To retake A levels or not?

AMSC1907

To cut a long story short, I recieved my A level grades in August and didn't do as well as I'd hoped.
I took A-level Sociology, Philosophy and Biology.
In sociology and philosophy, I recieved Bs and was basically a few marks off an A.
But in Biology I recieved a D.
My strengths are essay based subjects, only reason I'd picked Biology was because I'd initially begun with chemistry alongside it but did terribly in that at the end of year 12 and was allowed by my schools assistant head, who is also the philosophy teacher, to take Philosophy in 1 year provided I attended both yr 12 and 13 lessons.
However, when it came to revision for mocks, I basically never touched philosophy and sociology and was recieveing As and A*s, mainly due to the fact that i felt the need to priorise Biology so much.
I applied to law and recieved an offer from a uni which doesn't really inspire me, I have deferred this.
Plus, I'm not really sure if that's what I want to do and would rather do a degree apprenticeship, maybe a law one or maybe not, there are apprenticeships in finance, data and many other areas which have no specific subject requirements, they are, as far as I understand based on interview performance and other factors.
Due to the D in biology, I don't meet the ucas requirements for many of the apprenticeships, so my main questions are
A: how will the apprenticeships perceive retakes
B: is it really worth it

Reply 1

Kingston Vee

Official Rep

Hi @AMSC1907, if you’re not feeling inspired by the university you received an offer from and there’s nothing that could be done to make you want to go there, such as visiting it if you haven’t already, I would recommend declining that offer. There’s no point doing a degree at a place you dislike as this will probably reflect in your work and it will be hard to stay driven and motivated. A degree apprenticeship or applying to other universities once you’ve done your resits could be a great option. If you don’t think your current a-levels will get you in anywhere currently, you will have to resit them anyways. I’m not sure about how places view resits but you will still get accepted by some places. I think visiting unis that do law or degree apprenticeships will help a lot as you can ask how they feel about resits in person, and also see if you actually like those universities and that it’s worth studying there where you’ll feel inspired.

Hope this helps,

Vee (Kingston rep)