How many A*s at GCSE does the typical Oxford science student had.

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Yes I know it's more about A level grades , thirst for the subject, lively PS , and aptitude test results.But taking all that as read, how many A*s would a typical student have out of say 10 or 11 academic GCSEs.

www.wikihow.com/Get-Into-Oxbridge:

'GCSE grades are often used to distinguish between entrants due to the high number of A's achieved at A level. Oxbridge are still unsure about the reliability of the A at A level, so you must have a strong GCSE profile. Although 15 A won't guarantee you a place, you should have an A* in the subject you are taking and other related subjects.'

1. At least.

At my DS's school which currently sends about 33% a year of it's 6th form to Oxbridge we were very recently told you need at least 6 A*'s at GCSE but I understand this is partly because they don't do AS levels.

Oxford place a lot of importance on GCSEs.

The typical successful applicant will have a very good hand of GCSE A*s coupled with good AS results.

The interview procedure is also important, and Oxford interview far fewer than Cambridge (pro rata).

Oxford's offers, however, tend to be lower than Cambridge. An A* offer isn't common.

Cambridge place less impiortance on GCSEs and candidates will get an interview on less stellar grades than would be the case at Oxford. Cambridge interview a lot of people!

However, their average offer tends to be high, and will more often than not include an A* or two!!!

Of course there will always be exceptions. But this is the general trend at the two institutions .

"Oxford's offers, however, tend to be lower than Cambridge. An A* offer isn't common."

Oxford makes the same offer to virtually everyone for a given course. It is AAA for arts subjects and social sciences, AAA for most science subjects and A A* A for maths. They don't make harder offers, but they may occasionally make easier ones.

Cambridge colleges have the flexibility to make tougher offers if they want to. Some routinely make harder offers to uphold their reputation as the best for a particular subject (eg: Churchill college Law usually make A A A A offers), and others tailor their offers to the individual to stretch the brightest, so for example, if AS module results indicate an offer is almost in the bag, more A* might be added to prevent coasting in year 13 or an offer based on 4 or more A2s may be made, again so that candidates are stretched. Cambridge also sometimes make a tougher offer to a candidate they are unsure about.

Both have the flexibility to make slightly easier offers to candidates in difficult circumstances, but this is relatively rare.

Because Oxford don't see the AS module results of applicants (unless they choose to declare them on UCAS) as Cambridge do they do weight the GCSE score more highly than Cambridge who value very high AS module scores more highly than GCSEs.

Cambridge research has shown that for most subjects AS results correlate best to their degree outcome, whereas Oxford research has shown that GCSE results and results of aptitude tests sat prior to interview mostly correlate better than AS results with their degree outcomes which may explain the difference in approach (Cambridge applicants don't sit aptitude tests prior to interview, except at some colleges, so they don't have this additional metric to consider).

It's certainly an excellent start- all A*s will get her over the first hurdle with ease.

dreamgirls it depends.

She will need to do well on the aptitude tests (if taken) and well at interview.

She will also need a bit of luck, as every year lots of excellent candidates don't get offers. Tis a numbers game.

My advice is always go for it, but don't stake anything on it!

dream on their own brilliant GCSEs are not enough, but it's a great start!

OP The average GCSE points score (8 for A*, 7 for A etc) for Oxford applicants that were summoned for interview a decade ago was as follows (by type of school):
Type of School
Comprehensive 7.3
Independent 7.5
Grammar 7.4
Other 7.3

(a score of 7.5 would equate to 50% A* and 50% A grades)

Successful candidates who received offers had an average GCSE score higher than this (the probability of receiving an offer increases with increased GCSE score). Also the GCSE profile of science students is higher than humanities. And finally in the last decade I imagine the scores have increased rather than decreased, so we can guess that the typical science student today has at least 50% A*s and probably a fair bit more.

I know a lot of law people do do history or similar first dream, but I'm not really sure why or what the relative merits are. Looks like a nice set of A levels, but shouldn't she include history if she might want to study it? It might be a safer option than chemistry (which a lot of people find unaccountably difficult and then regret), but then again the chemistry does show versatility.

Well if she might want to read history then history is a better bet than economics. A lot of people find the jump from GCSE to A level history very difficult indeed...what about Maths? French, English, History and maths?

DD had 10 A out of 10 subjects taken (maths, 2 Eng, Fr, Bi ,Phys, Chem, Music, Hi. Geog IT). She said she did not come across many others with all A though.

indigo how would she know?

Do 18/19 year olds really check one another's GCSE grades?

Thewordfactory I bet they checked out each other if they were competing for Oxbridge places ....
My dd's experience matches what is said above: oxford were v interested in gcse results and result on their aptitude test; not so interested in AS levels. Also interested in school predictions.
dd took aptitude test set for science and medical entrants. lots of practice available on line if you want to have a look, OP.
Dreamgirl check out chemistry carefully, it has tripped up candidates this year apparently ...

Would you? I would expect better manners from 18 year olds, personally.......particularly at Oxford....

Well i started medicine at oxford in 2001 and had 9A, A, B at GCSE. I did have an extenuating circumstances note on the B as it was music cos i had to go into hospital and have an emergency operation the day of one paper and missed it! i doubt it made any difference though. i then got AAAA at a-level (obv pre A) days.

DH read nat sciences at cambridge with 11A*s at GCSE and AAAAA at a-level :0. Also in 2001.

My cousin started oxford for chemistry in 2006 and i know he got at least one B at GCSE cos he was upset for weeks. Not sure about spread of A/A* though. he went on to drop a grade at A level and get AAB and they were happy to have him on the course.

Hope that is helpful!

TheWordFactory I was going to add 'not that they went round asking', but I didn't imagine that any one would think they did. However, in the course of living/studying/socialising with others the subject did crop up. I was not implying that DD asked people directly, or that she was commenting on everyone, just that she did not come across many with all A*.
Nothing to do with 'manners', Hakluyt

"Particularly at Oxford" - Why would this be?!!!

As an aside, Oxford publish the offers/applicants rates. Languages is easier to get into than PPE for example.

It was always said at our school that 6A* s at GCSE was about minimum but if your DD wants to do History or Law, Dreamgirls, triple science really is not necessary. Why pile on the pressure when the other related GCSEs are more important. It can be a good route to do languages then law. History and Law are also extremely difficult to get onto.

A friends ds applied to do law at Oxford, having achieved much better A level grades than he'd hoped for.

He wasnt offered an interview, and when he asked for feedback was told that he needed at least 8 A* GCSEs, which he didn't have.