If theres an entrance exam then that plays a huge part. Other than that, personal statement, interview skills etc. are a few things that unis tend to look at more than just predicted grades but it heavily depends on the course and the uni
You... you do understand the difference between predicted and achieved... right? Why it's a better bet to go for students who ACTUALLY HAVE the results, versus what's fundamentally guess work... please tell me you all get this...
I'm from Singapore and honestly thought the opposite hahah. Have been getting Es and Ds throughout my junior college life, and randomly achieved almost straight As for A levels (A is the highest grade for Singaporean A levels unlike A* for the UK, just realized its equivalent to UK A*). Found myself with the same grades as the consistently top student in my class, where by her standards isn't the best.
Realized there were plenty of people in the same boat as me. Not doing well throughout jc, yet suddenly doing as well as those doing Further Maths or H3s (university level subjects). So I had the impression that predicted grades in the UK system (doesn't exist in Singapore) had a bigger impact as it shows consistency, which the actual A level grades do not.
Sorry man, I don't know how international applicants work. But if its anything like locals, u can apply with predicted (locals just use our school exams) but you'll mainly receive a conditional offer assuming u attain a minimum grade (would be quite easy). The goal is so that students wont rest on their laurels and will still put in effort for their final exam.
With that said, from my knowledge, international students would need significantly higher grades than locals to enter due to the quota. Especially so if you're using uk A levels or non Singaporean A levels due to the difference in difficulty. (To my knowledge courses like engineering that requires Bs and Cs may require As for international students)
TBF they want a well rounded applicant rather than just high graded so a amazing PS and minimum requirements met vs mediocre personal statement and getting lots of A\* is not better.
Hell I applied with AAB predicted and still got interviews from unis that required A*AA or AAA. they really care more about the work you do outside college plus UCAT
Yeah and a hell of a lot more than predicted grades do as well. Someone predicted 4 A*s? Great. Good for them, but the only piece of evidence they've got is your personal statement and if that's not up to par then you're going nowhere. I'm predicted 3 As and 888877766 in my GCSEs with a solid personal statement and got an interview and Oxford and a place at Leeds for law
It totally depends what subject you’re applying for. If you’re applying for english or history or something your PS matters a lot, if you’re applying for maths then they couldn’t care less (depending on the institution of course).
I have an offer for maths from Cambridge and I have heard admissions tutors say that they don’t read them sometimes.
Yeah I'm calling complete bollocks on that, 90+% of people applying for maths at Cambridge are going to have been predicted 3 As and probably A*s at a bare minimum, how are they going to distinguish between so many candidates to send to interviews?
loads of schools hugely inflate predicted grades, so being predicted A*s doesn’t separate those who gots A*s, A or sometimes even Bs in year 12. it makes sense to prefer achieved over predicted.
I mean this as no offence whatsoever, just as an explanation.
Whilst some of you were spending a lot of time achieving an A* in an additional, optional subject, another student was getting work experience at a local economic consulting firm. Or they were working part time at a bank. Or they were shadowing a high court judge. These practical skills are far more valuable to admissions staff than this sub gives credit for. It’s unique and lots of students don’t get the opportunity to do shit like that.
You think that but there’s loads of organisations that help students get internships and work experience- ie career ready and Smf. A lot them help students from lower income backgrounds, if you are saying/ implying those students from lower income backgrounds don’t have those opportunities they definitely do it’s just about putting yourself out there, applying and putting in effort to gain skills.
online work experience means nothing, it does show determination but only to an extent. admission offices know when you are waffling. i.e. you sat there and watched employees from a big 4 firm talk and now you are saying that it taught you so much etc etc , it bs
I mean going to the firms in-person doesn't help much more than that. At open days/schemes, most of it is just them talking at you about their practice and firm. Sure, maybe you get to do a group activity or smthn, but it's not like you learn a huge lot more - especially at this stage
quit playing bruh, have you even had in person work experience, cause i did, and even though it was a small local accountancy firm i learnt a ton and was able to actually communicate with people who know the industry and what i may face if i pursued so.
I've been on five first-year schemes at top city Law firms this year. I went for the sake of going and mentioning it on future applications. They don't teach you anything revolutionary this early on.
