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1.
Extenuating circumstances forms for exams have to be submitted within days or weeks of the exams (definitely within the same academic year). You cannot retroactively declare that your entirely solid GCSE performance from Year 11 was because of undiagnosed ADHD in 2025. Exam boards and universities will laugh that out the room.
2.
Even if you could, “I found revising hard and couldn’t focus as well as the other kids at my extremely academic private school” is the single weakest extenuating-circumstances claim imaginable when your grades are still 9-7. Actual extenuating circumstances are things like your mum dying the week before the exam, or being in hospital, or fleeing a war zone. Not “I think I had undiagnosed ADHD but still got ten grades 7+.”
3.
Emailing St John’s now with this will make you look desperate and entitle. It will not make them reopen your application and it will poison the well for any future application you make. They will remember the candidate who tried to blame perfectly good grades on a last-minute ADHD diagnosis.
•
Get your A-level predicted grades up to 3×A* (Land Economy at St John’s is now basically requiring it).
•
Smash any admissions test (TMUA if they bring it back, or whatever they use).
•
Write a personal statement that doesn’t scream “I go to a posh school and still only managed 9-7 at GCSE.”
•
Maybe mention the ADHD diagnosis in your next application if it genuinely affected your life and you’ve now got support/medication that’s transformed your focus, but frame it as “this is the obstacle I’ve overcome and here’s the upward trajectory since,” not “please feel sorry for my GCSEs.”
Reply 8
Reply 9
1.
Extenuating circumstances forms for exams have to be submitted within days or weeks of the exams (definitely within the same academic year). You cannot retroactively declare that your entirely solid GCSE performance from Year 11 was because of undiagnosed ADHD in 2025. Exam boards and universities will laugh that out the room.
2.
Even if you could, “I found revising hard and couldn’t focus as well as the other kids at my extremely academic private school” is the single weakest extenuating-circumstances claim imaginable when your grades are still 9-7. Actual extenuating circumstances are things like your mum dying the week before the exam, or being in hospital, or fleeing a war zone. Not “I think I had undiagnosed ADHD but still got ten grades 7+.”
3.
Emailing St John’s now with this will make you look desperate and entitle. It will not make them reopen your application and it will poison the well for any future application you make. They will remember the candidate who tried to blame perfectly good grades on a last-minute ADHD diagnosis.
•
Get your A-level predicted grades up to 3×A* (Land Economy at St John’s is now basically requiring it).
•
Smash any admissions test (TMUA if they bring it back, or whatever they use).
•
Write a personal statement that doesn’t scream “I go to a posh school and still only managed 9-7 at GCSE.”
•
Maybe mention the ADHD diagnosis in your next application if it genuinely affected your life and you’ve now got support/medication that’s transformed your focus, but frame it as “this is the obstacle I’ve overcome and here’s the upward trajectory since,” not “please feel sorry for my GCSEs.”
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