Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Higher education

Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

Original poster

What GCSE grades

57 replies

gogogoji · 15/05/2023 22:57

Did your dc get and what uni did they get into?
I guess I wanting to know what sort of GCSE's did people get that got into good universities.

Was it all 8&9 for good Uni's?

OP posts:
Longtimenewsee · 16/05/2023 23:59

8899999999 gcses taken in summer 2019.
offers from 4 RG unis. Interviewed , pooled but didn’t get into Cambridge

faffadoodledo · 17/05/2023 08:10

@Cazelet I'm afraid my children are those mythical unicorns, albeit with all A stars under the old system. Durham and Cambridge.

But presumably I'm still allowed to answer the OP's question.

Cazelet · 17/05/2023 08:48

faffadoodledo · 17/05/2023 08:10

@Cazelet I'm afraid my children are those mythical unicorns, albeit with all A stars under the old system. Durham and Cambridge.

But presumably I'm still allowed to answer the OP's question.

Nothing would have stopped you, I'm sure.

FlyingSquid · 17/05/2023 08:51

A mix of 7 to 9, and a rogue B from an early entry.

Oxbridge. Admittedly finding it heavy going at times.

faffadoodledo · 17/05/2023 08:51

How bizarre @Cazelet
OP asked a question and I was going to answer.
I'm very happy your DC succeeded in life. That's lovely. I don't know why you'd want to be snarky about others for telling their stories though.

Cazelet · 17/05/2023 08:55

faffadoodledo · 17/05/2023 08:51

How bizarre @Cazelet
OP asked a question and I was going to answer.
I'm very happy your DC succeeded in life. That's lovely. I don't know why you'd want to be snarky about others for telling their stories though.

Well you started it by aiming your comment at me. Just putting the grades and unis would have sufficed.

Cola2534 · 17/05/2023 09:00

Child no.1 got mostly 7s and 8s plus one 5 and one 9 in 2018 (first year of number grades), and is now at a mid-range RG Uni.
Child no.2 got similar GCSE grades to their sibling and is sitting A Levels this year. They have a full hand of 5 offers from RG universities.

Africa2go · 17/05/2023 09:07

OP going back to the original question, it really does matter what subject your DC is looking at and how popular it is. For example MFL courses are massively undersubscribed at the moment, so if your DC is considering one of those, grade boundaries are really quite low at present. Compare that to say Economics and students with all A* predictions are lucky to get 1 out of 5 offers from prestigious RG unis. Unis (such as Newcastle) are offering engineering applicants the opportunity to do a week's summer school in return for very low grades (think BBC or similar) as an incentive for low numbers of engineering undergrads.

Things have changed massively since lockdown too following masses of children meeting their offers with TAGs and unis having to accommodate more students than normal. Whilst its good to hear from posters with experience from say 2 or 3 (or more) years ago, I'd say their experience is probably out of date now.

faffadoodledo · 17/05/2023 09:41

You started it 😂

@Cazelet it was a light hearted comment on the little exchange between you and @Askil
Perfectly legitimate for me to reply with my unicorn comment after you guys had a dig at people who come on and honestly say their kids do 'well'. I bear no grudges against DCs no matter what they happen to achieve. High, low, in between. It's all good. You seem to have a small problem with DCs at a particular end of the scale.

lastdayatschool · 17/05/2023 09:46

DS has 7 Astar, 2 A, 2B and an 8 at GCSE.

Also has 4 A at A/S Level (A star grades not applicable).

Predicted Astar and 2 As for A Levels.

Got offers for A&F from Exeter, Bristol and Heriot Watt.

Rejected from Durham (despite its typical offer being lower than Exeter and Bristol) and Edinburgh - both citing too much competition (which basically translates to "popular courses for international students")

Scoobyblue · 17/05/2023 09:53

My ds is applying this year with 8x9 grades and 3x8 grades. Three offers from RG universities but also rejected by Edinburgh and Bristol. Amongst his friends (we're based in England) the Scottish universities have been rejecting almost everyone.

faffadoodledo · 17/05/2023 09:55

@lastdayatschool Durham is an odd one. DS was rejected from there but accepted at Cambridge. And their late offers grrrrrr they really up the ante!

PettsWoodParadise · 17/05/2023 10:02

DD got 6,7,8,8,9,9,9,9,9,9 the six was in Further Maths, 7 in Physics. She has an offer from Cambridge to study English. So you definitely don’t need all 9s for Oxbridge although I think STEM subjects are maybe more competitive than the subject DD applied for so don’t know if that would make a difference.

lastdayatschool · 17/05/2023 10:08

Same here in NI @Scoobyblue - DS doesn't know anyone from school or friend group (all at Grammar Schools) who have had offers from Edinburgh, St. Andrews or Glasgow this year.

And one boy is still waiting to hear from Edinburgh which is appalling given the cutoff date is tomorrow.

@faffadoodledo - Durham is the one that rankles with me tbh, given their High Level of Competition explanation, but yet they're still offering the course for international applicants in UCAS Extra. Was the one that DS was really keen on, given their collegiate sport setup

Askil · 17/05/2023 15:26

faffadoodledo · 17/05/2023 09:41

You started it 😂

@Cazelet it was a light hearted comment on the little exchange between you and @Askil
Perfectly legitimate for me to reply with my unicorn comment after you guys had a dig at people who come on and honestly say their kids do 'well'. I bear no grudges against DCs no matter what they happen to achieve. High, low, in between. It's all good. You seem to have a small problem with DCs at a particular end of the scale.

