I’m currently on a Gap year and feeling left behind. Sorry in advance about the lengthy message.
Anyways, my school at AS messed up and I ended up with no teachers for the whole year (except for Physics where my teacher left, I wasn’t taught for 3 months, but then we had a TA teach us instead; she wasn’t very good though). Most people ended up dropping Physics.
For one of the other subjects, my teacher left us near the start of the year and came in purely so he could collect his pay check. He claimed he was stressed out from having a baby. When he did teach, he came in on days where ALevel students didn’t have lessons. The only time he taught us was after the exam (when Yr. 12’s come back in for Yr. 13 preparation).
I complained to the headmaster that I had learnt nothing and was able to change all of my subjects to take them in a year. In the process I ended up being too ambitious and doing some extra ALevels as a private candidate to boost my chances to get in to uni. I ended up with 5A’s and a C (which I’m planning on resitting as I ended up with an A in one module and a U in the other which pulled me down significantly). My sibling also went to prison during that time so didn’t have a great time in ALevel.
My concerns are that I’m trying to apply for a competitive course (i.e. A*AA), but feel that my subject choice is too ‘easy’ due to limited options for doing ALevels in one year. I was also predicted one A and a B last year (nothing else as they had no data). I secured a degree through UCAS extra (which I didn’t want to do, but my head of year really wanted me to do that subject). When I told them I was going on a Gap year they weren’t happy at all and wouldn’t support my new application. Hence, I’ve applied to a new college so hopefully they can write my reference.
This year, I’ve decided to sit two extra ALevels which I’m actually interested in (English and Sociology) which are somewhat desirable for my degree choice. Despite this, even if it’s not Oxbridge, I feel that people that apply for the course I want to apply for have perfect A*’s at GCSE and 4A* predictions in very difficult subjects. I can’t help but feeling like I’m not gonna get in because of the comparison. I don’t know if it’s TSR, studytube or just the people around me have insane grades which initimidates me from applying; my friend applied for an AAB(!) course and had A*A*A and 24 GCSEs (mostly A*/As, Some Bs and 1 D).
Short version: I’m applying for Law and have taken weak subjects. I did okay, but not great in comparison to the predicted/GCSE grades of people that will be applying. I keep seeing comments where people got 5A*’s etc... I don’t know if my ALevels this year will count???