Doesn’t she have to take A levels before university? (I’m assuming these were O levels because of the number of them. )
These were the A levels that were just released.
She took EIGHT A-levels? That’s kind of unheard-of, AFAIK. Three is a more common number for university, or at least it was back in the day!
Stanford’s loss is Oxford’s gain. She will do Oxford proud. Awesome young lady.
You have to take at least three. From what I read, Malala took ten (!) of them, getting 4 A* (top scores) and 6 As. Her conditional offer at Oxford required 3 As for her PPE program.
My former DIL took 4 for Oxford with the intention of doing physics. IIRC, she got sick during the exams and had to drop one, then the scores didn’t get to Oxford in time (long, complicated story which I don’t remember now) and they declined her (She went ABB). She went to Edinburgh instead, which is a good thing, since she changed to CS/math after a semester and Edinburgh was a better program for that. She’s done just fine. 
It’s a totally different application process there. The essays are completely impersonal, focusing on what subject you want to read. DIL said you’d never bring up ECs or personal stories. At least at Cambridge and Oxford, interviews were a really big thing. You’re also limited in how many schools to which you can apply. She said the US admissions process was entirely too emotional – she hated writing an application essay for her study abroad in the US because it was a personal essay, and she just doesn’t like to write about herself!
I believe Malala took four A levels: history, “maths,” religious study, and geography. The ten scores are from O-levels, I think. Ten A-levels are typically found only in satires of the exam system. Four A levels is plenty!
Also, I think Stanford’s admissions office was just silly! Is there any evidence that she actually applied there? Oxford will very likely suit her much better, in any case.
The link at the beginning of this thread shows the tweet from her dad listing her exams and scores. Her A* grades in biology, chemistry, physics and religious studies. Hmmm, QuantMech, the two articles say different things and are both somewhat dated.
She has earned every good thing in the world that comes her way.
Malala herself tweeted the notice she received that she would be going to Oxford. So even if there’s some confusion about the exact combination of subjects in her A levels, there’s no doubt about the result.
The link at the beginning of the thread refers to the exams previously called O levels (now GCSE, I believe). It is from 2015. The link from the Daily Telegraph is from 2107. It refers to the A level exams (GCE Advanced level). Students typically spend 2 years after the GCSE exams preparing for A levels.
Students commonly take many more exams of the O-level type than A levels. At the A level, it is typical to focus on three or four subjects.
Oxford required 3 A grades at A level for the course that Malala is planning.
Here is what Cambridge says about A levels:
“Most Cambridge applicants are studying three or four A Level subjects in Years 12 and 13, and this is usually sufficient to show breadth of interests and ability to manage a range of differing academic tasks. We’d rather applicants develop broader and deeper knowledge of the subjects most relevant/closest to their chosen course than accumulate additional A Levels. Applicants taking four subjects won’t normally be at an advantage compared with those taking three, although competitive applicants for STEM subjects often have Further Mathematics as a fourth subject.”
Going back to my previous point, Malala’s GCSE exam results (linked in the original post) were in by the time that someone at Stanford made the announcement (fatuous in my opinion) that she would have to submit SAT scores–setting off a CC discussion about whether it is “fair” to excuse someone who has already won the Nobel Prize from some admissions requirements. Clearly, her GCSE levels indicated that she is more than qualified academically for Stanford.
I have not seen anything to indicate that she did apply to Stanford. Had she applied, I’d wager she would have been admitted.
Yes, Rivet2000, and if she did apply to Stanford, then she should have been admitted with or without SATs, if they had any sense.
Had she really wanted to attend Stanford she would have taken the SAT. Instead she met the requirements that Oxford set (3 A grades ?). I’m sure her results with SAT would have been equally good.
As a graduate of Wellesley, I have to disagree. It is not a cloister, or a place where women go to hide from men.
But as it happens, she has apparently applied to Lady Margaret Hall, which was founded as the first women’s hall–not college–at Oxford, several years AFTER the various Seven Sisters were founded. It is now coed.
In Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth, a distinguished man reassures Vera’s parents that she will be safe among the nice young ladies of LMH. Vera chooses to enter Somerville instead, which had the superior reputation for strong and scholarly women. Somerville also started as a hall for women, but became a college sooner, and was the first women’s college at Oxford to have entrance exams. Women were not allowed to actually matriculate at Oxford until 1920.
So I don’t see how choosing LMH sends a “better” message than choosing one of the remaining Seven Sisters.
