Oxford but with spiky GCSE profile?

[24petlegs]

How much does Oxford Uni place on GCSE grades?

DD (Year 12) has quite a spiky GCSE profile compared to her peers, her year group is one of the covid assessed grade groups.
However, DD had done most of her GCSEs by the end of Y9 (home educated and mostly self taught) and has:

9 9 9 9 2xA* A 7 B plus an A for an AS level that she took in Y10.
Her first A* was in Y7 in the subject she'd like to do at Uni.
She's currently doing 3 A-levels at sixth form plus another AS level and so far, her grades are looking good.

Is it worth her even considering Oxford or will her lack of straight 9s/A* rule her out?

I tutored a boy briefly for the FSMQ. He had been completely home schooled until Sixth form. I suspect he wouldn’t have taken the usual large number of GCSEs, although I don’t know what his grades were.

He was accepted at Oxford to read Maths, and graduated last summer.

I don’t see why your DD shouldn’t apply.

@RampantIvy

How did she sit these GCSEs if she was home schooled? There haven't been any proper public exams since 2019. Did she take them all early?

She sat her first in 2016 when she 11yrs old, then she added a few each year and was done by Year 10. Her only assessed grade was her AS level which was assessed during the first covid summer sitting.

In my (limited) experience of this, you don't need straight 8/9s. But you will almost certainly need them in the subjects you propose to study and closely allied ones.

But if you, for example, want to study computer science, but your English is only a B/6, you may still get the exam/interview that can lead to an offer.

What I'm less sure about it the number of years over which your DD has taken these exams. Most places expect to see them in one sitting - only regular exception being schools which do maths for their most able in y10 and FM in y11, also maybe home language taken early to avoid cluttering the main round

But yes, definitely worth considering Oxford, and of course how she does on the PAT will carry considerable weight

@GlacindaTheTroll

In my (limited) experience of this, you don't need straight 8/9s. But you will almost certainly need them in the subjects you propose to study and closely allied ones.

But if you, for example, want to study computer science, but your English is only a B/6, you may still get the exam/interview that can lead to an offer.

What I'm less sure about it the number of years over which your DD has taken these exams. Most places expect to see them in one sitting - only regular exception being schools which do maths for their most able in y10 and FM in y11, also maybe home language taken early to avoid cluttering the main round

But yes, definitely worth considering Oxford, and of course how she does on the PAT will carry considerable weight

It’s simply untrue that having done exams over several sittings disqualifies or disadvantages a home-educated candidate. DS1 did so; he’s now at Cambridge. DD2 did so; she has an offer from Oxford.

As mentioned previously, Physics Olympiad, would be very positive and many students applying to competitive Unis will be sitting this. It's a way for Unis to differentiate amongst those taking A levels, who will all have A* predicted.