A question about entry requirements - can someone advise please?

[WorrySighWorrySigh]

Apologies for this being long.

Background:

DD is in year 12 working through where to apply, what to apply for post 6th form. She is looking at science courses with a year abroad and is taking 2 sciences and maths to A level plus French to AS.

In addition to the A levels and AS she is taking now she already has an A grade A level in a MFL (in the language of the country she hopes to have her year abroad in).

My question:

The entry requirement for the courses she is looking at is often ABB with one or both of the sciences specified at grade B.

If DD were to be predicted BBB for her A2s are admissions tutors likely to accept her existing A grade A level as the 'A' of the requirement and the other two Bs from the subjects she is taking now?

Or would she be expected to achieve the ABB from the current A2s she is taking?

Any advice would be gratefully received.

She would need to check with the universities she is interested in. Some will accept an a level already taken, others offer on the basis of all three taken at the same time. I suspect that some who offered ABB all taken at the same time, would err on the lenient side at confirmation if she only missed by one grade, and had ABBB overall.

Thank you titchy. The difficulty is the predicted grades. She really doesnt know where these will be. She moved from a very under-performing school after GCSE to a fairly good 6th form. Throughout this AS year she has been running to catch up.

If her predicted grades aren't what she wants / needs, then she may be better off taking a gap year and applying when she has her grades.

The only way to be certain is to ask.

In general terms, only a small number of universities ask for the exams at the same time, so her existing A level will be used for most of them.

But many places with ABB requirements, they want the A in a subject that is relevant to the degree, so although not excluding it, the A she has might still not cover the 'A' part of the offer.

If she is unsure if her predictions will be high enough, there is nothing that would stop her applying this year and if she doesn't get offered the places she wants, withdrawing her application and applying again after A levels.

Thank you rightsaidfrederick and creamteas. I will talk with DD about asking the universities she is interested in about this.

Get in touch with the admissions tutors for the course(s) she is interested in. We found them to be universally helpful in talking about specific circumstances.

Thanks ISingSoprano, I will help DD to draft an email.

Uni admissions tutors love to receive contact directly from the students themselves (certainly worth helping her draft). I was shocked at hearing how often mums still do the asking rather than the students!

Savoir they also sometimes ring up about essay and exam results and some get extremely annoyed when we tell then that it is none of their business we cannot speak them because of data protection

Absolutely this will come from DD not me, she is nearly 18!

She is still finalising her course preferences so that she can ask the question once of each institution rather than many times.

Thank you for the advice it is much appreciated.