Will GCSE result affect uni applications?

[OnthePisteAgain]

Hi DS got 9 GCSE's and one BTec, a mixture of 9's, 8's and 7's aside from English language which he surprisingly only got a 5. He was predicted an 8 and that was his result in his mocks.

His teacher is currently looking over his paper to see if it worth having it remarked but he is now concerned that he will be rejected by good unis. He wants to study computer science which I understand is very competitive and has set his sites on a top 10 uni. He's been reading posts on the Student Room and says that they will not look at you unless you have a grade 6?

Does anyone know if this is right? Is it worth him retaking it in November to get a better grade? Thanks for any advice.

To keep his options open I'd definitely encourage him to resit. 6 seems to be the required grade for lots of good unis. I looked into it last week as my dc got a 4. They're refusing to resit though :-(

You can see specific entry requirements on the course pages for each uni. Definitely worth checking.

Look at the entry requirements grades on UCAS for a range of courses it tells you which GCSE and A level grades are needed.

Thank you all, I've just looked at Bristol and Southampton, both say minimum grade 4. However, if it is so competitive would only having a 5 put him at a disadvantage? Or is work experience, personal statement etc more important? He is doing double maths at A level so although he's happy to retake his GCSE, he already has quite a heavy work load.

just looked at Warwick and they specify a minimum of a 4, but expect the profile of GCSEs to be mainly 7+ which you ds has.
https://warwick.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/computerscience/

I would encourage a resit in the November and hopefully his teacher can shed some light on why only a grade 5. Some of the top 20 unis are saying grade 6. Get him to contact the admissions department of any uni he is interested in and state his other grades for GCSEs and see what they say. Student room is good but not the fountain of knowledge.

Make sure he is using his free periods in college to complete homework to ease the burden of doing it at home. If he can get a little study group going especially for free periods immediately after the lesson whilst it is still fresh in their heads. This is what Ds did with his mates because they were all aiming for top 10 unis.

I'm not sure it matters as much as you think it does.

My DS is about to start the Uni application process with 6 Gcse's 1 grade 8, 1 grade 7, 3 grade 6's and 1 grade 5.

There are contextual reasons for the number of GCSE's he took and the grades achieved but he is applying, encouraged by school, for Oxford for his chosen subject along with other top flight universities. I have spoken to both Oxford admissions and to the school about it and his GCSEs are not a barrier (which I assumed they would be).

I think so long as he get's the predicted grades in year 12 he will be fine, particularly if he's in this year's GCSE cohort where there will definitely be some grades that are slightly lower than expected.

@OnthePisteAgain , I've said on other threads the Eng Lang GCSEs results have been "unpredictable" across the U.K. this year, I can't begin to tell you how many dc I know with all 9's and 8's and a 6/7 in Eng Lang. The number of papers going for review must be excessive, in some schools it's across the cohort esp if the board was AQA.
It going to mean many of this cohort will be applying to uni with a dropped Eng Lang grade. The numbers for the Nov resit are going to be immense too because so many 3 grades were given out. I will post an image of the grades from another thread.

This year's eng Lang

Thank you, yes it is AQA! He was so disappointed, Eng lit was the one he was worried about and he got a 7 in that! I will show him that graph, hopefully it will make him feel better.

I've just checked the grade boundaries and he is only 2 marks off a 6 so I think we will go for a remark as a first step if his teacher agrees.

@OnthePisteAgain , This is the Graph for Maths and you can see far more 9-6 grades were given out and a much reduced number of 3's yet the same students sat both exams.
Some schools have found the lower level Eng Lang classes did better than the higher because the lower level classes were taught the exam board mark scheme rather than "English language".
There will be a fall out from this because so many dc have a lower Eng Lang grade and because teachers need more guidance from the exam boards re what they are looking for.

@tennissquare can you explain what this means though.....surely some children are just better at English or maths?

@boysmuminherts just seen your question. I will try to explain it the best I can. Every year the grade boundaries for GCSEs (and A levels) move. This is because the cohort is measured against itself and not previous years. When all the results are in they work out the average ie where most people landed marks wise and a bell curve is applied to distribute the rest of the grades. This means every year there will be children who achieve grade 9s but also children who will be forced to get grade 3 or below as compared to their cohort they performed less well. So even if everyone performs poorly on a paper the bell curve recognises that the paper was more difficult and those who scored higher than the others still get grade 9s rather than say a 6.

This means they can control the number of students who achieve certain grades. If we ignore the 2020 and 2021 grade results you will see that roughly the same percentage of students get grade 4s every year. This is why schools quote their grade achievements compared to the national average and the local area average for GCSE grade 4 and above including English and maths.

Therefore looking at that maths chart that is a normal grade distribution, bell curves are almost symmetrical. However, the English language graph is not correct, it should not have grade 3 higher than grade 4. Something very strange has occurred on that and it has impacted lots of children.

The opposite at university is true, if you get over 70% you get a first, 60% a 2:1, 50% a 2:2. If everyone performs poorly on a module and the average is 50% rather than the usual 65% then they just get a 2:2 unless the marks are adjusted up to make the average 65%. I hope that makes sense.

@CrestonGate thanks. Makes perfect sense. My son is one of those affected as he got a 5 in maths and eng lit but a 3 in eng language.

@boysmuminherts it is completely shit. I cannot understand why they did it and if there has been an explanation I have missed it. Is he going to resit?

Yes, hopefully in November.

Delighted to say that DS's Eng lang grade has gone up to a 6 after a remark. He is a very happy boy! Thanks for everyone's comments, much appreciated