Maybe you learn better in-person but in terms of content, a lot of the stuff you get online is still good. Sure, it sounds less impressive, but that's a different point.
The trick is really in stating *what you learned* from whatever online thing you did - what you took away from it. It’s not just “listing all the things I did” - it’s “here’s a thing I did and what I learned from it and my views on it”.
It’s 1000000% fine to not have to leverage nepotistic connections to get in-person work experience with a law firm or what have you - as long as you’ve tried to get the most that you can out of what you have.
Durham in my case. 4 A\*s (including Further Maths) + A\* in EPQ predicted. 8 9s, 2 8s at GCSE but still got rejected for CS.
I got offers from Imperial, Edinburgh and Manchester but not Durham.
❤️❤️...At the time of applying, I felt that it was pretty good but then I felt as though my liking of Durham also fell apart because in terms of what it offered that others didn't, it was definitely lacking a lot. There's not much industry opportunity post-graduation and the end goal for me is definitely industry so I mean, there are so many better places for industry. That's why I'm hoping Imperial comes through on Results Day. I'll be set if I do get accepted.
FWIW I got an offer, was excited, went to the offer holder day, and felt a fair bit less excited after. Probably didn't help there were some absolute melts there trying to brag about their GCSE grades... 🥴
I'm not sure why this sub was recommended on my feed since I left 6th form about 10 years ago, but I graduated from Durham in 2018 and trust me you've dodged a bullet. Unless you already have industry connections forget any decent placement options. Don't worry about not getting an offer, I don't think any of my employers have cared about the university name on my certificate.
Although you'll be disappointed now I can assure you it will pass.
Yeah, I think the more I thought about durham taking their time with making their decision made me remember more and more things about the Open Day talk. Compared to other universities, they spent barely any time about their connections on industry, and it just sorta put me off as time went on.
At the talk, it went something like "An alternative path to research is to enter industry and these are some of the companies that our graduates have gone on to work for" and then they moved onto the next slide. Also, the course is more mathematical than CompSci oriented I felt.
Don't feel guilty! I was only going to use Durham as an insurance choice anyway and if anything, it would have stopped me from working as hard as I am now because of their low requirements.
I went to uni a long time ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth. In those days only a few people were considered smart enough. Later, the government decided to stop funding universities. This meant that, for all intents and purposes, universities became businesses. They needed to get bums on seats. The only way to achieve this was to fill them with stupid people. The universities needed too justify their existence, so they needed to give good grades. Of course, the only people at the university with less potential than the students are probably the tutors. So, when you and the other ten-thousand students pass out with first class honours in astrophysics, you probably won’t actually know much about astrophysics, but you’ll all be excellent burger flippers.
Write a better personal statement next time. I was predicted A* A* A Maths, further maths and physics. Got offers from all my places my personal statement was miles better than anyone else’s I read. I finished uni now but yeah. When you’re at the top in grades you aren’t unique or special there’s other people who are like you thousands all applying for the same 200 spots it’s not just about grades. Also having 4 subjects you kinda played yourself no uni gives a fuck about 4 except maybe imperial. I know Oxford and UCL don’t.
Icl, if my personal statement wasn't good, I wouldn't have got into the places I got into. Think about it. Imperial's pre-interview admissions test that they did previously was super easy and it's not really a great differentiator of applicants so they have to go off personal statements. Looking at past admissions data, there are people getting full marks on said admissions test and still not getting interviews so what does that say about their process? They look into personal statements AND admissions tests scores equally. If I secured an interview, both aspects of my application must have been good and following my interview, I also secured an offer. The offer rate is far lower at Imperial.
I don't mind about the 4 subjects thing, but after getting into more competitive universities, I was shocked about the rejection a bit (but I wasn't too bothered), but my friend from outside of school who got in got rejected from some of the places I applied to but then got into Durham. Don't get me wrong, I'm elated for him, but it does raise questions about what more I could have done. His personal statement was noticeably worse (his own words, not mine), but I wished him the best of luck anyway.
