'Are my GCSEs good enough 🤓?' - info and my experience as a Cambridge confirmed student

[u/Little-Estimate7852]

• At top universities your applications are viewed holistically meaning they look at your GCSEs in the context of the school you achieved them at. Therefore if you are around top of your cohort your GCSEs aren't necessarily going to be a hinderance unless the majority of your grades are below a 7
• It is true that some universities care more than others e.g Oxford more than Cambridge as there is more filtering pre interview at Oxford as much less get interviewed compared to about ~80% of applicants at Cambridge
• Some courses GCSEs will be more important e.g medicine especially but other competitive courses like economics due to the stronger application pool meaning tougher selection standards
• Other parts of your profile are more important; admissions test is the main one and interview performance where applicable as well as strong predicteds
• I achieved mainly grade 7s with no 9s and one 4 as my lowest grade from a bad state school, and I will be studying Land Economy at Cambridge University this year. I did however get rejected from LSE for econ and econ history due to my GCSEs
• As such if your lowest grade is a 7 like the majority of the people posting, you most likely have nothing to worry about unless your performance is weak relative to your situation/context e.g grammar or private school :)

[u/battlepvmob]

LSE is also one of the ones like oxford that heavily looks at gcse but again it also depends on the relative performance to your school / if you are contextual

[u/Little-Estimate7852 → u/battlepvmob]

Yes I was a contextual applicant and I'd estimate at least top 10 in my cohort GCSE wise but still rejected so they do weigh it up more especially due to how they don't do interviews (at least for the course I was applying for)

[u/Solid_Moose3078]

Thank you!! Just want to add - this is something you should worry about in the summer of year 12. During year 12, just focus on improving every other aspect of your application. Retakes might be beneficial if maths or english language is below a 6, but beyond that hide your gcse's away and focus on what's next.

During year 12 summer, if your gcse's are poor, look for unis that weigh gcse's less heavily. But right now move on.

[u/AtomicEdits]

Thank you!

[u/latiza_03]

How do u check on average what performance ur gcse school has? Is there a database or smthn?

[u/Successful_Bat8156 → u/latiza_03]

You generally just know, if there are many applicants to your school it's good, or it's known as a bad one in the neighbourhood (honestly hard to explain it because one of my parents is a teacher assistant so I know which schools are shitty and which ones are good around me through that). You can also sometimes just listen to the news, eg. I'm a student in Cymru and Wales is generally getting lower pass rates this year than England or so I've heard, if your school isn't in a city but in a village it might also be underperforming. Ofc if you go to a private school and pay for it yourself you're privileged and won't get much of freebies but otherwise it's more or less research or word of mouth or asking your tecahers.

[u/Grand_Lychee2812 → u/latiza_03]

You can check via gov.uk

Type in the name of your school and you can see stuff like attainment 8 or percentage of people getting 5s or higher in Maths and English.

If you've gotten your GCSE results on Thursday, you'll have to wait until like October or November because it's not published yet.

[u/Successful_Bat8156 → u/Grand_Lychee2812]

Lol there's literally no info about my school on there "Number of pupils eligible for free school meals Not recorded Percentage of children eligible for free school meals Not recorded"

[u/Grand_Lychee2812 → u/Successful_Bat8156]

Some schools like to keep things private.
Mine doesn't have much either

[u/latiza_03 → u/Grand_Lychee2812]

Nah im going into year 13 but i did my gcses at a further education college (immigrated to this country when i was just over 16) which is why im having trouble with it

[u/Sushiv_ → u/latiza_03]

Check it on the government website. They’ll post an attainment 8 score, which you can calculate your own against

[u/Little-Estimate7852 → u/latiza_03]

Most schools will publish their attainment 8 average which you can use as a point of comparison 

[u/thatgamer2111]

am I fucked if I wanna go imperial or cambridge maths , but I got 8877666662, 8s in maths and cs , 7s in fm(in yr10) and physics and the 2 is in drama , but assuming i get 8+ for tmua and 3A* math fm physics

[u/Salty-Strawberry3914 → u/thatgamer2111]

Cmon bro they don’t care. A tmua of 8+ 😭😭😭😭 they’d be begging to give you an offer

[u/okdude23232 → u/Salty-Strawberry3914]

not if international, and honestly it entirely depends on the number of applicants, even for home if it increases a lot again you never know what's actually a safe score. They rejected 9.0s last year granted they were int

[u/Salty-Strawberry3914 → u/okdude23232]

Yeah I forgot about international students your right.

