Taking int. A-level exams as an adult without IGCSE

You can take any a level you want without doing a gcse in it.
You can pay £500 or so and get distance learning tuition for the subject (and buy revision text books)

The main issue is finding an exam centre to do the exam -for say politics/maths it may be easy as just exam papers but anything with practicals (science or language) or any course work elements would be more expensive (assuming they even offer it)

Reply 2

OP

Original post by Catherine1973

You can take any a level you want without doing a gcse in it.
You can pay £500 or so and get distance learning tuition for the subject (and buy revision text books)

The main issue is finding an exam centre to do the exam -for say politics/maths it may be easy as just exam papers but anything with practicals (science or language) or any course work elements would be more expensive (assuming they even offer it)

Thanks for replying, regarding exam centres, I can come to the UK visa free at any time so I don't think it should be a problem if you meant by exam centres those found outside the UK, but are you saying that exam centres inside the UK might not offer practicals?? if so then what would an international student do instead?

Reply 3

EBluebear

12

Computer Science is almost impossible to achieve as a private candidate with domestic A levels (because of the need to do non-examination assessment) - the best option is CAIE's International A level in Computer Science. Maths and Further Maths are 100% assessed by exam so there are no particular issues with those.

If you are 27 and have qualifications from elsewhere, your best bet would be to talk to Oxford about what qualifications you'd need. Don't just assume you need to achieve the standard collection from 18 year olds in the UK.

Reply 4

OP

Thanks for replying
Please give more detailed info if you can, what do you mean CAIE, is it related to the university of Cambridge??

Also what’s with this assessment? You mean it’s impossible because it is difficult or because it isn’t accessible to non-UK individuals?

I should also mention that I’m particularly good with CS stuff, I’ve taken several Coursera/Udemy courses related to CS in general, programming languages and also discrete math
Any further clarification from you is much appreciated

Original post by EBluebear

Computer Science is almost impossible to achieve as a private candidate with domestic A levels (because of the need to do non-examination assessment) - the best option is CAIE's International A level in Computer Science. Maths and Further Maths are 100% assessed by exam so there are no particular issues with those.

If you are 27 and have qualifications from elsewhere, your best bet would be to talk to Oxford about what qualifications you'd need. Don't just assume you need to achieve the standard collection from 18 year olds in the UK.

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 5

juicygcse

13

Original post by TheDudeAhmed

Thanks for replying
Please give more detailed info if you can, what do you mean CAIE, is it related to the university of Cambridge??

Also what’s with this assessment? You mean it’s impossible because it is difficult or because it isn’t accessible to non-UK individuals?

I should also mention that I’m particularly good with CS stuff, I’ve taken several Coursera/Udemy courses related to CS in general, programming languages and also discrete math
Any further clarification from you is much appreciated

CAIE is the international A level exam board - its what all non-UK students taking A levels do, regardless of whether they are applying to Cambridge or not. This is what you would sit if you were registering for exams outside of the UK, if you were going to take the A levels inside the UK then it is more likely you would do a British exam board (the more common ones include Edexcel, AQA and OCR)

The reason the other commenter said it is nearly impossible to take internal (British, so not CAIE) A level computer science as a private candidate is because it requires coursework, otherwise known as a NEA or a non-examination assessment, which requires a lot more loopholes to get this done as a private candidate - many private candidate centres won't offer this, so it could limit your options and will mean it costs more. Also note that computer science A level is not a requirement for studying computer science at Cambridge or pretty much any other UK university

Do you have equivalent post-16 qualifications from your own country?
https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/international-students/international-entry-requirements - have a look and see if your qualifications are on here to see if you actually need to do A levels
https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying/entrance-requirements - also here for some of the more common ones

Reply 6

EBluebear

12

Original post by TheDudeAhmed

Thanks for replying
Please give more detailed info if you can, what do you mean CAIE, is it related to the university of Cambridge??

Also what’s with this assessment? You mean it’s impossible because it is difficult or because it isn’t accessible to non-UK individuals?

CAIE - Cambridge Assessment International Education. It's the international arm of Cambridge assessment and offers international A levels (OCR is the equivalent in the UK). It is one of the exam boards offering international A levels (Pearson Edexcel IAL and Oxford AQA being others). It's not related to the University of Cambridge.

Domestic Comp Sci A levels have non-examination assessment (NEA) which has to be supervised by an exam centre, this is administratively almost impossible for private candidates as you don't have that relationship with a centre and so they can't sign off to say that it is your work. The requirement for NEA is laid down effectively by the UK government but international A levels don't have this restriction so it makes them more accessible to private candidates, in the UK and abroad. It has nothing to do with the relative difficulty of the content.

UK A level and international A levels are considered equivalent by universities.

Reply 7

OP

Thanks all for replying you made the picture clearer to me
But if you could bear me just a few more questions, please:

1- if I can enter the UK without a visa and can stay for a long time there, can I have domestic CS A-levels and be supervised by an exam center or is it totally impossible and I would rather have to do so as an international student? I mean is it strict to UK nationals?

2- I want to know which exam board Oxford university uses for CS ? So I know where to concentrate my efforts?

Thanks in advance

Reply 8

As far as I know uk residents can do the i-levels and vice versa. My friend did science I gcse to avoid the practical side.

But you still need to find someone who will do it.

Oxford won’t see about which exam board you choose, assuming they accept the overseas qualifications.

Reply 9

https://oxbridgehomelearning.uk/course/a-level-computer-science/?utm_medium=ppc&utm_source=adwords&utm_campaign=A-Level+(OBX)&utm_term=a-level%20computer%20science%20online&hsa_ad=590273587181&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-435836996373&hsa_mt=e&hsa_cam=689085058&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_kw=a-level%20computer%20science%20online&hsa_ver=3&hsa_acc=8307087040&hsa_grp=119850064686&gclid=Cj0KCQjw2_OWBhDqARIsAAUNTTET8yMNQmqZnn2lnbe2z2sK4siaIiT3yaFlwwHxw2vq24XcN9HJc-QaAqkEEALw_wcB
This place does it and says will find exam centre (but is I-version) but googling should find you non i versions if they exist)

Reply 10

This place says it does computer science a level exams

https://www.examcentrelondon.co.uk/a-level-exam-centre-in-london/

Reply 11

EBluebear

12

Original post by TheDudeAhmed

1- if I can enter the UK without a visa and can stay for a long time there, can I have domestic CS A-levels and be supervised by an exam center or is it totally impossible and I would rather have to do so as an international student? I mean is it strict to UK nationals?

2- I want to know which exam board Oxford university uses for CS ? So I know where to concentrate my efforts?

Thanks in advance

1. As far as I know, no exam centres accept private candidates to do a domestic A level Computer Science - the AQA specification states it is not open to private candidates, the other possible exam boards aren't as clear about it but the hours of supervision necessary makes it far too expensive to be feasible. The people who do take Comp Sci A level in the UK as private candidates take the international A level with CAIE to get round this problem. (Pearson Edexcel IAL is not available in the UK).

No one cares what your nationality is when entering for GCSEs, IGCSEs or A levels. The only thing that can matter is the country you are in at the time.

2. Oxford university does use an exam board as such, any A level (domestic or international) in a particular subject will be treated the same by the admissions team, regardless of the board used. The majority of UK students' A levels will be with more than one board, because different departments at their school have chosen different ones - e.g. Maths with Edexcel, Physics with OCR and Chemistry with AQA. Universities are fine with this.

Reply 12

OP