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UCL Questions

What A Levels will I need or Level 3 qualifications or even AS qualifications to access any subject course at UCL? Please only reply if you're a expert, Staff at UCL or student at UCL.
This is a really vague question. Also plenty of people who aren't UCL students could answer this - in fact if you did your research you should be able to answer this yourself.

Ultimately you will need A-levels or an equivalent level 3 qualification such as IB. AS levels alone are not sufficient.

Some degree subjects may require particular subjects be studied in your A-levels/equivalent; others may not. This is dependent on what subject you apply to which will be dependent on your personal interests.

You really need to provide some more context and information to get any substantive answer to this question though.

Reply 2

Original post
by artful_lounger
This is a really vague question. Also plenty of people who aren't UCL students could answer this - in fact if you did your research you should be able to answer this yourself.
Ultimately you will need A-levels or an equivalent level 3 qualification such as IB. AS levels alone are not sufficient.
Some degree subjects may require particular subjects be studied in your A-levels/equivalent; others may not. This is dependent on what subject you apply to which will be dependent on your personal interests.
You really need to provide some more context and information to get any substantive answer to this question though.


Hi i know i could have saved time by answering this question myself but I just thought it could save myself time of endless researching. Anyways I'm open to some tips of what content and information to get a substantive answer to the question is posted. 🙂
Original post
by JSinghaaa
Hi i know i could have saved time by answering this question myself but I just thought it could save myself time of endless researching. Anyways I'm open to some tips of what content and information to get a substantive answer to the question is posted. 🙂

Honestly just start with the UCL website, they have lots of information about that :smile:

UK universities are pretty transparent about their requirements and what qualifications you need.

First step is figuring out what course you want to study though, then check the requirements for that specific course.

Reply 4

Original post
by artful_lounger
Honestly just start with the UCL website, they have lots of information about that :smile:
UK universities are pretty transparent about their requirements and what qualifications you need.
First step is figuring out what course you want to study though, then check the requirements for that specific course.


Ok thanks. I'm looking to get a PHD from the uni at most not only a degree. So would I do a graduate course without doing a undergraduate or any other type of course to get a PHD? 🤔
Original post
by JSinghaaa
Ok thanks. I'm looking to get a PHD from the uni at most not only a degree. So would I do a graduate course without doing a undergraduate or any other type of course to get a PHD? 🤔


You need to do an undergraduate degree before you apply to do a PhD - you can do your undergrad at UCL or elsewhere before doing a PhD at UCL. Some PhD programmes may need a masters as well, which again need not necessarily be at the same uni as either the undergrad or the PhD.

Reply 6

Original post
by artful_lounger
You need to do an undergraduate degree before you apply to do a PhD - you can do your undergrad at UCL or elsewhere before doing a PhD at UCL. Some PhD programmes may need a masters as well, which again need not necessarily be at the same uni as either the undergrad or the PhD.


Ok so i would need to apply for a undergraduate or a masters first to get on a PHD just to confirm? Because if I need to apply for masters which higher than a undergraduate then why not just apply for the masters even though I've never been to uni before?
Original post
by JSinghaaa
Ok so i would need to apply for a undergraduate or a masters first to get on a PHD just to confirm? Because if I need to apply for masters which higher than a undergraduate then why not just apply for the masters even though I've never been to uni before?


The order is undergraduate bachelors or masters (-> postgraduate masters if applicable) -> PhD. You can't apply to a postgraduate masters or a PhD without first doing an undergraduate degree.

There are some integrated undergraduate masters courses available however e.g. MMath, MChem, MPhys, MEng, MSci (disctinct from an MSc which is a postgraduate masters) - these are primarily in STEM fields and integrate an additional year (nominally) at masters level. In the UK it's typical to apply directly from e.g. an MEng directly to a PhD (but not from a BEng). For humanities and social sciences fields usually PhD programmes expect a postgraduate masters on top of a bachelors as there aren't many such integrated undergraduate masters courses in those areas.

Fundamentally I think you're getting way ahead of yourself though - it seems you're currently a GCSE student? Focus on picking what A-levels you want to do (consider also what degree subject(s) you want to do and the requirements for those - most STEM fields require you to have done certain A-level subjects first for example) and then once you're in your A-levels start thinking about undergraduate degrees.

Don't even consider postgraduate stuff until you're in your undergrad, it's just not worth planning that far ahead at this point and until you're in undergrad you won't have a good sense of which direction you want to specialise in if remaining in academia or indeed if you're on track for that to be a realistic option.

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