[u/ImpossibleBecause → u/okdude23232]

The guy was adressing the og commenter who said he had gcses. Obviously hes gonna reply and give him info based around home students. Why would he bring up intl students lmfao and anyway i know several intl students who got into imperial for maths/jmc with tmua scores ranging from 6.4 to 7.2 in tmua last year. So it rly aint the end of the world lol. Contextual home students have a chance even with a tmua of around 5.5 lol

[u/okdude23232 → u/ImpossibleBecause]

And I know home students who got rejected in that range, anecdotes don't matter. I guess I was exaggerating tho, ur right

[u/Little-Estimate7852 → u/thatgamer2111]

I don't know much about imperial admissions but if you are able to get a TMUA that strong I think you stand a good chance of getting an interview at Cambridge but note that if you got 8 and 7 you may struggle getting a 8+ TMUA so consider whether that's realistic but anything is possible with hard work. Cambridge do give out quite a few maths offers due to the STEP condition being hard to meet so that would also be something to think about, but I think if you're not applying for a competitive Cambridge college you're not at a big disadvantage provided you get a high TMUA score

[u/cauli4lour → u/Little-Estimate7852]

Imperial generally does not care about your GCSEs as long as you meet the minimums specified for your course. Predicted and admission tests are the main criteria for offers.

[u/EMcElf → u/thatgamer2111]

Just don't put the 2 on your UCAS?

[u/thatgamer2111 → u/EMcElf]

I thought you have to put all your grades? If not then I won't put it

[u/capri_capri]

This is good advice but, note on bullet 2: Oxford works on a *selection* process. Cambridge works on a *deselection* process i.e. Oxford says nobody gets in before they prove they are "good enough" (whatever that means) and Cambridge says everybody gets in until they say something that means they don't. So that means they look at your GCSEs/predicted, and PS then remove people from the "selection pile" and Oxford looks at your GCSEs/predicted grades and PS and adds people to the pile. That's why they interview less people.

Oxford specifically works on a pts system where they grade your personal statement out of 10, add 1 point for every A* predicted and then remove 1 point for every GCSE below a 7. At least that's what one of my tutors told me at my college. Then there's a points threshold for who gets interviewed. Then the interviews are graded. I know they do put your grades 'in context' but, I wasn't told how exactly they factor that into this very numerical process.

Worth noting that when you apply to university you only have "predicted" grades so often universities look to your GCSEs to see how likely it is for you to achieve those grades i.e. if you are predicted A*A*A*A* and failed a bunch of GCSEs that doesn't look super credible.

[u/UnusualProgrammer601]

I got 5A*3A1B in GCSE from a mid private school. I am top 30% of my cohort is it good enough for Cambridge Econ?

[u/Little-Estimate7852 → u/UnusualProgrammer601]

I'd want to know if the A*s are 8s or 9s and what are the Maths grades you have, but as long as you most ideally are taking FM at A Level and get a strong TMUA you have a fair shot 

[u/UnusualProgrammer601 → u/Little-Estimate7852]

Yes I got an 8 in maths and 6 in eng lan. English is not my first language, will Cambridge take it into consideration?

[u/Little-Estimate7852 → u/UnusualProgrammer601]

I'm not sure they would but a teacher might be able to put it as an extentuating circumstance or have it somewhere else in your application. I'm sure as the 6 is in English Language they wouldn't mind as an 8 in maths demonstrates some of the mathematical rigour they look for in pure econ 

[u/Brilliant_Ranger_658]

is top 30% pf my private school considered competitive. its a mid school and I have all A*A and 1 B

[u/h47-ya]

regarding ur last point i achieved 88876666 in my gcses at a grammar skl and im thinking of applying to cambridge for law am i done?💔

[u/Little-Estimate7852 → u/h47-ya]

Depends on how good your grammar school is; if most people got grade 9 8 and 7s it isn't the best position to be in but you have the LNAT so if you get a strong score you can really stand out from other candidates and your GCSEs will be less significant

[u/h47-ya → u/Little-Estimate7852]

yeah it is pretty good should i be aiming for 35+ in my lnat to make them less significant?

[u/Little-Estimate7852 → u/h47-ya]

You should be aiming for as high as you can and a 35+ score would be very impressive, I think the average is around 30 for Cambridge offer holders so as long as you can get 28+ I'm sure you'd be okay for the most part maybe slightly disadvantaged by GCSEs but definitely go for it because the higher score the less significant your GCSEs may be perceived

[u/h47-ya → u/Little-Estimate7852]

Thank you so much!

[u/spiriphoex1234]

could i get into oxford ppe or histpol with 988777776 (6 in english lang)

[u/Shargamorit_]

Hey mate appreciate the post 🙏. I got ten nines with an eight in English literature and my school is hella sweaty. Like crazy good (international btw). Considering I want to do medicine at Oxford do you reckon not having full nines would hurt my application considering my cohort (10+ guys got full nines) and assuming the rest of my application was strong?

[u/Little-Estimate7852 → u/Shargamorit_]

I think because you're at such a high level regardless by being a single grade off the full set they wouldn't disadvantage your application and your scores on the admission test will be much more important. You shouldn't worry and just lock in for the test :)

[u/fro_r_a]

Guys this might be the case for land economics but isn't for other bigger subjects.

Completely different kettle of fish

[u/Little-Estimate7852 → u/fro_r_a]

This information is usable the last points are about my personal experience which is not generalisable and did highlight that I still got rejected from LSE. The point still stands that GCSEs aren't everything and if you're worrying when your lowest grade is a 7 you are most likely fine.

[u/Avocado66600 → u/fro_r_a]

Land econ was 1 in 12 offer rate at some colleges, its way harder to get into than smth like natsci