In any case, I wish her well!
As an aside, I had pretty much hoped she would apply to MIT so we could have additional discussion (debate) as to whether or not a Nobel Prize should be considered an automatic admit EC there. Because it was no longer just a hypothetical.
And I also wish her well and thank her for all she has done!
“Yes, Rivet2000, and if she did apply to Stanford, then she should have been admitted with or without SATs, if they had any sense.”
Apparently not. If you Google “Malala Stanford” you can pull up lots of news articles about Stanford insisting she take the SAT like everyone else. Here is just one of them:
https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/stanford-demands-nobel-laureate-malala-yousafzai-take-sats/
I agree with the poster who was glad she did not apply to women’s colleges (even if her British choice is historically women based the British system is vastly different). So much better to prove oneself in the men’s world. Woman with an honors chemistry undergrad degree here. Plus helping pave the way for today’s women medical students. There are many of us strong women who can rise to the top among great numbers of male colleagues. In the nonsciences it is equally important.
This young lady is culturally much better off in England where she has adapted to the system. She made a choice to not take the SAT, good for a US college to not make exceptions. The British education system is very different than ours. She is not, nor does/should she become American. Her learning has and will be British/European/Old World. Her life is based there, not here. The whole world can’t be like the New World.
She shows that she is choosing according to her interests and not just her abilities. Kudos to her for that. Her passions are not STEM so she should go with them instead.
I don’t know whether Malala applied to Stanford or not. Actually, I doubt it. I agree with River2000 that if she had applied to Stanford, she would have taken the SATs. I am quite confident in saying that if she took the SATs, she would have a top score. One could already tell that, from her GCSE results. The SATs are not any big deal.
I am objecting to the cheap grandstanding by Stanford, with their commentary. If they were genuinely committed to holistic admissions, then Malala’s stance against the Taliban combined with her GCSE results would have told them enough. Is there any indication anywhere that Malala asked to be admitted without the SATs? I doubt it. Can I be even more blunt? The statement that she had to take the SATs for Stanford to consider her is a case of shameful publicity seeking by Stanford admissions personnel, with an overblown sense of their place in the world.
Malala wanted to go to Oxford. Oxford wants A levels. She took the A levels, and scored very well.
Oxford admits on academics, and does not admit holistically. Nevertheless, they did not announce to the press, “If Malala wants to come here, she will have to take A levels.”
And further, to riff on alh’s post #33, sure, Stanford could have admitted Malala without the SATs, but then they’d have to admit every other applicant who already had the Nobel Prize and had top scores on a set of academic exams (from his/her home country) that are considerably longer and more difficult than the SAT.
I think people at Oxford will respect Malala in a way that the Stanford admissions staffer who made the statement about the SATs did not. It is important not to confuse the admissions office with the university itself.
Evidently there was quite a dust up over the Stanford SAT thing, but put me in the group that feels that requiring the SAT of all students is OK. Oxford requires 3 As , Stanford requires SAT and a few essays (not that high of a bar, really), at the end of the day all Stanford students will have submitted the same material.
If someone in the admissions office made a big deal about the SAT (I haven’t seen an attribution) that’s unfortunate, but not a reflection on the entire school by any means.
I don’t think Stanford is being unreasonable in requiring all applicants, including very famous and/or highly accomplished ones. to submit all required elements of the application. It’s just very unfortunate that it couldn’t all be worked out in this case.
And just as it’s not clear from the news articles whether Malala ever actually formally applied to Stanford or not, it’s also not clear that Stanford was the one “grandstanding” by going public about requiring an SAT score of her… None of the articles I’ve seen say who went to the press with the story. It may well have been Malala, or far more likely her vocal dad, rather than Stanford who publicly announced that Stanford wasn’t going to waive the SAT requirement. Most colleges, including Stanford, are normally very light-lipped about the status of particular applicants.
What we do know is that Malala and her father toured the Stanford campus and spoke to admissions officials. It sounds like it was a private tour and discussion and not a routine admissions tour conducted by some random sophomore. In one of the articles her dad is quoted as saying that he inquired whether Stanford would provide housing for him as well, since he intended to move to the college himself and bring the rest of the family too - wherever Malala decided to enroll. He said the Stanford official told him no, they did not provide housing for family members of students, just for the students themselves. So maybe that played a role as well in whether Malala got serious about applying to Stanford. Who knows?