U In AS Physics To Studying Theoretical Physics At Durham University

Well done very inspirational.
Me and you are more or less in the same situation. our A-level grades are the same and i'm also doing a foundation degree I hope to come out with percentages like yours.

Very interesting thread! Congratulations on your offers.

I'm in a situation at the moment where the university of Salford have offered me a place for physics, but I have AABB and i'm not a huge fan of the university. Am I being a snob for possibly turning it down? York also offered me a foundation year, but I turned it down because of the extra time and cost involved Not sure if i've been a complete idiot in doing that. My situation might be slightly different since i'm 24 and my parents are getting increasingly worried about my future.

Just wanted to say well done! It's good to finally see someone who has started off bad and come out on top, it gives me motivation

Bloody amazing! Well done! (:

Well done. Im starting my foundation year in two weeks and my highest grade is a C at GCSE maths and science as my city and guilds do not count. And they were over 5 years ago. Worried it is not the word lol. I hope i do half as well as you seem to have done.


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I hope I have half the motivation you do come September.

This thread is the follow up to my first thread regarding what to do if you have poor A-levels. I have wrote this after I completed my foundation year, when I decided that my grades were good enough to justify me moving to a better university for physics.



Educational Background: Poor GCSE's and A-level Results

My educational background is hardly something to boast about, if anything it is borderline poor/average and terrible for TSR's standards. At GCSE I have only 1 A grade, the rest are a mixture of mainly B and C grades or D and E grades in the subjects I am weaker at, such as English. I decided to do A-level Physics, Mathematics, Geography and Business.

A-levels did not go well for me, reflecting back, I failed to understand many concepts in mathematics and physics early on and quickly became overwhelmed with the content resulting in my grades being poor and losing a lot of interest in the subject. I was advised to not take mathematics at A-level as my teachers through I would struggle to cope. I often did not learn topics I really struggled with as I was in the mind-set that I was not aiming for an A grade, hence I can skip these questions, this certainly did not help.

My first set of AS results were expected. I did fairly poorly across the board and I achieved U in mathematics, U in physics, D in business and C in geography. I immediately decided to drop physics, advised by my teachers that I had no real future in physics so it would be best to drop the subject now before it gets even harder. I would most definitely not cope if I couldn't do the simple fundamentals.

My poor results were partly due to poor understanding at GCSE, and lack of learning technique. I went into A-level mathematics not knowing what a quadratic was, not knowing how to solve equations, among many other basic mathematical operations. I had no idea how to solve most of the problems. I decided to stick with mathematics.

my final AS exam results were equally as bad. I received An E in mathematics, U in business and C in geography. My final AS results on first sitting were as follows.

Physics U
Mathematics E
Geography C
Business E or U



Educational Background: Doing a Third Year Of A-levels

At this point, with only poor results to my name I was very demotivated and no longer wanted to continue education. I constantly thought about dropping out however, my parents forced me to stay in education and reluctantly resat my AS year.

I certainly worked harder this time, and to an extent knew what to expect. I still found it hard but my A-levels had improved slightly and I decided to swap business for psychology. After my AS exams I received something along the line of these grades.

Physics D
Mathematics C
Geography (A2) C
Psychology (AS) C

In my A2 year I worked immensely hard in physics, I did every question in the book and spent hours a day working on problems. At this point I had only mathematics and physics to focus on. My mathematics had improved and my physics understanding was at its pinnacle. With renewed motivation I felt ready for my first set of exams. This was short-lived as I crumbed in the physics exam, which really demotivated me as I worked so hard and did so well in mock tests. I ended up walking out with an E in the physics exam. To ease the blow I found out I got a C in core 3 mathematics which I thought I had completely bottled.

