Not meeting my offer

I was doing fine in my exams until this week where I had a breakdown before my last two essay exams and wrote terribly for both of them because I got so stressed about my offers and one paper was largely not done properly - for context I have always been predicted by teachers to get As and A stars. both my insurance and firm have high grades bc of my uni course. I know I am not making them for sure - so I was just wondering what options I have rn - I can’t stop thinking about it. I am gutted bc I put in a lot of work and my mental health caved in at the last second and caused me to fail - I’ve been revising throughout sixth form so this has been a complete shock and I don’t know what to do- thanks

1. Read A Guide to the Special Consideration Process to see if there's anything in there which would apply to your "breakdown". For example, perhaps it was a "Flare-up of a psychological condition, a mental health condition". If you can find something that applies, then you can have your sixth form apply to the exam board for special consideration, which would bump your mark up by a few percent in those papers.
2. If there was some underlying cause for the "breakdown", then let you firm or insurance know about those mitigating circumstances. Many unis will have a specific form for this. Whilst they won't lower your offer grades, they may be more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt if you just miss them.
3. Wait and see. You may have done better than you think. Even if you've missed your firm and insurance offers, one or the other may opt to confirm your place anyway. If not, then the course you're hoping to do may be available via Clearing elsewhere. You won't know any of this until results day, unfortunately.

Thank you- I have been in contact with a doctor and the school. The main problem was with my insomnia

Understood. Do you know the root cause of the insomnia?

I always have it during stressful times but it was never as bad as this week where I didn’t sleep for four days before my exam even with melatonin - I did fine on the papers prior to this one so that’s what’s really horrible

OK. Then hopefully you'll find something in the special consideration document which seems applicable, and which would allow your sixth form to apply for it.

I was doing fine in my exams until this week where I had a breakdown before my last two essay exams and wrote terribly for both of them because I got so stressed about my offers and one paper was largely not done properly - for context I have always been predicted by teachers to get As and A stars. both my insurance and firm have high grades bc of my uni course. I know I am not making them for sure - so I was just wondering what options I have rn - I can’t stop thinking about it. I am gutted bc I put in a lot of work and my mental health caved in at the last second and caused me to fail - I’ve been revising throughout sixth form so this has been a complete shock and I don’t know what to do- thanks

hey, sorry i’m not much help but just wanted to say i’m in the exact same boat – you’re definitely not alone. i was predicted A*A*A all year, then had a panic attack in my first politics exam and only wrote one paragraph for the entire paper 😭 lots of my other papers went really badly too. my firm and insurance offers are also high and i already know i’ve missed them by a lot, at this point i don’t even know if ive done enough to scrape an E in politics… now that exams are over it just feels so deflating – i’ve got months to sit with it and accept that i won’t get into either uni i wanted. it’s literally all i can think about and it’s so upsetting, especially after working so hard for two years just for it to fall apart right at the end. i keep going back and forth in my mind between whether i should resit or just go through clearing, but right now i just don’t think i can do another year of alevels, they’ve been so mentally draining, so i think i’m just gonna start looking into other unis in the same city as my firm (i really love the city) and see if any might take me through clearing on results day. it still hurts though, knowing i could’ve gone to a better uni but might have to settle for something else just because of a panic attack and some bad papers in the finals weeks that actually mattered