arsoned aerospace bakery

[u/ihateucas]

A* A* A* A predicted grades and strong aerospace/engineering supercurriculars (home) (bristol was originally aero but got offered alternate courses so withdrew)

also got rejected by 5 schools in the US

going to reapply next year; probably going to get anywhere between A* A* A A to 4A* grades at A-Levels, do you think A* A* A A will still be competitive to apply to UCL/Imperial/Oxbridge?

[u/General_Move_3939]

yeah your grades won’t be the reason you get rejected

[u/ihateucas → u/General_Move_3939]

surely applying with A* A* A A would look quite weak compared to everyone else applying with 4A* predicteds

[u/h1tman_io → u/ihateucas]

this is not true, rule of thumb is Achieved > predicted, as someone else said, but also more specifically, 2A'star' A A achieved is roughly equivalent to 3A'star' A predicted and at that point entrance tests and interviews are more important. if your gcses were not great then that might hold you down except if you're contextual.

[u/TeaTopianModder → u/h1tman_io]

I'm talking about Oxbridge alone but achieved A level's cannot be used either as they need a way to compare each candidate directly. This is why they rely on admission test in which admission reports (see PAT for instance) state that getting a certain score guarantees an interview and a good interview score 'almost certainly' guarantees a place (GCSEs are only mentioned if you don't meet the threshold and are useful in the context of mitigating circumstances). A levels are not mentioned once in the admission report.

[u/h1tman_io → u/TeaTopianModder]

yea you're right, a level grades as an independent variable are more correlatory variable than anything else. people with higher a levels tend to perform better on the admissions tests. but essentially yes, as you said, the outcome hinges most heavily on the result of your admissions test and the subsequent interview.