I haven't made any comment re: your comments nor have I told you not to post whatever you want to post. My post was made a day before yours and was humour at Mners in general trying to over stress the fact their dc had excellent results despite not going to 'private school', so I think you've got the complete wrong end of the stick.

WombatChocolate · 18/05/2023 16:48

I think it makes a huge difference which course and which uni you’re looking at. People often mention RG, but included within that are those that will be offering to pretty much anyone with a good clutch of grade 6+ and who won’t be bothered by the odd 5. There are others, where competition is so stiff that a full sweep of 9s or 8/9 and all A star predictions at A Level still result in rejections.

As has been said, for courses like Economics at Warwick, LSE, Oxbeidge, Imperial, UCL, Edinburgh….if a top candidates get 1 or 2 of those offered, they are pleased. But this isn’t typical of most courses.

Someone with a good range of GCSEs where the majority if their grades are 7-9 should get plenty of RG offers, for most courses if they don’t just apply to the very top unis.

nearlyemptynes · 18/05/2023 16:52

My son got 9, 7777, 666, 5
The 9 was in Eng Lang the 5 was in Maths.
He is at Cambridge.

redskylight · 18/05/2023 17:25

Sure I remember seeing somewhere that it was GCSEs within the context of a school's results that mattered. So DD, who goes to a bog standard comp but whose results were in the top 10% of said comp shouldn't write off her mix of 7s,8s and 9s and - shock horror - one 5 as hardly fit for university at all (or at a pinch, maybe Hull) as seems to be sometimes suggested on here.

Superdupes · 18/05/2023 17:49

DS got 9999998887 at GCSE because he's pretty good at everything (7 in Further maths)- but he's finding his 1st year of A-levels much more difficult apart from computer science. He's looking at a wide range of uni's because he wants to do computer science but it seems to be quite competitive with Southampton, Bath etc wanting A star AA and it's hard to know if he'll pull that off or not.

Other kids might get a broader range of grades at GCSE but be really good at a few specific subjects and be more confident that they'll get high scores in those. A-levels are much more important than GCSE's - but at DS's school at least they use GCSE scores to help make A-level predictions. And you need good predictions to get an offer from a uni.

jgw1 · 18/05/2023 17:51

gogogoji · 16/05/2023 07:39

I frequently read that GCSEs are not looked at by universities but the vast vast majority of offers are made before a level results are out then surely universities look at GCSEs as much as predicted a-level grades as they are only predictions.
I think pp is right though. So many people apparently getting straight 9s yet the official stats don't bear this out

I would be very surprised if any university (certainly none that I have talked to about it does) has taken GCSE grades seriously for the last few cohorrts of undergraduates since they were based on CAGs and then TAGs.

powerrangers · 18/05/2023 17:54

redskylight · 18/05/2023 17:25

Sure I remember seeing somewhere that it was GCSEs within the context of a school's results that mattered. So DD, who goes to a bog standard comp but whose results were in the top 10% of said comp shouldn't write off her mix of 7s,8s and 9s and - shock horror - one 5 as hardly fit for university at all (or at a pinch, maybe Hull) as seems to be sometimes suggested on here.

Going by the replies on here, the grades you list aren't even close to being iffy.

Cazelet · 18/05/2023 17:55

There must be others who didn't get stellar gcse grades. Mumsnet is weird. So much stealth boasting. It's like people just can't help themselves.

lastdayatschool · 18/05/2023 18:48

@CaCazelet - agree with you on the boasting, albeit some of its not so stealthy IMO 🙂

I find the level of vitriol that some posters use towards each other quite astonishing too - not so visible on this thread, but there's another HE one today where I wouldn't be surprised if the OP is in tears

flotsomandjetsome · 18/05/2023 18:57

All 9s at GCSE, top A level grades predicted, applied for Cambridge, made the winter pool after interview but didn't get an offer.

Had 4 offers at great unis, and actually decided to firm with Bath (the only non Russell Group Uni of the 4) - based on the course.

There are a lot of great unis out there, but more importantly the courses are not all the same.

GCSEstealthboast · 18/05/2023 19:02

DS1 got a fairly ordinary set of GCSEs (can't remember the exact results - but I do remember he just scraped a pass in French, which we were amazed by, and he failed PE 🤣). He did get enough to go on to do A levels. He ended up studying at conservatoire, where his GCSE and. A level results were irrelevant).
DS2 however got exceptional GCSEs. He sat them in 2019 (pre Covid grade inflation) and got 11 grade 9s at one sitting. His (state) school at prize giving said they were the best results the school had ever seen, his photo was in the local paper etc. It's worth noting that his revision involved reading his notes once only and storing them in his 'memory palace'. He'd got the idea from watching an episode of Sherlock on TV. He's now at Oxford.
I've changed my user name for this post to please @Cazelet. State school, all grade 9's and Oxford Uni. Do I win bingo?