I entered my final set of A2 exams knowing that I only needed ~25% for a C in mathematics but a lot more in physics. I worked my absolute backside off in the final months and managed to raise my working grade and mock results to an A grade. Thats right, an A grade in the final hardest module in physics. In the final exam I got a B grade, and resat the first unit and got an A.

my results were high enough for me to leave college after 3 years with

Mathematics C
Physics C
Geography (A2) C
Psychology (AS) C

So poor/average results depending on whose standards you go by. With limited options I decided to apply for a 'Science Foundation Year' At Liverpool, Sussex and Loughborough universities. I felt this would be a good choice if I could match or exceed the motivation I had in my final months of physics.



Education At University: Studying A Foundation Year

For those who do not know what a foundation year is I will briefly explain. A foundation year is an additional year taken prior to the main degree. It is often taught at university, by lecturers and you have access to all the university facilities. People take foundation years for numerous reasons which include poor results like mine, taking the wrong subject combinations or holding no formal qualifications. On satisfactory completion of the foundation year progression into the main degree at the designated university.

In a last minute risky decision I opted to study physics with a foundation year at Loughborough. I got a lot of stick for choosing a foundation year. My friends were studying main degrees and often held negative inferior views about a foundation year but I hardly had many options. I put up with the negativity towards foundation years and persevered.

At Loughborough I completely revamped my academic technique and worked harder, far harder than I had ever done before. I will not go into much detail, but I took every piece of work seriously and anything I was weak at I worked on until it was my strength. All the hundreds of hours of effort I put into my work really paid off. My results were far higher than everyone else’s, even the people who had A/B grades and decided to do a foundation year for Various reasons.

My first semester results were as follows

Physics 92%
Mathematics 95% (98% in the exam)
Other modules 75%/86%/91%

These results were some of the highest ever recorded and the highest on the course of 140 people. Which is very impressive considering I joined the foundation year on the bare minimum requirements. With this academic potential I spoke to my course director, who was impressed with my results. I then dropped the bomb shell, I wanted to move university. I applied to some of the top physics courses still available through UCAS, but this was after the deadline so many places were no longer accepting applications.

I continued my work ethic through to my second semester. In this semester my results further improved. my physics laboratory grades improved and I got 100% in my experiments and formal report. This is an absolutely massive improvement on the E grade I got for my physics laboratory experiments at A-level. Overall I turned by weakness of laboratory experiments into my strength, I got 95% overall across 14 experiments, some physics and some chemistry which I had not done before.

My second semester results were as follows

Physics 92%
Mathematics 95% (96% in the exam)
Other modules 83%/88%/90%

Once again, these results were the highest and I was awarded the prestigious award for the highest foundation year results. Ecstatic with these results after being told I could not achieve this.

This leaves me in our current position, just after I have received my results.



Education At University: Applying Through UCAS With Foundation Year Results

I submitted applications to 2 of the best universities for physics which had far higher A-level requirements however, they do accept a foundation year as a recognised access route.

Manchester (A*AA) said they would accept me if I received 80% in Mathematics 1&2 and Physics 1&2 and 75% overall. I really wanted to go to Durham, however they closed applications some time ago but wouldn't accept any new ones. Just as a stroke of luck one day while checking UCAS Durham had vacancies for both physics and theoretical physics.

Optimistic at even thinking to apply with my 'poor' GCSE and A-levels I knew that Durham has a reputation for being strict on grades in GCSE, reinforced by the horror stories i've read on TSR. I submitted an application expecting a straight out rejection due to me having only done 'well' in one year of my academic life and poorly in the rest.

Durham took some time to reply, around 1-1.5 months. When I saw UCAS had changed I was expecting the worst in all honesty. No, Offer! I had received an offer from Durham university for both physics and Theoretical physics. This offer I had already met the requirements for so I effectively had an unconditional offer to study at Durham.



Educational Future: Self Reflection and Thoughts

I really cannot describe how happy I feel, I still do not quite comprehend that I'll be studying physics at Durham University this September. Finally, I have something to be truly proud of after being told I had no hope with physics at high education by both teachers and students, after being told how foundation years are inferior and I should not do one, too look back at all those who ever put me down and say I have received an offer from such a prestigious university for a subject I was told I had no hope at studying, it feels amazing. I can now answer those critics and say 'who goes to a better university now?'.

