to the fact students already have a degree, so whilst they are entitled to some funding, they're not entitled to the same level of funding as a normal undergrad.

In both of these situations, our advice would be that if the applicant is seriously considering medicine or law as an A level student, then taking a year out to resit and reapply will be a better option to entering undergraduate study with the intention of doing a conversion course. However, particularly for medicine, there are increasingly few universities who will accept retake candidates so applicants should also consider other alternative careers within the NHS.



Applicants need to be very careful here as entry to top level universities may be affected by taking an additional year to take A levels. For example, Edinburgh will not consider students who have taken an additional year to achieve A level grades and many other universities have similar preferences, particularly for competitive courses.



Adjustment is not a guaranteed success option and applicants should not use it as a way to try and get around the system. Last year, 377 applicants out of around 650,000 to UCAS were placed via adjustment. Many of the top universities do not participate in adjustment and it is worrying that there have been cases on TSR of applicants putting lower graded universities as their firm on the pure basis that they plan to use adjustment to alter their place after results. Yes, adjustment is great if it works out, but for the majority of people it will not and should not be considered an "option" in that respect - its just an added bonus.

Hi, I've had quite a disruptive year and hence got ABDE in my AS exams. Would it still be possible for me to apply for a science degree at universities such as Kings or Warwick, or would that be too wishful?
All my teachers have mentioned that they feel my personal problems had a severe impact on my grades, and that they can predict me top grades for A2. Would these universities take that into account, or should I not apply to those universities at all?
Thanks.

I'd write to your school explaining the circumstances, who will pass it on to teachers and enable them to understand why you may not have obtained as high grades that you wished. Taking this into consideration they are likely to predict grades of AABC possibly, and if doing so, write letters to the admissions departments at the places you're applying for, explaining the situation.