GCSE results for university entry

[Rob Clark]

In my personal experience, exams are mostly to facilitate progression to the next stage of education/learning. Once you've done A levels, GCSEs become less important; once you've done a degree, A levels become less important… I know we have a few people with higher degrees and doctorates on the Forum, would be interested to know if my theory still holds good for them

Guest55, I think it's to do with experience, isn't it? In a lot of professions once you have, say, 3-5 years' experience in your line of work that is going to count for more than the exams you took when you were 16.

[Guest55]

Yes Rob you're correct - I've only ever been asked to show degree and higher qualifications since I graduated.

I must say that I do like to see some decent A level grades as well as everything else when we interview for a new teacher!

[supertrex]

thank you all the responses, which are very useful.

Sorry that I didn't say it clearly -- it is actually my son not for myself. Now i understand that GCSE results are extremely important because uni will also take into consideration and will differentiate students from the excellent to less excellent.

[hermanmunster]

In my personal experience, exams are mostly to facilitate progression to the next stage of education/learning. Once you've done A levels, GCSEs become less important; once you've done a degree, A levels become less important… I know we have a few people with higher degrees and doctorates on the Forum, would be interested to know if my theory still holds good for them

Guest55, I think it's to do with experience, isn't it? In a lot of professions once you have, say, 3-5 years' experience in your line of work that is going to count for more than the exams you took when you were 16.

I agree - the Os As and first degree all become irrelevant at post grad. In medicine for example - no-one cares what A levels you got, ... so you all have the primary medical degrees.. the question is what have you done since then?

[KenR]

Once you've done A levels, GCSEs become less important;

Correct up to a point, but there are exceptions which students need to be aware of and do some background research. For example, for medicine at B/Ham university they mainly look at GCSE grades to select candidates for shortlist. I believe this year the criteria was a minimum of 8 GCSE A*s. Although they make offers with high A2 grades they don't really look at A level predicted grades.

[Guest55]

We are talking post graduation here ...

[KenR]

When viewing the admission pages in many universities, nearly most of them stated their requirements for AS/A2 results. How about the GCSE results? How much they will take into consideration?

No I'm responding to the orginal question posted on the thread

[Guest55]

But you quoted from Rob's post about after university which is confusing ...

On the first page everyone said GCSE grades were important for UCAS.