One fail at nationals

I’ve got my results and I got 5 A’s biology art french English modern studies , 1 B at chemistry and a fail at math all at national 5 level, I’ve appealed math but I’m worried this will affect me getting into uni in the future, I’m putting in all the work now and am hoping to achieve all A’s at higher, will I be ok ?

Firstly congratulations on your excellent results in 6 of your subjects, and I hope that one fail won't be making it too difficult to celebrate your successes.

I didn't think there were many grounds for appeal this year other than admin errors, what are you appealing on? Does your school support your appeal?

If your plan is to go to uni, you need to research universities and courses to find out what their entry requirements are. Depending on your course maths might not be required as a Higher, but some might request a NAT5 grade as it is a core subject. Most STEM subjects will require good maths grades. Look at each of the Uni websites for details of how you can contact them to ask for admissions advice.

There are many pathways, if you need maths for your course you could resit NAT5 maths in S5, then do Higher in S6. If your school lets you, you could do Higher Maths without the NAT5 pass, but you need to be really honest with yourself why you failed math NAT5 and if this is achievable as many find the jump to Higher maths significant. You could go to college after school and do an HNC/HND before applying for uni etc.

Hi thank you ! My school is letting me pick higher math this year but I’m still wondering if that one fail will affect me when I’m applying and wether umis will look at my national 5s I’m appealing based on an error of judgment

What would the "error of judgement" be? Maths was quite clean cut in our school - final maths assessments were sat and that was the demonstrated evidence that determined your grade. I have friends, top set maths, targeted/working grade A who flunked the final assessment and got Cs - they won't get their grades lifted because they were able to do better.

The reason I am asking about your appeal is I am strong in maths (I know my weaknesses, I am poor at essay subjects!), I got an A1 in my final higher assessment, and I found the jump from NAT5 to Higher significant (but fun), if you failed your NAT5 assessment are you really sure you are ready for the jump to Higher? Your choices are:

Re-sit NAT5 in S5 then do Higher S6
Do Higher over two years in S5/S6
Do Higher in S5

It all depends on the combination of university and course what they would accept as they are all different - some won't accept Higher over two years, some won't accept a second sitting. All going well, taking Higher maths now and passing should prove the NAT5 mark was just a blip, but if you fail again you risk being left with nothing in Maths and compound the problem if all you needed for your preferred course was NAT5.

I can say, I found higher Maths way more different than national five maths though there is some continuation on factorising and sin, cos and tan which is called polynomials and waves etc... There’s no arc and sectors or scientific notation and it involved a lot more remembering. You could get a C in higher maths (maybe even a B if the papers nice) if you study and remember the rules of things such as differentiation and integration and do a couple of past papers over and over again etc... but if you study hard, do all past papers, study for tests and not just the exam, be serious and enthusiastic, constantly going over rules and the reasons behind those rules and do problem solving questions and understand those problem solving questions, you could get a B or an A in maths. Would you mind telling me why you think you got a fail in maths? Did you study or not? Did you study but other factors such as mental health came in? Did you study and then got blank or panicked? There can be so many reasons so I don’t really know how to give the best advice right now. Difference between a C and an A candidate in higher maths is that the A candidate understands what they do and why they do it whereas a C candidate only remembers what to do based on the rules they studied. Only remembering things and not having a clear understanding to why that’s the case such as your basic C candidate means that you may struggle with problem solving questions or if there has been something added to the question then the C candidate may also struggle. I can say though, if you are willing to put in lots or effort and work to get an A in higher maths, then go for it.