Can I still withdraw from an A Level?

I'm doing 4 a levels but I got an offer which I only need two to meet. So I was thinking of withdrawing from the other two and saving myself some revision time. It's not very clear when I can withdraw from the exam from online website. Does anyone know? I'll hopefully call about it tomorrow. This is for Edexcel Maths and History. I'm very behind in both subjects, I don't want to risk failing. Especially in maths, I could cram history and do well but not Maths. I'm so behind with the content. I got an offer from UCL and they've said that if I'm taking maths it will be included in my offer, if I'm not taking maths It won't be included in my offer.

Before you withdraw, make sure you check with your firm and insurance choices. Even if the offer is based on three A levels, you told them via your UCAS application that you'd be taking four. So if you don't take four then they could theoretically complain that your UCAS application wasn't correct.
As long as you sit the exams (even if you get a U) this potential issue goes away. It also goes away if you tell them you're planning to drop one subject and they say "fine". Then you just need to tell your school / college that you won't be turning up for the exams. (It's too late now to officially withdraw, so you'd just be marked as absent if you took this approach.)

Hi, why would I be marked absent? The website says that I can withdraw until 2 weeks before results are published.

They said it was okay for me to drop maths, I will ask about history today. Thank you for the response.

Are you referring to Edexcel's Late entries, amendments and withdrawals page? It says:
"You can withdraw entries up to 14 days before results are published. Although you cannot normally withdraw a candidate after they have sat an exam or test, you may be able to do so under exceptional circumstances."
What "exceptional circumstances" apply here?
As long as you get your school to withdraw you before you sit your first paper (23rd May?) you should be fine. I'm assuming here that the fact that you have likely submitted your History coursework by now does not count here - although I don't know for sure.
The "no show" approach just seems simpler. You'd receive an X for the subject, which means "the student was absent from all parts of the examination."

Hi,
I’m in a similiar situation - if I’m marked as absent rather than withdrawing the entry, would that appear on my results/certificate when I go to receive them and would I have to declare the ‘no result’ on UCAS? Or will it never appear on my record in any way?

Hi,
I’m in a similiar situation - if I’m marked as absent rather than withdrawing the entry, would that appear on my results/certificate when I go to receive them and would I have to declare the ‘no result’ on UCAS? Or will it never appear on my record in any way?

As I said in the post you've replied to, you'd receive an X for the subject.
That would appear on your results slip, although I'm fairly sure they don't print actual certificates for "no shows".
In terms of UCAS, they say here that "You must enter all your qualifications from secondary education onwards – whether you have the result (even any that were ungraded) or you’re still awaiting exams and results." So that don't explicitly say that you can (or should) omit any that you didn't even attempt (as you didn't show up) but that's how I'd interpret it.

Hi, thanks for your reply. I’m in a bit of a pickle. I contacted my school and they said I would get an ‘x’ on my results certificate - this isn’t the end of the world but it is highly undesirable, as I know from friends that several law apprenticeships ask to see them.
Unfortunately my exams officer is refusing to withdraw me because they’re very busy, which I do not doubt and sympathise with as I understand that it is the middle of exams season right now. However, this is highly important to me as if I’m not formally withdrawn I’ve just paid a lot of money to not only not sit an exam, but to actively negatively impact my future.
Do you know how complicated is the withdrawals process? If you do could you please describe exactly what it entails? The exams officer said it was highly complicated, but I have no way of verifying this. Also would it be possible for me to fill out the withdrawal forms myself and then just have the officer send them through on my behalf? I really do understand that they’re busy, so I’d be willing to do it myself if that helped them.

The process will vary by exam board, and will be on-line rather than via a paper form. Here is the process for AQA (from this page).
"How to withdraw an entry on Centre Services
1. Log in to Centre Services
2. Go to the Pre-entries tab in the menu.
3. Then Entries > Entry submissions.
4. Under Maintain candidate entry, enter the series year and code.
5. Select Search.
6. Find the student in the search results table at the bottom of the page.
7. Select Edit in the action column.
8. Select Withdraw in the action column next to the relevant component code .
9. Select Yes when the confirmation window appears."
Several steps, but not massively complicated.

Hi thank you so much. The exam board is OCR - I may email their support team and ask them for a breakdown of the process, before I go any further. Although I’m hoping that it’s not too difficult as their website says that a benefit of Interchange system is that it’s easy to make changes on there. If it turns out to not be very complex, how would you recommend broaching the issue? I don’t think the exams officer will be very receptive to me telling them that their job isn’t as complex as they claim it is, but I’m not sure how else to raise this issue. Like I said I really do appreciate that they’re busy, and I wish that I could do it myself but if OCR has a similiar process this doesn’t seem like it would be the Herculean effort that they’re making it out to be.

Ah. The OCR process is positively medieval by comparison. You can get a sense of it by reading this web page (if your school uses A2C) or this page (if they use Interchange).
OCR seem to allow withdrawals even after you've already sat an exam. See this page which says (with my added emphasis):
"After a certain point – approximately one week before the issue of results for each series (see key dates) – it is no longer possible to make changes to the qualification details; only corrections to a candidate’s personal details will be accepted. This is also the final deadline for withdrawing entries."
Clearly your school's exams officer will be busy whilst exams are happening. However, they might be a time after exams have finished but before term ends where they could withdraw you. So if you're going to ask the OCR support team anything, I'd ask them to confirm that you can be withdrawn even after having missed each exam, and ask them what the final date for doing so is.
Then, armed with that information, explain to your exams officer why a withdrawal would be of benefit to you (rather than having an X on your results slip) and ask whether they would be in a position to process the withdrawal by whatever date the OCR support team supplied.

Hi thank you so much. The exam board is OCR - I may email their support team and ask them for a breakdown of the process, before I go any further. Although I’m hoping that it’s not too difficult as their website says that a benefit of Interchange system is that it’s easy to make changes on there. If it turns out to not be very complex, how would you recommend broaching the issue? I don’t think the exams officer will be very receptive to me telling them that their job isn’t as complex as they claim it is, but I’m not sure how else to raise this issue. Like I said I really do appreciate that they’re busy, and I wish that I could do it myself but if OCR has a similiar process this doesn’t seem like it would be the Herculean effort that they’re making it out to be.

hi, I have a similar situation however I already sat the first exam and was unable to drop before I sat the exam as I wasn’t aware that there was a chance to drop the morning of the exam. My exams officer said she can’t pull me out as I was present but I do 4 a levels and only need 3 so I’m not sure whether if I still show up to exams or not show from now on either way will it affect my unis as seeing a Es/Us along with As wouldn’t look so great.