The Student Room Group

Applying to Cambridge whilst doing a levels in a year

I’m a year 12 student who has already gone down a year and I’m at a college. Due to mental health issues and various other factors in the last year I’ve done terribly, missed school, very poor work and just failed my progress tests which my predicted grades would be based on. I know it’s a long shot but my family are happy to pay for me to try to do a levels in a year with tutors working over the summer for about 10 hours a day. I really love my subjects and did well in my GCSEs and if I managed to study basically a year’s worth of content over summer from what I know in theory I could take progress tests in September to get a predicted grade to apply to Cambridge in October. I know actually being able to get those grades in a short amount of time would be very hard but does anyone know if applying like this would be allowed? I know it would be very difficult but I really want to be able to apply.
It's allowed. I'm not sure why you don't just resit the year and apply as normal?
Reply 2
I'd much rather be in my actual school year when at uni but thank you for your reply.
Original post by thamdel119
I'd much rather be in my actual school year when at uni but thank you for your reply.

I doubt it's as big of a deal as you think. Ultimately, unless your life has turned itself on its head in the past few months, I really doubt you'll manage to do 2 years of sixth form in one year as well as making a competitive application to Cambridge. If your only concern is being a year older than (some - gap years aren't uncommon) other students it's not worth doing it all in a year.
Original post by thamdel119
I'd much rather be in my actual school year when at uni but thank you for your reply.


That doesn't make any sense though.

a) You won't be going to Uni with your school friends
b) Very many people take a gap year and are a year older anyway
c) It's part of progressing to adult life that your life timings are no longer governed by your age - no-one will give a fig that you are one or two or three or more years older when you start uni, graduate from uni, start a job etc

You are simply setting yourself up to fail again if you try and cram two year's work into one and still pitch for Cambridge.
Cambridge has 3 colleges which are only for students aged 21 or over. You don't need to be 18 to start at Cambridge!

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