Last year my AS results were ABBC in History, Economics, Maths and Chem respectively. As a result of these grades I couldn't apply to the places I originally wanted to go to for Economics (Oxbridge, Warwick etc). I retook two papers from Maths and one paper from Economics and ended up with A*A*A in History, Economics and Maths respectively. Even though I have an offer from Nottingham for Economics, both friends and teachers have asked whether I've considered looking at a gap year and reapplying. It seemed tempting and I can't lie, it still is. However, I'm concerned that if I were to re-apply to places like Cambridge, Warwick, Durham etc for Econ then they would think my application is a lot weaker than other candidates. Furthermore, with places like Cambridge who look at UMS, they'll look at the AS result rather than the retakes. As well as this, the A2 maths papers' UMS weren't as great as they should have been, which worries me more.
So would re-applying mean that the universities will think my application is weaker than the others? Is taking a gap year with my current grades worth it?