UCAS points...I feel I am not quite understand it all...

[zazas]

Maybe someone could clear things up for me as I understand that the grades you receive for A levels and AS levels add up to your UCAS points (although not AS levels if you take them to A level) and that music exams also count but what else does?

We have been encouraged to look at university league tables and often they have the average UCAS points that applicants had on entry and they seem so high. My DD has taken 4 AS levels and will take 3 A levels and another AS level but even if she received really good grades (A and A*), some of the tables show that her UCAS points would be be short of what is listed for the top universities for her course...

Is she meant to be taking more courses or extra things to gain UCAS points? We are both a bit confused!

OP don't forget some mature students skew the results. I certainly did. I did A Levels in my teens then got a job that required me to have BTEC National (as it was then) so I have, in effect, double UCAS points.

I've also recently been teaching on an access course where some of the students already had A Levels and in one case a degree but were career changing to health care so will have a large number of UCAS points.

I also suggested to the vice principle that the college could enter students for language A Levels without teaching because the college has a high number of ESOL students, many moved to the UK in their early teens and don't speak English at home. This is purely to boost the college's A Level results.

Just concentrate on the likely offers that will be made to her as an individual. Someone in the year above me (back in the dark ages) did so well on his maths Oxford entrance exam they made him an offer of EE.