The Student Room Group

Very Frustrated

I enrol for College next Wednesday to do Access to HE but in the letter I received, it doesn't tell me if I'm doing full-time or part-time. If I am put in for part-time, I wouldn't bother with the course. Reason why is because I currently hold a D in GCSE Maths, I have no plans to resit it, there's honestly no way I can approve on that grade and every time I try to sit it, something bad always happens that's not my fault. The degree I want to do is nothing Maths related (It's Creative Writing). My family don't want me to do part-time either because of the length of the course. I have no problem with the course content itself, just this issue with full-time or part-time. What should I do?


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Original post by BritishBookworm
I enrol for College next Wednesday to do Access to HE but in the letter I received, it doesn't tell me if I'm doing full-time or part-time. If I am put in for part-time, I wouldn't bother with the course. Reason why is because I currently hold a D in GCSE Maths, I have no plans to resit it, there's honestly no way I can approve on that grade and every time I try to sit it, something bad always happens that's not my fault. The degree I want to do is nothing Maths related (It's Creative Writing). My family don't want me to do part-time either because of the length of the course. I have no problem with the course content itself, just this issue with full-time or part-time. What should I do?


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Call and ask.
Call them and discuss. Just a word of warning though decent universities (Russel Groups) will want a C or above in Maths and English. Without that you're going to have to apply to less prestigious universities.
Original post by Cheddarcheese412
Call them and discuss. Just a word of warning though decent universities (Russel Groups) will want a C or above in Maths and English. Without that you're going to have to apply to less prestigious universities.


The universities that I'm interested in going to are not in the Russel group but I'll ring them up, thanks.
Original post by Friffinghell
Call and ask.


Will do.
Reply 5
To add to what's been said above, the GCSE English/Maths grade C requirement isn't specific to Russell Group unis. I currently work at a post-92 uni which won't consider candidates for any degree courses without those GCSE grades. Proof of a basic level of literacy and numeracy are mandatory for all applicants. You may be able to shop around for unis which accept a lower Maths grade for your chosen degree, but you're limiting your choices - and there is the possibility that you may not find one.

Many colleges won't let you enrol on an Access course without those GCSE grades, for that reason. There's no point you doing a qualification which is only used for uni entry, if your other qualifications mean that you'd be unlikely to get into uni anyway. It may be that your college will only permit you to enrol part-time, as they expect you to retake the GCSE Maths alongside the Access course.
Original post by Klix88
To add to what's been said above, the GCSE English/Maths grade C requirement isn't specific to Russell Group unis. I currently work at a post-92 uni which won't consider candidates for any degree courses without those GCSE grades. Proof of a basic level of literacy and numeracy are mandatory for all applicants. You may be able to shop around for unis which accept a lower Maths grade for your chosen degree, but you're limiting your choices - and there is the possibility that you may not find one.

Many colleges won't let you enrol on an Access course without those GCSE grades, for that reason. There's no point you doing a qualification which is only used for uni entry, if your other qualifications mean that you'd be unlikely to get into uni anyway. It may be that your college will only permit you to enrol part-time, as they expect you to retake the GCSE Maths alongside the Access course.


I do have a level 2 Maths qualification in Functional Skills but apparently that wasn't good enough? I was told by my old College (one I'm returning to do Access) that it was OK since it was equivalent to GCSE level so not to bother with doing GCSE again. Have I literally been told the wrong thing by the College? I did receive an unconditional offer to do Access to HE.


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Reply 7
Original post by BritishBookworm
I do have a level 2 Maths qualification in Functional Skills but apparently that wasn't good enough? I was told by my old College (one I'm returning to do Access) that it was OK since it was equivalent to GCSE level so not to bother with doing GCSE again. Have I literally been told the wrong thing by the College? I did receive an unconditional offer to do Access to HE.


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You may very well have been given out of date information by your college. All UK unis stopped accepting functional equivalents a couple of years ago, as standards across courses were so variable. Even the english and maths content of Access courses was seen as having the same problem. Unis settled on GCSEs as the only standardised test of a uniformly acceptable quality.

You now need to approach the Admissions Offices of a few unis for yourself. As you have an idea of the degree you're aiming for, you can probably identify a handful of unis you might think about applying to. They won't mind an email from a prospective mature applicant.
Original post by Klix88
You may very well have been given out of date information by your college. All UK unis stopped accepting functional equivalents a couple of years ago, as standards across courses were so variable. Even the english and maths content of Access courses was seen as having the same problem. Unis settled on GCSEs as the only standardised test of a uniformly acceptable quality.

You now need to approach the Admissions Offices of a few unis for yourself. As you have an idea of the degree you're aiming for, you can probably identify a handful of unis you might think about applying to. They won't mind an email from a prospective mature applicant.


