Please Explain How This Works for Universities Acceptance?

[kmo0416]

For Oxford University, if you get an offer as a post A-Level applicant so if you are on a gap year, they require you to provide A-level certificates to verify your grades but not GCSE certificates.

1. Why is this? Why would they not also seek to verify GCSE grades with certificates?
2. Someone told me that universities can check your grades through UCAS' verification team? How does that work? Would UCAS then ask you to verify with them or would they have access to some records/data? If a university can get UCAS to check your grades, why bother asking for certificates?
3. Finally, how are people supposed to send A-Level certificates to Oxford and other universities that ask for them? Do you have to take a screenshot and upload it as a PDF on email; or do you scan it; or do you quite literally have to put your certificate into the post and mail it to them? (I'm really confused about this).

Normally you produce certificates, if you have them , at matriculation. The certificates are not issued until late Autumn so don’t see how you can send the, earlier as you only have the results paperwork til then. They know your A level results before then anyway.

If your offer includes conditions of certain GCSE grades you’ll have to prove you have them. Offers are usually based on A level grades though, hence no need to produce the GCSE certs - they’ll have been confirmed by the school / college submitting the application.

If you apply in cycle UCAS gets your results for that cycle (and will also have results for the previous cycle if you applied then). If you apply for the first time (so not as a deferred applicant) after you’ve got your results UCAS won’t have them so you need to produce them.

A pdf would normally be ok, though they may ask you to bring them when you enrol, along with your id.