How important are GCSEs for university applications?

[GnomeDePlume]

DD1 has done well in her GCSEs (3As, 7As) all in sound academic subjects. She wants to go to university to study chemistry (one of her A subjects) eventually.

I read a comment in the Telegraph at the weekend which said that 6* is the requirement for RG universities where the student attended a selective school.

DD's school is not selective and is not by any stretch of the imagination a 'good' school (in and out of special measures a couple of times in the last few years, below average GCSE & ebacc scores).

So, how much store do university admissions tutors set by A* at GCSE? Is allowance made where students have attended bog standard comps rather than selective grammars or independants?

DD will be starting to look at universities during year 12 is it worth still looking at RG or should she be setting her sights a little lower?

Yellowtip The History course at Durham is one of the best in the country, as well as one of the most in demand, of course they are going to do all they can to encourage the best applicants and make sure all applicants who apply do so with reasonable expectation of their chances of success. if you are from a selective school or good state school and don't have 7As at GCSE it would not be one to persue but I also know that they work very hard to encourage applicants from less well performing schools and make allowance for those with SLDs like Dyslexia and have been working hard to develop a method of weighting results so that they can judge them objectively. That is probably why they no longer put the guideline in print. If the applicants from some poor schools have achieved A/As then they are clearly highly motivated and very bright in comparison with children who have had all the benefits of parental encouragement and involvement and a private school education with the resources and culture that make A*s the norm rather than the exception (and I am one of those encouraging parents who forked out) and no course at any university would want to miss out on them. It's not just fairness either, on a History course especially you want your students to bring different perspectives and skills to the course. Dyslexics for instance make great Historians, and academics love having them in their classes, because whilst they struggle with memory, processing and reading skills, and so may be bad at GCSE level exams which are particularly demanding on those skills , they compensate by tending to have an ability to understand the whole picture, think creatively and come up with great ideas and insight. (And actually at university level where you want an essay with an effective argument above all they tend to do very well in exams)

Gnome For a year in Industry obviously Bath would be in the mix but there they were very clear there was a compterised sift before the applications got to the course tutors, and GCSEs scores count in that. Althoughthat meant an A/ A* mix for DDs course if it appeals you should go look but ask the tutor for the course she wants to study whether she would get through that sift.

Mind you it works both ways. At the session DD attended there was a murmer of disgust (the course tutor had already alienated them with his general manner anyway and the Professor was beyond dull) when the tutor admitted many personal statements wouldn't get looked at and many applicant, including DD went away with the impression that the teaching staff were uninspiring and not interested in the students. Ironically they subsequently wrote to her to say her GCSE results meant she qualified for a scholarship but a bit of spark and interest would have been far more effective in attracting applicants!

I'm pretty familiar with Durham Copthall, and History. I merely thought it interesting to cite a particular example where it's been decided to revamp the prospectus for all the very good reasons that you cite. On the same note, it will be interesting to see where the decision to ask for an A* specifically in History at A2 (as it did for 2012) takes the department in terms of intake and access.

She should apply to whichever uni she wants to. One RG place we looked at scored GCSE's first in it's selection process and they scored A* and A's with the same points. DD would have had enough to apply on that basis and she also had a B, this was for medicine.

Also second what others have said, don't believe everything you read in the press. I know a few people who got into top uni's even if they missed a grade, especially if they went to an average non selective comp.

Agreed Yellowtip. But then whether the A* is a good target to set and whether you actually carry through if students miss it are different issues. Whilst devastating to many students I think this years results are going to shake things up as well. I couldn't believe some of the courses available on clearing this year but then there was also the incentive to go fishing for those with better than AAB . Many more courses have let candidates in who didn't get the required grades, something that would have been next to impossible for DDs cohort a couple of years ago, when missing 3 As by 1 UMS point in 1 subject was enough to completely close down options.

The thing to remember is that what universities do in public, and what happens in practice are not the same.

For example, some RG universities had a policy of never going into clearing (before this year when the AAB rule changed everything) to maintain a brand image of success. The way they managed to do this in many cases was to confirm students who missed their grades by quite a lot. When you work in admissions you can see this though the insurance place system. They would never make this general knowledge though.

The RG universities all like to market themselves as always exclusive, and some universities/courses are, but this is not universal. This image is one of the biggest hurdles we face in widening participation. Potentially good students put off by speculation and gossip.

Stories circulate that such-and-such a person who got a Bs was rejected, when in practice the grade may have had nothing to do with the decision. Clearly if the subject was relevant it would be an issue, but if you want to read history and you have good grades in the important areas (English, History etc) admissions tutor are very unlikely to give a stuff about a C in PE.

There are two ways of looking at the importance of GCSE grades.

If a student has already done their GCSEs, it becomes a question of which university to apply to. The answer almost every time is to apply to a range of universities, not all top ones or all bottom ones. A straight A student wouldn't fail the GCSE filter at any place. A pragmatic choice for most high performing students would be 2 top, 2 medium, and 1 medium-low university.

It's a different story for students currently studying for GCSEs. A lot of students will switch off from the subjects they are dropping, saying that they don't need them for A-level, and that they would be happy with a C. They believe that they only ever have to hobble to the next stage and then the slate will be wiped clean. This attitude will not do if they intimately want to do a hard, competitive course, as they will fall foul of the number of top GCSE grade criteria.

