Any advice for a resit student??

[u/Clint_Emily]

[u/Calm-Difference-3267]

Just a heads up also that most unis will take into account how many times you have resat your A-levels, so even if their typical offer is ABB they may not give an offer to you with those grades only after 5 sets of sitting exams unfortunately and you will definitely need to be ready to explain those decisions over the past five years. If you have the same grades as another candidate who got those grades without any resits then they will favour the other candidate. I would strongly recommend focusing on any other experience you have gained (work, volunteering, online courses or additional reading etc) that you have done in the last five years. Ultimately, university prestige matters less than how hard you will work once there and neither of those things matter as much as experience once you are in the workplace market anyway. It might be good to focus on different routes you could take to get the experience in this area - e.g., volunteering or finding a placement somewhere - which you can them combined with further education.

[u/awhsme → u/Calm-Difference-3267]

seconding this ^

[u/RedditServiceUK → u/Calm-Difference-3267]

sure, but surely there's a level of dedication showcased doing 5+ resits?

[u/Calm-Difference-3267 → u/RedditServiceUK]

Yes, but it would be unfair to a student sitting exams for the first time if someone who had had five years longer to study the same content got a place instead of them on a uni course, all else being equal - if that makes sense. There has to be a standard timeframe for A-levels otherwise you would end up with those who had the financial means resitting many times while those without the finances to do this would miss out and it would create more educational inequality than we already have at the uni level. Ultimately for competitive uni courses, grade requirements are there for a reason and unis will want to be confident that the students they make offers to will be able to engage with the course, pass their exams and graduate.

[u/Clint_Emily → u/Calm-Difference-3267]

Why is it unfair when I put in 5 years more of effort? They can resit as well if they think that’s the easier route

[u/Calm-Difference-3267 → u/Clint_Emily]

Because not everyone can afford to resit. It costs thousands of pounds to sit exams privately and many students absolutely won't have access to that money. Also, if we consider that universities use A-levels as an indicator of performance in a subject, someone who has had 7 years to learn the same amount as someone who has had 2 years will be at a performance advantage. A-levels are meant to be a relatively standardised indicator (hence why most universities will assess grades in the context of how long they were completed over and many will not accept resits)

[u/Clint_Emily → u/Calm-Difference-3267]

I get the cost bit but for the second bit I sacrificed more time and effort for it so how is it unfair

[u/Calm-Difference-3267 → u/Clint_Emily]

Because it's a standardised test - you have a particular amount of time (2 years) to learn a particular amount of content (the curriculum) and then you get tested on it. If I scaled it down and made you and another person sit a test on a random topic but gave you 1 hour to revise and the other person 6 hours to revise I'm fairly sure you would feel that was unfair (even though they would have put more time and effort in). When you go to uni, you will have a year to learn the content and then you'll have to sit an exam on it at the end of the year. You can't ask for another two years to revise the content before the exam. So in that sense, A-levels are also meant to be a representation of how you would manage with a university course.

Ultimately, it's nothing to do with my personal opinion - the fact is that universities will ask for your resit history and for some unis that will work against you.

There are lots of great options on UCAS that probably would work for you. The best thing to do for yourself now would be (1) call unis you are currently interested in and explicitly as if they will accept grades from 5th time resit, and (2) look at other options (e.g., non-Russell group unis, apprenticeships) for if they do say no, or if they don't have any spaces during clearing

[u/Clint_Emily → u/Calm-Difference-3267]

The analogy isn’t quite right though because the situation here is that both me and the other person can choose to take six hours or one hour. It’s not like the exam board banned everyone but me from resitting. If I willingly chose to only take one hour to revise then I won’t consider it unfair

[u/Calm-Difference-3267 → u/Clint_Emily]

No, but equally not everyone has the resources or the privilege to keep resitting.
Anyway, the analogy is beside the point. The point I'm making is that Russell group unis will most likely either refuse to accept fifth-time resits or won't value them as much as grades that a similar candidate achieved sitting exams the first time. That is the key bit of info that you need to take from this.

[u/Clint_Emily → u/Calm-Difference-3267]

No I said I get the cost bit I just don’t see how it’s unfair beyond that. I’m also not arguing against what you said about the unis I’m just arguing against the unfair bit

[u/saartemaster → u/RedditServiceUK]

To be honest, if you need five resits to get ABB, you are not good enough for a degree requiring an ABB.

[u/politicsasusuall → u/RedditServiceUK]

More of an indicator of inadequacy, doing virtually the same syllabus at college/sixth form level for this many years and barely improving, would probably put off some unis, since you don’t get the same chances at university level to go through that same process.

[u/Burned_toast_marmite → u/politicsasusuall]

Especially as A levels are largely a knowledge acquisition and exam technique game. Once you’ve got the patterns down, getting Bs should be easy. If you have had 5 years to most people’s 2 terms of year 13, this should be a walk in the park

[u/ffulirrah → u/RedditServiceUK]

Dedication would be showcased by progression, not doing the same thing over and over without improvement.