Applying to boarding schools with GCSE grades

Prep School Admissions
1

<p>Hi! This is my first post, and I suspect it to be a long one. It would be really helpful if you answer from of your own experience!</p>

<p>So, I am a student studying in Asia, doing my GCSEs. This is my first year of GCSE, so I still have over a year until my actual exams. After my GCSEs, I am planning to move to boarding schools (Phillips Andover, Phillips Exeter, Deerfield, etc.) as Grade 11. Thus I am planning to spend my last 2 years of high school in a boarding school.</p>

<p>Everything was going smooth until a few weeks ago, when I failed some tests/quiz for 2 subjects. One is Design and Tech, and the other is a foreign language. I got C and D respectively. They were not coursework, so they are not going to affect my actual GCSE exams and results. But since I have to apply before the actual exams, I am worried if the schools will look at those grades? Or, since I have GCSE mocks before the end of this academic year, will they look at those instead?</p>

<p>Our school doesn’t have “end-of-the-term grades”/overall grades. Instead, the teachers “posts” all our grades from all the quizzes, coursework, essays, tests etc. on this website. This is what confuses me, because that way there will be so many different grades for each subjects by the time I send in my applications (for example, we already had 5 tests in Maths, so I have 5 different grades posted on that website). I am hoping really hard that they will use my mock exam results instead, because at least I’ll be able to improve that 2 subjects.</p>

<p>Are those 2 horrible grades going to affect my chances to get in to those schools? </p>

<p>Except those 2 subjects, almost half my grades are As, other half A*s. Okay, I have 2 or 3 Bs. Also for the foreign language, I got an A on my first term. For DT, I got a B before. </p>

<p>I think my ECs are quite good.

  • Tennis (7-8 years)
  • Violin (6-7 years, also on school orchestra)
  • MUN (joined this year, because it was only available starting this year)
  • I go to a local school every weekend to teach English to Primary kids
  • Sign language (done 1 month course of it during the summer, only available during summer holidays)
  • Art (I think I’m a good artist, I plan to send in my works when applying)</p>

<p>I have pretty good relationships with my teachers. Also, I’m attending Andover’s Summer Program this summer, if that is going to increase my chance to get in to Andover. If I have good essays and good SSAT results, will I still have a chance of me getting in to any of these schools? </p>

<p>But my main question is, are they going to use my GCSE mock exam results instead, and will those 2 grades affect my chances a lot?</p>

2

<p>What about end of year/mock exam grades? When will you take them? And do you get predicted grades?
I would guess they would either take an average of your grades from all these tests, get your teacher to give you a grade or use end of year/mock/predicted grades. For any of these, it is unlikely a single bad test mark will make a big difference overall :)</p>

3

<p>Thank you! Ahahahahaha that actually made me feel so much better. :smiley:
I have my mock exams in 2 months! To be more specific, its “pre-mock” exams… We have our actual mock exams next year winter, after I send in all my applications. So I hope I do well on my “pre-mock” exams!</p>

4

<p>Grades are one part of the application process. There are many other parts like he ssat, essays, ECs and the interview. You can’t do anything about your grades now but you can focus on other stuff. And have you consider repeating a year. Few people enter in 11 grade and more in 10th grade. It also makes preparing for college easier. Best of licks :)</p>

5

<p>I am actually considering that! Ahahaha thanks for the suggestion!</p>