Take our quiz to find out what your revision personality is! >>

GCSE's

Ezekiel M

How important are they?

Reply 1

Obsidian♡Hart

very important, they are the basics almost everyone needs.

Reply 2

redcandy

They are important but it’s not the end of the world if you don’t get the grades you expect. Always try to achieve your absolute best. I like to view GCSE’s as a stepping stone to sixth form/college. Most universities do have entry requirements for your Maths and English GCSEs.

Reply 3

PinkMobilePhone

Volunteer Team

Not half as important as people will make out that they are. There are some career choices in which they are essential to put you on the right path (e.g. medicine), but many many other career paths have so many other ways to get into them.

Maths and English Language are the main ones - a lot of employers and universities want you to have those. That being said, you can get into uni as a mature student without them a lot of the time, so you'd still cope without them if needs be.

If you're wanting to take a Level 3 BTEC or A Levels, then try to get at least 5 GCSEs at grades 4 or above under your belt. I mean go for 8 if you're trying to get into a super competitive sixth form college, or you're wanting to do medicine or something, but otherwise 5 is usually sufficient for keeping all doors open for you.

However, if you fail absolutely all of your GCSEs, or didn't take them in the first place, there are still other paths through life, it just limits your options a bit (or means you have to go down a bunch of other routes to get to where you want to be). For some careers it really doesn't matter whether you have them or not.

Let's not forget - Richard Branson left school without any qualifications and is now worth over 2 billion dollars :wink: