How do tariff points work?

How does the tarriff points work?

Reply 1

Each qualification gives a number of points depending on grade and type of qualification, which are then summed to a total. Not every qualification is included - generally only Level 3 qualifications (AS, A-Level, some BTECs, not GCSE) are included. If you do an AS and an A-Level in the same subject, only the higher one is counted.

The tariff system isn't actually used by that many universities anymore, with many of them preferring a specific grade requirement (e.g. ABB), as there are points given out for qualifications that may be of little relevance to your degree. Some may have a mixed system, where they may specify a number of points but specify a subject or say that only A-Levels, BTECs etc count towards them.

They had an older system which worked near-identically but with different numbers of points for each qualification so if you see an older post where someone has like ten A-Levels worth of UCAS points, they were probably calculating using the old system.