Right GCSE grades for cambridge

[promise]

hey guys,

I completed my GCSE's and i just started my IB . My aim is to study Law at Cambridge but I am not sure of if my grades at GCSE's have certainly qualified me for the Cambridge standard.

My grades are:

Art- A*

Maths-A*

Biology-A*

Physics-A*

Spanish-A*

French-A

Chemistry-A

History- A

English Lit-A

English Lang-B

If anyone with an idea of the standard of GCSE grades that Cambridge would consider (during application) could help me out, it would be really useful.

Thanks

[ctrls]

Looks fine, it's a very good score and Cambridge doesn't put too much weight on GCSE's anyways. What you get in the IB would be a lot more important, so you'll need to make sure to meet the requirements as listed on their page. The most important however is the interview itself, most applicants do get invited to one around December, but that's where they drop most of them. Law especially is a very competitive course, so you generally have a lot of people applying for the same place.

That's quite a ways in the future though, so it's not something to worry about quite yet. Just aim for a high predicted score by the end of IB1 and work from there.

Edited September 3, 2013 by ctrls

[Sandwich]

Your GCSEs are pretty decent, I wouldn't worry about them. Cambridge don't discriminate on GCSEs unlike some Universities (at least, not to my knowledge), and I think their main consideration will probably be your IB predictions. Mostly As or A*s at GCSE is fine, it's not going to kick you out of the pile or anything just because it's not a set of perfect grades or there's a B in there.

This isn't relevant to your GCSEs because as I said, I doubt they'd find anything wrong with them, but considering you didn't do quite as well in the essay subjects at GCSE (English Lit, Lang and History) I would concentrate on nailing your essay technique early on in IB. It's essay type stuff which they want for Law, as a rule, and a lot of those subjects in the IB are dependent on getting the technique and approach correct - the earlier you do it, the better. So I'd pay a lot of attention to getting your technique correct and then hopefully you'll be scoring 7s in all the right places and be able to get a nice high predicted point score and maybe secure an interview! That'd be my advice, anyway

Also obviously some personal statement type stuff - work experience, extra-curricular activities etc. Really getting an interview is about the quality of your personal statement and having some nice high predictions. Then when you get to the interview - it's up to you! And of course how evil the interviewer is feeling on the day

Good luck!

[Arrowhead]

Cambridge is not too fussed about GCSEs as the others have pointed out.

However, keep in mind that for usual A-Level applicants, Cambridge places an unusually high amount of important on UMS percentages in their AS-Levels. Seeing as IB doesn't have an equivalent of that, I would assume that GCSEs would be given slightly more importance since there's no other indication of your academic potential aside from your predicted scores in the IB.

Even if that is the case, I really wouldn't worry since your GCSEs are great!

As a side note, I have a thread here for advising future law students, so if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me.

Arrowhead.