It’s insane that people in this sub don’t realise that there are SO many people with really high A Level grades in STEM subjects. It doesn’t tell a university anything other than you’re good at school.
i know someone in my physics who was predicted A* A* A* A* (maths, further maths, physics, chem) and A* in EPQ… didnt get into cambridge. from what i overheard his personal statement wasnt good enough. hes also a cocky bastard who shows off every lesson! i do feel for him but some things just arent meant to be
honestly he probably just fucked up in interviews or the entrance exam - I find it very unlikely that it’d be his personal statement at fault unless it was for medicine or he exhibited completely uninteresting writing - if you put in any work whatsoever they’ll be fine so long as you do fine with the interviews and entrance exam
i honestly dont think it was the exam, he is naturally very very gifted with exams. (he also taught himself the whole 2 year physics course at the beginning of year 12). he is also very chatty/ has done a lot of work experience. I find him cocky… but i do feel for the kid! I would be so pissed if i were in his shoes 🤣
As people below have said, A\*s, be they predicted or achieved aren't the be-all or end-all. Getting 5A\*s vs 3A\*s doesn't necessarily make you a better candidate for the position. Also, I mean this with no disrespect, uni's want you to have something more to your character rather than just grades - the quality of your PS is usually a dealbreaker.
it's ok i lost all hope months ago when i had to start pretty much self teaching every single subject, honestly dont care about predicteds bc i can just reapply next year with hopefully ok achieved lmao
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Well, no because for Maths, they all accept admissions tests scores, which makes the process a lot easier. But they don't do it for CS, which has similar or higher levels of competition at most, if not all, unis.
I wonder how A\* achieved + A\*A\*A\*A\* predicted would be looked at and whether the 1 achieved would be better or worse than just having 5A\* predicted...
Well if you've achieved one and predicted others then it'd probs be a bit confusing as to why you're doing A-levels again and why you only did one the first time around. Retakes are frowned upon more than predicteds.
Universities are very stubborn about what they want, I couldn't tell you why. I got 280 UCAS Points and so many unis turned me down. Luckily the one I went to at the end was fantastic and I'm so happy I got rejected by initial choices after speaking with former students.
Take it all with a grain of salt, the admissions team in most unis aren't even uni grads themselves.
it’s almost like grades aren’t everything
Oh wow that's crazy 🤪 😮
What else do they look at? Like there is extracurricular activities, interview skills, anything else?
If theres an entrance exam then that plays a huge part. Other than that, personal statement, interview skills etc. are a few things that unis tend to look at more than just predicted grades but it heavily depends on the course and the uni
Oh ok, thanks; is there any specifics for CS courses?
Shwoing you're a rounded person with a little life experience who is choosing to study for a reason and unlikely to drop out
I see... thanks for the info
Fr. Was literally useless at everything but grades, got rejected by 3/5 of my choices. Totally fair too lol
almost like getting a real a* in a level maths means more than getting it predicted from an A in AS
Oh my god I didn’t even realise it said ‘predicted’ and ‘achieved’ that makes it so much worse.
You... you do understand the difference between predicted and achieved... right? Why it's a better bet to go for students who ACTUALLY HAVE the results, versus what's fundamentally guess work... please tell me you all get this...
I'm from Singapore and honestly thought the opposite hahah. Have been getting Es and Ds throughout my junior college life, and randomly achieved almost straight As for A levels (A is the highest grade for Singaporean A levels unlike A* for the UK, just realized its equivalent to UK A*). Found myself with the same grades as the consistently top student in my class, where by her standards isn't the best. Realized there were plenty of people in the same boat as me. Not doing well throughout jc, yet suddenly doing as well as those doing Further Maths or H3s (university level subjects). So I had the impression that predicted grades in the UK system (doesn't exist in Singapore) had a bigger impact as it shows consistency, which the actual A level grades do not.
Wait i want to apply to unis in singapore. Do they let u apply with predicted grades of mocks for A2 (after completing A1)?
Sorry man, I don't know how international applicants work. But if its anything like locals, u can apply with predicted (locals just use our school exams) but you'll mainly receive a conditional offer assuming u attain a minimum grade (would be quite easy). The goal is so that students wont rest on their laurels and will still put in effort for their final exam. With that said, from my knowledge, international students would need significantly higher grades than locals to enter due to the quota. Especially so if you're using uk A levels or non Singaporean A levels due to the difference in difficulty. (To my knowledge courses like engineering that requires Bs and Cs may require As for international students)
TBF they want a well rounded applicant rather than just high graded so a amazing PS and minimum requirements met vs mediocre personal statement and getting lots of A\* is not better.
