How important are GCSEs in general to an application to uni?

The title is pretty self explanatory.

Volunteer Team, Clearing and Applications Advisor

Not that important, unless you're applying for Oxbridge or Medicine (and even in these cases there are caveats as to how GCSEs are considered in your application). For the vast majority of people, you just simply need to clear a minimum grade on some GCSEs - typically this is just a 6 or above in Maths and English - and that's it.

Reply 2

Admit-One

Universities Forum Helper

It’s depends on the specific course.

As above, for the vast majority of courses in the UK, only Maths and Eng minimum grades are critical.

For a very small number of highly competitive courses, they might score your GCSE profile, or part of it. But even so, it’s just one part of the application.