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3 months ago
Admissions Advice

Should I or should I not retake my A-Levels?

Hey, so AL results came out and I performed much poorer than I'd hoped. My results are as follows:

(Do Note: Astar is the highest attainable grade, then A, then B, then C, then D, then E, and U(ungraded) means fail)

Math: C

Physics: B

CS: B

History: C

This is a huge downtrend from my IGCSE Grades: 6 Astars and 4 A for a total of 10 subjects.

If you dk how the AL system works I'll give you a short rundown:

In Pakistan schools that follow the Cambridge education system have a 5-year 'high school' curriculum: 3 years of IGCSE and 2 years of A-levels. Now IGCSEs are basically like honors and A-Levels are like APs. From what I've seen online an Astar/A is equal to a 4.0 UW, a B is equal to 3.3 ish, a C is 3.0 ish, and so on. So rn my GPA is coming out to be 3.7ish which isn't good considering the amount of aid I require.

Now, with all this in mind do you think I should retake all my A-levels? I'm confident I can get the grades to at least all As. That would basically turn me into a 4.0 applicant. I'll be giving retakes this October and will get results by mid-Jan next year... so the unis will have my official results when making my decision. I'm not applying early anywhere. The only reason I want to go for retakes is cuz I need a lot of aid to study and I'm also applying as a MechE major (which gets a tonne of apps). The cons are that it'll cost me a lot and idk but maybe Unis don't like it? I've heard they prefer students who get good grades first shot, not those who retook exams. PLS help me make a decision ty. Ooh and I'm on a gap year... I graduated in March this year and am applying for Fall 2025.

alevels
HighSchoolAcademics
IGCSE
Coursesandgrades
academics
internationalstudent
international
GPA
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Unweighted GPA: 3.7
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SAT: 720 math
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