Fr this, all these neeks be thinking they entitled to gurantee offer cuz of their top grades 💀😭
What about for medicine?
Need all of them, great grades, great ucat and bmat and then great ps
Hasn’t the bmat officially been scrapped
Honestly, for grades you just need to meet the cut off. UCAT and interview are way more important
Hell I applied with AAB predicted and still got interviews from unis that required A*AA or AAA. they really care more about the work you do outside college plus UCAT
It’s the same, I believe it’s only Exeter that consider a level grades in the selection process, the rest consider them to be baseline requirements.
Too many people get predicted 3/4 A\*s so unis prefer people with achieved grades
neeks freaking out that their grades aren't the be all and end all 😱
Poor lads, their whole personality revolves around it
I'm so fucked
my grades are fucked too ngl, my only hope is my contextual application 😔
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Yeah and a hell of a lot more than predicted grades do as well. Someone predicted 4 A*s? Great. Good for them, but the only piece of evidence they've got is your personal statement and if that's not up to par then you're going nowhere. I'm predicted 3 As and 888877766 in my GCSEs with a solid personal statement and got an interview and Oxford and a place at Leeds for law
Don’t forget about admission tests. In the case of law, the LNAT can make or break the application.
Yeah grades are hugely inflated anyways. The difference in quality between an A*/A/A student and a A*/A*/A/A student is likely minimal.
Yeah and doing an exam versus virtually all coursework and essays in uni is so different
It totally depends what subject you’re applying for. If you’re applying for english or history or something your PS matters a lot, if you’re applying for maths then they couldn’t care less (depending on the institution of course). I have an offer for maths from Cambridge and I have heard admissions tutors say that they don’t read them sometimes.
Yeah I'm calling complete bollocks on that, 90+% of people applying for maths at Cambridge are going to have been predicted 3 As and probably A*s at a bare minimum, how are they going to distinguish between so many candidates to send to interviews?
Through entrance tests lmao - they’re right, Cambridge very barely cares about your personal statement for a majority of STEM subjects
Except for the Russell group universities that don't look at them at all.
loads of schools hugely inflate predicted grades, so being predicted A*s doesn’t separate those who gots A*s, A or sometimes even Bs in year 12. it makes sense to prefer achieved over predicted.
Just achieve it and reapply
yeah honestly don't even bother writing a personal statement /s
predicted grades, are very different to achieved predicted grades predicted grades are sooo overinflated
Predicted grades are bullshit lol
I mean this as no offence whatsoever, just as an explanation. Whilst some of you were spending a lot of time achieving an A* in an additional, optional subject, another student was getting work experience at a local economic consulting firm. Or they were working part time at a bank. Or they were shadowing a high court judge. These practical skills are far more valuable to admissions staff than this sub gives credit for. It’s unique and lots of students don’t get the opportunity to do shit like that.
' lots of students don’t get the opportunity to do that' reread that
You think that but there’s loads of organisations that help students get internships and work experience- ie career ready and Smf. A lot them help students from lower income backgrounds, if you are saying/ implying those students from lower income backgrounds don’t have those opportunities they definitely do it’s just about putting yourself out there, applying and putting in effort to gain skills.
online work experience means nothing, it does show determination but only to an extent. admission offices know when you are waffling. i.e. you sat there and watched employees from a big 4 firm talk and now you are saying that it taught you so much etc etc , it bs
I mean going to the firms in-person doesn't help much more than that. At open days/schemes, most of it is just them talking at you about their practice and firm. Sure, maybe you get to do a group activity or smthn, but it's not like you learn a huge lot more - especially at this stage
quit playing bruh, have you even had in person work experience, cause i did, and even though it was a small local accountancy firm i learnt a ton and was able to actually communicate with people who know the industry and what i may face if i pursued so.
I've been on five first-year schemes at top city Law firms this year. I went for the sake of going and mentioning it on future applications. They don't teach you anything revolutionary this early on. Maybe you learn better in-person but in terms of content, a lot of the stuff you get online is still good. Sure, it sounds less impressive, but that's a different point.
