The Student Room Group

HELP! Low UCAS points!

Hi,

I'm doing a sandwich course (my 3rd year is a year of work and a 10,000 word research experiment/study - like a dissertation) in Applied Psychology. I'm doing well and am getting 1st's consistently on coursework and exams, and have work experience as a research assistant, which is ideal as I want to go into academia. My sandwich year will also provide work experience obviously.

However I go to a very low-ranking university as I only got 200 ucas points (my course is BPS approved though). This was because I was a victim of a very personal and violent crime during my time at college, and, at only 16 at the time, I kept it to myself and didnt get any help untill 2 years later, and my attendance went from 100% to below 30% very quickly and I ended up with only 2 a levels and one as level.

Unless I have about 280-300 ucas points I will be automatically filtered out of graduate schemes and job applications. Even if I am not, I dont want to explain why my points are so low, nor do I have any proof as I didnt file a police report. and if I did, I wouldn't let anybody see it.

As I have time.. Should I re-take my A levels?? Do new ones??

Looking on google and a few places say that employers dont want someone who took so long to get a levels, or will only take into account the scores you got first time round.

All applications I look at have a box for UCAS points?! How do I get around this?

How has anybody else got around their low points?

PLEASE HELP! thankyou x
(edited 9 years ago)
Reply 1
As far as I am aware A Levels are not taken account of by post-graduate admissions tutors (perhaps except where people have unusual degree-level qualifications). If you do finish with a first, get good references and write a good personal statement I am sure that you will not be held back.

Somebody you trust in your department might be able to give you some more specific advice.
(edited 9 years ago)
Reply 2
Original post by Shelsey
As far as I am aware A Levels are not taken account of by post-graduate admissions tutors (perhaps except where people have unusual degree-level qualifications). If you do finish with a first, get good references and write a good personal statement I am sure that you will not be held back.

Somebody you trust in your department might be able to give you some more specific advice.

I believe the OP is referring to employers' graduate recruitment schemes rather than academic postgraduate admissions, some of which do use UCAS points as part of their initial filtering of applicants.

When I looked into the KPMG Graduate Recruitment Scheme, I found some (very small) print which said that they had the discretion to waive the UCAS points requirement. However I understood that this would only apply to the most excellent candidates and thus read it as being very difficult to bypass the UCAS points issue. I assume that you would need something like a track record in a particular area of their business, or an excellent recommendation from someone high-ranking who already works there.

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