I honestly appreciate your replies to my general query from a few days ago. I'm honestly disgusted that I was given out of date information by my old College. It's not the Maths work or teachers I find a problem, it's the exam. Should I not bother enrolling next Wednesday and instead look for a full-time job? There's not much point trying to enrol for something else at my old College because A, I'm too old and B, There's nothing else there that appeals to me. Thanks again!


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Reply 9
Original post by BritishBookworm
I honestly appreciate your replies to my general query from a few days ago. I'm honestly disgusted that I was given out of date information by my old College. It's not the Maths work or teachers I find a problem, it's the exam. Should I not bother enrolling next Wednesday and instead look for a full-time job? There's not much point trying to enrol for something else at my old College because A, I'm too old and B, There's nothing else there that appeals to me. Thanks again!


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As I suggested above, try contacting some unis and ask for yourself. You may find some where GCSE Maths is negotiable for an English-based course, but you won't know unless you ask. You need to be proactive and not wait for the college to feed you info - they don't sound like they're up to date.

All you need to do is be more self-reliant and go and find out for yourself. You can easily draft an email which you can then cut-paste-edit for a range of unis. It's less than an hour's work to draft the email and look up a few contact uni Admissions Office email addresses. You can expect knock-backs but you may just hit paydirt - you don't ask, you don't get. Get to it and good luck!
Reply 10
P.S. I started uni aged 44, so you'll get no sympathy on the "I'm too old" front ;D
Just redo your Maths GCSE and get a proper grade. Honestly if you can't get higher than D in gcse maths then you don't deserve to be in Uni.
Original post by Klix88
As I suggested above, try contacting some unis and ask for yourself. You may find some where GCSE Maths is negotiable for an English-based course, but you won't know unless you ask. You need to be proactive and not wait for the college to feed you info - they don't sound like they're up to date.

All you need to do is be more self-reliant and go and find out for yourself. You can easily draft an email which you can then cut-paste-edit for a range of unis. It's less than an hour's work to draft the email and look up a few contact uni Admissions Office email addresses. You can expect knock-backs but you may just hit paydirt - you don't ask, you don't get. Get to it and good luck!


Just done some research and made a list of universities to contact first thing tomorrow! Thanks for the well-wishes :smile:
I completed my access course 9 days ago and not only is it full time but also intense. The purpose is to give you enough UCAS points to gain entry to uni so they will have core subjects (maths, comms and Psychology at my (now former) college) but they need to make the points up with other modules. I started on 5 days a week which dropped to 4 days then 3 after the maths exam. This is in Scotland though so it may differ in other areas but I cant imagine it being much different, perhaps only the specific modules which do differ according to the access course
Original post by Richard0328
I completed my access course 9 days ago and not only is it full time but also intense. The purpose is to give you enough UCAS points to gain entry to uni so they will have core subjects (maths, comms and Psychology at my (now former) college) but they need to make the points up with other modules. I started on 5 days a week which dropped to 4 days then 3 after the maths exam. This is in Scotland though so it may differ in other areas but I cant imagine it being much different, perhaps only the specific modules which do differ according to the access course


That's really interesting, thank you for sharing your experience and congratulations on finishing the course! Mine is 3 days a week full-time. Just out of interest, are you going to University in Scotland? I am interested in going to Edinburgh to study. :smile:


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Original post by BritishBookworm
That's really interesting, thank you for sharing your experience and congratulations on finishing the course! Mine is 3 days a week full-time. Just out of interest, are you going to University in Scotland? I am interested in going to Edinburgh to study. :smile:


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thank you
I only applied for Stirling and now I have passed my conditions for my place on BSc Psychology. It sounds like I made the right choice. I heard at the open day last week that Stirlings lecturers are very approachable and effectively take students by the hand to get them through the course. I do not know if this is common practice within the university community but it certainly explains their reviews and reputation.
I did enjoy the access course even though it was a lot of pressure in April and May. It was challenging but worthwhile even for the new skills that we learned along the way. There were bad days too but mostly enjoyable.
Original post by Cheddarcheese412
Call them and discuss. Just a word of warning though decent universities (Russel Groups) will want a C or above in Maths and English. Without that you're going to have to apply to less prestigious universities.


Wouldn't necessarily agree. I got offers from York/QMUL and KCL and have a D in GCSE Maths.
Just an update! I enrolled yesterday and they let me on the course with a D in Maths. Have researched Unis that I'm interested in and they don't need C in Maths (only Cs in English or a Science).


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Reply 18
Original post by BritishBookworm
Just an update! I enrolled yesterday and they let me on the course with a D in Maths. Have researched Unis that I'm interested in and they don't need C in Maths (only Cs in English or a Science).


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Great to know - thanks for the update. Good luck!

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