Ironically, the subjects they drop are actually very important because that is the last grade they will ever have in that subject so will appear on CVs and application forms for many years.

In the case of the OP's DD where she has a good set of results, but may wobble about As instead of A*, she should contact the admissions tutors for the top courses that she is interested in to get their point of view. They will remember her when it is time to screen applications.

Ultimately, not intimately

There's a good case for very strong students with high GCSE and AS grades in the bag to apply to five top universities, I'd have thought Knowsabit. They only need one offer after all; and it's very hard to anticipate the vagaries of the admissions process at each place in any particular year, unless you have reliable insider info. Why sell yourself short with medium or medium low if you're sitting on a large bunch of A*s and 85-90% modules? Some lower ranked universities aren't even 'safe', in that they don't particularly want to make offers to students they think will hold them as their insurance. A top student may therefore find themselves rejected from lesser institutions that they thought they'd walk into. Of course a student may prefers other things about the medium place, in which case obviously that's different.

You really think the busier admissions tutors remember prospective applicants on the other end of a phone? Some may, but I'd expect most not to. I can't see why it would make a difference even if they did, it doesn't show anything particularly remarkable about a student, other than he's interested in applying (which the UCAS application shows just as well) and that he can manage a phone call.

Absolutely yellow, I would not remember an applicant's phone call about grades, nor their comments on an open day. (To be honest, I barely read the names on the UCAS forms .)

If it is important it should be on the form, if it happened since the application was made I just ask them to put it in writing

And nothing says 'reject me' more than applicants phoning and emailing with questions that they could find the answers to on the website/prospectus. Some people seem to be under the illusion that if you bug the hell make lots of contact with the institution it will help. It doesn't.

How will it be viewed by admissions tutors if someone phones up to ask more detail about an aspect of the course eg a year abroad which isnt described in much detail on website/in prospectus?

This will quite possibly be something DD is interested in but obviously it tends to involve very specific questions.

I can fully understand not wanting to be bugged on the phone though. Is it better to put detailed questions in writing?

Gnome if someone rings/emails for details that are not publicly available then that is great.

But if people ring to ask information which is on the website and the prospectus, sometimes even on the same page as the admissions phone number it does irritate. Especially if they ring the following week with the same question........

How many websites mention GCSE grades?

Know All the ones I know well do (which is my own and our main competitors), but I have never personally checked them all.

You mean they tell you how they screen on GCSEs? I have never seen is info on websites, apart from the maths, English etc.

If you speak to an admissions tutor, they may mention 7 A/A*. This is just an example of what I heard straight from the horses mouth via a University of Birmingham AT - and he presented it as university policy across the board. I have heard similar "anecdotes" personally and via colleagues, parents and students.

I'm really not making it up. :)

Of course it doesn't apply to all courses at all universities, but it does apply for a few universities across the board, and from individual faculties and departments in other institutions.

Everywhere has to have a method of screening applications. Actual GCSE results are a pretty convenient way. Going back to my own undergraduate application 30 years ago, this was how it was done then too.

know I'm sure that is what you have been told, but the point that I am trying to make is to not to take literally everything you have been heard. Behind the scenes, it can be different. Some top unis don't like to admit that they take students on lower grades. This year I know Birmingham accepted BBC for some subjects, they would never advertise this!

My uni states the minimum GCSE requirement for entry to university as Cs in English and Maths. For entry to my subject, we require minimum performance of B in English and preferably one other essay based subject. We check that this is there but don't sift on this first.

Now that the majority of applications have certified AS grades the importance of GCSEs has diminished for us. Why would we not use the latest exam results? Our standard offer is ABB and it is made to students whose AS grades look similar and are predicted this at A2.

Students whose results are considerably lower at AS than GCSE would need more consideration. In contrast, an application where a student who got Cs at GCSE and have raised their results to As & Bs at AS I would say is very positive.

BBC are A-level grades, not GCSE.

The BBC student will alreaded have bagged a minimum of 7A/A* grades.

Which is what we are talking about.

On the I have seen applications, the BBC students they were accepting did not have 7 As....

Of course not

But aren't AS grades unreliable. I've seen A* grade GCSE students getting D's and E's at AS then pulling grades back up to B and even A at A2 level with resits. I think the Jan AS module exams following GCSE's are a massive shock.

The best thing that can happen are good predicted grades to get in then being let in with one or two dropped grades. e.g AAB to ABB etc, if it comes to that.

Tressy A GCSE students can drop at AS then pick up again and B grade GCSE students can get A at A2.

As an admissions tutor we have no way of knowing which is the 'wrong' result for that student.

That's why we use AS grades alongside predictions of A2 results and hope the reference from the school is honest.

Evidently there are no hard and fast rules. Obviously, do as well as you can, but bad GCSE or AS - or both - aren't a barrier.

I always understood that your GCSE results had no bearing on how well you would do at A'level? I certainly didn't have good o'levels across the board but di have A's in my A'level subjects.

Oh & good predicted grades

Seriously, no bearing at all?