Why Grades WILL NOT get you into university

every year approximately 96 000 students study a-level maths if you look at the top universities Oxford Cambridge and Imperial they take on roughly 100 students per course of these 96 000 pupils about 10 percent of them are going to achieve a star so around 9 600. if you add on all of the international students of which thousands and thousands are taken into the top universities every year you can kind of see that it's not just grades that get you into these top universities in their admissions report in 2019 Oxford reported that 21 515 people applied for entry of those 21 000 pupils 3840 were offered a space with 3303 students attending if you look at this tiny fraction that actually get offered places keeping in mind that the only people applying for Oxford are people with the grades to get in then how do they decide which of those 18 of the students will actually get offers it can't just be based on grades over the course of my teaching time I have had students that I predicted three or four a star hours at a level these are the best grades you can possibly get and yet they don't even get interviews at places like Imperial Oxford or Cambridge so it brings us back to that question again how do these top universities decide on which of those 18 actually going to get an offer and I want to answer that and in order to answer that we need to look at exactly what universities are looking for in their students and in order to know that we need to look at how a University's ranked remember rankings are everything for universities universities are ranked in the following ways the first way is the percentage of graduates that are employed within six months of graduating the second is the actual average income of the graduates after graduating and lastly student satisfaction now student satisfaction it's hard to determine from an interview if you're going to be a satisfactory student or not although there probably are some warning signs so what exactly do universities want from their students well first of all they want students that are not going to drop out every Dropout really negatively impacts the University's ranking they also want students are going to go above and beyond in order to get a good job because that adds to their rankings with the average income and the percentage that are employed now the universities do a lot to help you with this by offering internships and their connections however it relies on the student themselves actually going out and applying for these things and being successful in those applications it also wants students with extra skills extracurricular activities that are useful and lastly they want students that are very good at interviewing why because all of those things that I've just mentioned make it more likely to be successful in an interview so if you're going on to do a graduate program or if you're going on to get a job these things will all make your life easier and more and increase your chances of actually getting employed or getting the position in short of course academic ability is very very useful and it is important however there are so many academically gifted people people that can study really really hard and get those top grades so in order to get to these top universities or even into the University of your choice or into a competitive degree like medicine and Engineering you have to stand out from the others and the best ways to do this is by developing those skills but how exactly can you set yourself up for Success a good way to show determination and a go-getter attitude is by developing additional skills and hobbies in your spare time this will a make you more interesting keep in mind that if an interviewer likes you they're more likely to give you a recommendation and therefore give you an offer and they also show that you have this kind of independent mindset that you're willing to put in time in your spare time to develop skills it's much better than let's say someone that just sits around watching Netflix all day it also helps you display passion if you're willing to actually go out and learn something all by yourself and now when it comes to actually making these skills relevant to your occupation then it's not necessary for example if you can play music be going into a medical degree it still has a benefit but if you can try and relate these skills interests and hobbies to your degree so let's say you want to go into web development University it's a good idea to try and produce some web developments and like websites and apps on your own if you're going into Math Science and statistics it's a good idea to learn programming languages like Python and R and build some mathematical models just to test them out it shows genuine interest passion and it does give you a bit a head start some other things I can help you is getting in touch with a professional in the field having a reference let's say you want to go and do medicine at Oxford University and you have a reference from a doctor that's a pretty good example of you going out of your way building a connection with someone and that someone is someone that thinks that you're going to be a good doctor someday it's a very very good idea visiting the university as well it shows that you have this interest and again you're independently thinking remember University is going to be extremely independent they won't teach you everything you're gonna have to do a lot of reading and work independently you can also attend camps lectures Etc based in your field there are code camps there are maths related things as well and also for medicine and all these other degrees also and lastly which is a really really important thing even though I put it last but it's because I have a lot to talk about is writing a strong personal statement now communication is the one skill I would say is completely Universal every adult should be good at this no matter what job you apply for no matter what industry you're in you're going to have to interact with other people and communication is a huge part of that shockingly being able to write well being able to sell yourself being able to sell someone on an idea now most adults don't have this right which is why if you think about it when people get applications on jobs most of them are thrown away so let's say if I'm applying to become an engineer now the only people applying to become engineers are people with engineering qualifications and most of us are going to have pretty much the same score the same grade because there's only four like three or four grades that you can get at University depending on what kind of course you do so how do they determine which CVS they're throwing out it's based entirely on the personal statement so you need to be really really good at writing those personal statements because again the people applying for Universe the university you want to go to have the same grades as you more than likely so how do you stand out well you need to actually set yourself up for Success during your first few years over your Summers you should be trying to use your extra time building skills and having experiences that you can write about in your personal statement and then constructing your personal statement with evidence to really sell yourself show off your good qualities but again show evidence you can't say you're determined if you don't have any extra Hobbies or extracurriculars you can't say that you are independent thinker if you've never independently thought about anything in your life even if it's something like looking up philosophies and politics that is something you can write about and I promise you you can write about anything which again is another useful skill so once again the best time to start this process is right now I don't care if you're in year 10 or even in year 7 or you're in year 13. you have you need to do this right now and the reason why I say this is if you get to a week before your personal statement's due how are you going to develop a new skill or have a new experience it's very unlikely whereas if you're starting going into year 12 you have a whole year and a bit to develop some skills and to have some opportunities there are it tends to happen that in year 12 your school offer University open days and universities will also offer open days as well on their websites if you're a bit more you know practical the thing is that only happens in year 12 really so when you get into year 13 you can't say oh visited University when you didn't because in year 12 is when you're supposed to do it so you have to really have this foresight now I know that this sounds a bit too overwhelming and a levels are stressful enough as it is but don't worry I am here to help with the tuition that I currently offer I package in advice and guidance on all of these things on writing a personal statement using your spare time efficiently and being able to just kind of book different university-specific exams or Book University open days and all of this kind of stuff so what I mean by University specific exams well depending on what course you want to do and what university you may have to sit for example a medical entrance exam for uh doctor for doctors you may have to say an engineering exam or the MCAT for maths all of these things you have to take into consideration and sit them in advance you need to see them a year before you actually do the um course in and of itself so and also how to write a great personal statement of course what extracurricular activities you can do to maximize your odds of getting that delicious offer so if you're interested in this package or just receiving some extra help I encourage you to either join the Discord and message me there or email me both of those links are in the description and we can have a small chat no strings attached no guarantees it's completely free as well about what your options are so I hope that kind of sums up why grades are not going to be the only thing that determine what university you get into or what degree now I know some of you are probably looking at this thinking well what if I don't want to go to Oxford I'm going to point out that hey you should aim for the best universities possible which isn't always Oxford and Cambridge but also all universities have a huge amount of competition for their spaces if you want to do a relatively well-known degree like engineering computer science or anything like that you will have to compete with other people you will have to write a really good personal statement other than that I hope you have a wonderful day and I will see you in the next one