@MYOS1634 There are many low ranked public schools/sixth form colleges that only offer 6-8 GCSE’s. Also a lot of GCSEs offered at schools are pretty irrelevant subjects. For instance PE, Art, Religious studies, food and nutrition, some other foreign non european languages(Japanese/chinese). Do these subjects really matter in the real world? Do universities actually care whether or not you took such subjects at school? I doubt it. I personally took ten with unusual subjects like economics, commerce,global citizenship
As I said before if you have at least the 6 main GCSEs (Maths, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, English language and English literature) you’re at no disadvantage. If OP has the equivalent of 3A* on their A levels or at least AAA then this would matter a lot more than mere GCSEs.
@Donthatejust I think you have good stats, I realize that you go to an international school in the UK were I suspect a large percentage apply abroad. Could you list your extracurriculars in detail so I could get an idea of how competitive an applicant you are?
Simply based on academics I would take a few more APs and aim for a higher SAT score( 2250+ for Ivies aswell as Caltech and MIT). You seem like a match at Most UCs assuming you actually get a 2100+ sat score and mostly 5s and nothing below a 4 on your APs. An estimate of your gpa would be good but make sure it’s an unweighted gpa estimate as in you take the grades as they are. If you have a 2100+ sat score and 3.9+ unweighted gpa you have a very good chance of getting into most if not all UCs as well as Michigan and Georgia tech.