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UPDATE on University Situation - Advice?

102 replies

Juliette96 · 18/09/2025 09:43

So, I have just been told by my private exam centre that they’ve managed to get the coursework issue resolved so I’ve now got my 3 A-Stars.

This is great and means I’ve achieved my true potential. Also, it means I am eligible to reapply to Oxford (no need for fraud!).

The only issue is that the Cambridge Foundation Year is now creeping up on me.

I have to attend an induction week starting this Monday and I still don’t want to go. They keep phoning me and emailing me about it, but it’s just upsetting me. If I didn’t want to go, how can I tell them no at this late stage without them hating me?

Also, what do you think I should do? I don’t want to do the Foundation Year and can reapply to Oxford and UCL as I have the grades now and I’m quite confident at my admissions test performance as I recently did it. But, I know if I get rejected from Oxford, I’d think I wasted a whole year when I could’ve just gone to UCL. This is as although I could technically also get rejected from UCL, I got in this year.

Also, Cambridge is still good but I just don’t want to do the Foundation Year!! If they could let me just bypass it but they refuse to.

Also, if not for the private exam centre messing things up I could have just gone to UCL to study history for a year and then transferred to their law course or reapplied to Oxford while there as Oxford allows students studying at other universities to apply ONLY if they want a change of course or have other serious reasons for applying. This means that I wouldn’t have to be scrambling for things to do in an unneeded second gap year. It’s now too late for UCL Clearing.

Just thinking about how if I had just applied to Oxford by the deadline, and got an offer, I would’ve had no stress and no issues and would have met the offer.

OP posts:
PumpkinsAndCoconuts · 22/09/2025 13:06

SheilaFentiman · 18/09/2025 16:27

As of right this very minute, OP, what could you do with the next 12 months that is better than the foundation year? It’s not like you are choosing between that and a year’s internship with a magic circle firm or something.

You will have a funded year in a great city learning valuable skills and a brilliant basis for your next UCAS application with those skills and your new stellar grades. Plus you can apply to Oxford from there if you want.

There’s no path that makes first year Oxford/Cambridge/UCL available to you for next week, so why not take up the path you do have?

This. Do the foundation year, have a good time and see what the future brings.

I wouldn’t want to complain about the foundation year, Oxford v. Cambridge if you actually go there, if I were you…

SheilaFentiman · 22/09/2025 16:43

other posters began to seem confident the OP was female.

@PeanutGallerist I don't know what sex OP is, but they have at least two usernames containing female names, plus I will usually assume an MN poster is female by default.

With the Foundation Year, OP didn't meet her 'standard' Cambridge offer the first time around (when she sat exams without extra time and got BBB).

Edited: OP then looked into Foundation Year programmes and applied to the Cambridge one during her resit year. She missed the deadline for Oxford 'main' application in her resit year.

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