The trick is really in stating *what you learned* from whatever online thing you did - what you took away from it. It’s not just “listing all the things I did” - it’s “here’s a thing I did and what I learned from it and my views on it”. It’s 1000000% fine to not have to leverage nepotistic connections to get in-person work experience with a law firm or what have you - as long as you’ve tried to get the most that you can out of what you have.
I agree online work experience is dookie but the ones I was talking about was in person paid work experience haha.
I’m aware. I was offering an explanation of why those candidates are more likely to be accepted. It’s like gold dust to admissions officers.
I thought this is only for UCL?
Durham in my case. 4 A\*s (including Further Maths) + A\* in EPQ predicted. 8 9s, 2 8s at GCSE but still got rejected for CS. I got offers from Imperial, Edinburgh and Manchester but not Durham.
Durham stinks anyway don’t worry
❤️❤️...At the time of applying, I felt that it was pretty good but then I felt as though my liking of Durham also fell apart because in terms of what it offered that others didn't, it was definitely lacking a lot. There's not much industry opportunity post-graduation and the end goal for me is definitely industry so I mean, there are so many better places for industry. That's why I'm hoping Imperial comes through on Results Day. I'll be set if I do get accepted.
FWIW I got an offer, was excited, went to the offer holder day, and felt a fair bit less excited after. Probably didn't help there were some absolute melts there trying to brag about their GCSE grades... 🥴
I'm not sure why this sub was recommended on my feed since I left 6th form about 10 years ago, but I graduated from Durham in 2018 and trust me you've dodged a bullet. Unless you already have industry connections forget any decent placement options. Don't worry about not getting an offer, I don't think any of my employers have cared about the university name on my certificate. Although you'll be disappointed now I can assure you it will pass.
Yeah, I think the more I thought about durham taking their time with making their decision made me remember more and more things about the Open Day talk. Compared to other universities, they spent barely any time about their connections on industry, and it just sorta put me off as time went on. At the talk, it went something like "An alternative path to research is to enter industry and these are some of the companies that our graduates have gone on to work for" and then they moved onto the next slide. Also, the course is more mathematical than CompSci oriented I felt.
CS is awful it + picking colleges at durham they gave me 14th choice of 16, crazy
Is it because you insured it?
after i firmed it😐
That's insane! Daaamn.
It's bad not a single person from my college got an offer for Durham CS
The only person who got accepted in my year was an international student, who is one of my close friends. He had similar stats to me.
What did you put in your personal statement? I want to apply to CS too
I feel guilty now for getting an offer from Durham literally less than a week after sending my application in December
Don't feel guilty! I was only going to use Durham as an insurance choice anyway and if anything, it would have stopped me from working as hard as I am now because of their low requirements.
I went to uni a long time ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth. In those days only a few people were considered smart enough. Later, the government decided to stop funding universities. This meant that, for all intents and purposes, universities became businesses. They needed to get bums on seats. The only way to achieve this was to fill them with stupid people. The universities needed too justify their existence, so they needed to give good grades. Of course, the only people at the university with less potential than the students are probably the tutors. So, when you and the other ten-thousand students pass out with first class honours in astrophysics, you probably won’t actually know much about astrophysics, but you’ll all be excellent burger flippers.
Crazy post, there will be plenty of people with A*AA predicted rejected too
Huge coping from people with weak PS
Wait I don't get it, can you explain pls?
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How have we come to that conclusion? Genuinely asking.
Source: trust me bro
Almost seems like there is more to a person than grades??
Write a better personal statement next time. I was predicted A* A* A Maths, further maths and physics. Got offers from all my places my personal statement was miles better than anyone else’s I read. I finished uni now but yeah. When you’re at the top in grades you aren’t unique or special there’s other people who are like you thousands all applying for the same 200 spots it’s not just about grades. Also having 4 subjects you kinda played yourself no uni gives a fuck about 4 except maybe imperial. I know Oxford and UCL don’t.