I do not want this feat to come across easy, or a foundation year a guaranteed access into a prestigious university. To achieve what I did on my course was exceptionally rare, only possible with intense amounts of time dedicated to study. I entered the foundation year with the minimum requirements and left with not only the highest results in the year, I also had the highest ever recorded results. Many students who entered with high grades underachieved on the foundation year but did enough to progress. To achieve the grades I did I worked consistently hard and dedicated many hours a week to my studies. Every academic weakness I had I put hours into study until said topic I not only understood, but it was also my strength.

Thank you for the time reading this, I hope this post inspires others that you can go to a top university from a poor academic background with the right amounts of motivation and work.

For anyone who is interested, I have taken a picture of some of my results and my UCAS track. The results are my first set of maths results before I resat the year and my physics results after I dropped physics and decided to try it again.

Really love the story, so inspirational. I go back to school tomorrow to start A2s and you've motivated me so much, thanks for sharing.

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I think you quoted me a while ago but I can't retrieve it so I'll just drop my own comment here:

Well Loughborough is hardly a lower tier university and you took a foundation course which includes paying a course fee.

Perhaps I'm not one to get flabber-ghasted easily but I'm not overly overwhelmed by your story. If anything I'm surprised people on TSR knew very little about transferals or access courses. I suppose that's due to students getting high grades and going straight into their desired university. Perhaps they find it hard to comprehend that getting sub-standard grades doesn't exclude you from entering 'higher' universities. High grades usually arise due to the competitiveness of a course. However doing well in first year or passing a foundation course means you can be eligible to transfer. What OP has done is easily do-able although don't become complacent, it's better to get in first time. Although my A-level grades are slightly better than yours I didn't get into a top university first time. I did however secure a first at first year and was able to transfer to high ranked universities. I decided not to as I liked my experience at my current university and I also didn't want to pay the £9K fees. I sincerely hope the TSR tales about getting into a top university = success didn't influence you. I hope you genuinely loved the course structure and not the name.

What I can commend you on is bothering to pass A-levels to a satisfactory level and working hard during the foundation course (although I assume it was easier than A-levels as foundation courses normally are). Just focus on trying to secure a 2.1+. You'll be doing really serious stuff now. I hope you enjoy your time at Durham

Not really.

I did a foundation year not an access course. The foundation year is designed for progression at the university I studied at tailored specifically to their needs. Even then the grades you achieve on a foundation year are only enough for a university to consider you, I feel that my reference was what gave me a strong application.

No way does good access/foundation year grades even remotely guarantee you a place at a top university. I have only 1 year where I have produced 'top standard work', every other year of my education has been vastly lower than the standard of work my peers offer. These universities have been rejecting students with great grades, far better than my own.

The grades I achieved are in no way easy to achieve. When I first emailed Manchester asking if I would have a chance and emailed some of my grades (98% and 94% in my Semester 1 maths and physics exams respectively) I was told that was 'more in line' with what they required. Ultimately my offer was an 80% average for the year across all pieces of work. After Semester 1 you would be lucky if 5 students were averaging over 80%, let alone keeping it up for the second semester.

I wanted to transfer to a stronger physics department. Durham and Manchester both have very strong physics departments with some tables putting Manchester at 14th in the world for physics.

Now you're just coming across as arrogant. Head your head out of your arse, the work hasn't begun yet. I appreciate you working hard and I'm not taking that away from you. A foundation course does branch off as an access course. You need to pass in order to study at degree level. Transferring really isn't as difficult as you make it out to be. I experienced it as well as countless others.

OP, Did you go to a state sixth form or an independent one?

No transferring is generally not difficult, but transferring to a competitive university could be seen to be seen as difficult especially considering the quality of the applicants they reject.