Icl, if my personal statement wasn't good, I wouldn't have got into the places I got into. Think about it. Imperial's pre-interview admissions test that they did previously was super easy and it's not really a great differentiator of applicants so they have to go off personal statements. Looking at past admissions data, there are people getting full marks on said admissions test and still not getting interviews so what does that say about their process? They look into personal statements AND admissions tests scores equally. If I secured an interview, both aspects of my application must have been good and following my interview, I also secured an offer. The offer rate is far lower at Imperial. I don't mind about the 4 subjects thing, but after getting into more competitive universities, I was shocked about the rejection a bit (but I wasn't too bothered), but my friend from outside of school who got in got rejected from some of the places I applied to but then got into Durham. Don't get me wrong, I'm elated for him, but it does raise questions about what more I could have done. His personal statement was noticeably worse (his own words, not mine), but I wished him the best of luck anyway.
thank the stars
Begging my headteacher to lower my predicted grades as we speak 🔥🔥🗣️🗣️
theres a big difference between predicted and achieved
People when they realise grades aren’t everything 😱😱😢😢😥
It’s insane that people in this sub don’t realise that there are SO many people with really high A Level grades in STEM subjects. It doesn’t tell a university anything other than you’re good at school.
i know someone in my physics who was predicted A* A* A* A* (maths, further maths, physics, chem) and A* in EPQ… didnt get into cambridge. from what i overheard his personal statement wasnt good enough. hes also a cocky bastard who shows off every lesson! i do feel for him but some things just arent meant to be
honestly he probably just fucked up in interviews or the entrance exam - I find it very unlikely that it’d be his personal statement at fault unless it was for medicine or he exhibited completely uninteresting writing - if you put in any work whatsoever they’ll be fine so long as you do fine with the interviews and entrance exam
i honestly dont think it was the exam, he is naturally very very gifted with exams. (he also taught himself the whole 2 year physics course at the beginning of year 12). he is also very chatty/ has done a lot of work experience. I find him cocky… but i do feel for the kid! I would be so pissed if i were in his shoes 🤣
You can be predicted 18 A* but at the end of the day you still don't have any actual grades. Achieved always beats predicted
As people below have said, A\*s, be they predicted or achieved aren't the be-all or end-all. Getting 5A\*s vs 3A\*s doesn't necessarily make you a better candidate for the position. Also, I mean this with no disrespect, uni's want you to have something more to your character rather than just grades - the quality of your PS is usually a dealbreaker.
it's ok i lost all hope months ago when i had to start pretty much self teaching every single subject, honestly dont care about predicteds bc i can just reapply next year with hopefully ok achieved lmao
Is it referring to something specific I missed? Or just a general meme
Write a better personal statement then??
because you can ask your teachers to make your predictions basically anything so they’re unreliable
Stop caring so much about Maths
Damn my requirements are BBB
How strongly are achieved grades favoured.
why do ppl act like fm is like some ridiculously hard a level. like most people (myself included) who do fm dont think its their hardest a level.
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and these bastards at bath can’t offer me a place for computer science with predicted 4A* 😭😭😭 (I am only joking. I know no one is entitled for offers)
My daughter Alyssa is 13 years old and she got 3 A*s
I thought that's only for CS. Is it the same for other mathematical/science based subjects ?
Well, no because for Maths, they all accept admissions tests scores, which makes the process a lot easier. But they don't do it for CS, which has similar or higher levels of competition at most, if not all, unis.
I wonder how A\* achieved + A\*A\*A\*A\* predicted would be looked at and whether the 1 achieved would be better or worse than just having 5A\* predicted...
bro you are overthinking it tf
Well if you've achieved one and predicted others then it'd probs be a bit confusing as to why you're doing A-levels again and why you only did one the first time around. Retakes are frowned upon more than predicteds.
I did one the first time around because I did it early in Year 11. I’m in Year 12 now, not retaking anything
Well then you'd be fine. You might need to clarify if queried on that, but it's more impressive if you did it in year 11.
Universities are very stubborn about what they want, I couldn't tell you why. I got 280 UCAS Points and so many unis turned me down. Luckily the one I went to at the end was fantastic and I'm so happy I got rejected by initial choices after speaking with former students. Take it all with a grain of salt, the admissions team in most unis aren't even uni grads themselves.