My results for AS was not what I hoped for and I thought of retaking it just in case my A2 do not turn out well but there are 2 contradicting opinions. This is related to applying to UK universities.

I went to a education agent, and the officer there said that some UK top universities would not even consider people who retake their exams. He said retaking gave the impression that a student takes more time to achieve better result rather than an average result in a short time. However, there are some people saying there are no harm retaking the exam as the universities would not bother and take the better result.

As I have to decide soon whether or not to retake my AS exam, hopefully someone can help me to clear my mind.

generally, there is no point retaking the as.........most unis do not bother with the as results, they want a2.........although for some simpler courses, they do accept 2 as results in lieu of an a2 result......

Huh? They want as+a2 which is your A level results, so both as and a2 does count. Even after you sit for a2 examination and when the results is release they will only show the overall A level results which is as+a2.

as can be taken as a stand alone grade if one does not continue the subject into a2.........

the final a2 grade will include the as result done in the first year.........

some unis will accept standalone as results in lieu of a2 results........

if your as result is bad, and you worry your final results may be pulled down by a poor as result, you can resit, it will not disadvantage you in any way, most of the time the uni will not know you have done a resit.....unless they ask for your full transcripts......

I'm not applying with my AS, but I'm affraid that my bad AS result will pull my overall result at the end. AS is a lot easier compare to A2, if my AS is bad, chances of my A2 to recover the losses is tough.

As far as I know, UK university get the A level results directly and they will know everything including the breakdowns of the papers. If I apply to Australia or other countries, they might not know but for UK, they might. That's why I want to ask, is it encouraged to resit?

1) By top universities, you mean Oxbridge, Imperial, etc?
2) I've not heard that students who retake are not preferred. A-level as a whole is the one they judge on, breakdown is not their main interest unless certain unis gives you different conditions.
3) If your AS is really bad and no matter how well you do in A2 and you still won't meet your requirement, then by all means go ahead. May sound simply, you just need dedication and set your priorities right. Ditching social life may be one of the consequences.

First of all at the end of the day you will recieve one cert which will contain the combined results of AS and A2... Universities will not know how much you scored for each component i.e for math mechanics, stats and pure, physics paper 1-6 etc. No harm in retaking but you MUST be aware that if you're doing CAL they WILL DISCARD your current AS results and only consider the one you are about to take... they WILL NOT take the higher of the 2 results... I know this because I initially got a B in my practical for for AS, got greedy and retook it ended up with a U >.< pulled my entire chemistry grade down one or two noches... due to the fact my A2 prac was a U as well... P1,2 was like a B when i checked the breakdown... 3 and 4 were either B's or C's...

Also yeah you will have loads of exams like 18papers (6chem&physics, 4math, 2further math in my case) to deal with... I retook my entire AS... did get better physics and math results though...

In conclusion, if you think you can do better and your AS results are not as good as you hoped them to be by all means retake them... they wouldnt know you retook it. My brother was in edexcel he too retook chemistry 2x... though the consequence was that he wasn't eligible for the top chemistry prize... would have got it if he had done it in one shot

I heard if u deffer a semester and then do ur AS then it is not considered a resit but then u will be wasting an extra half year as well as payin for an extra semester.
Keep in mind tht resitin the AS and doing A2 exams together is alot to study, it isnt easy at all means so you have to think abt tht aswell.
Talk to ur programme director they usually got the best options to choose from.

if you are doing your A2 now, you can resit your AS papers

it wont put u in a disadvantage.

i resit my AS and it helped me to pull up my A2 grades.
i did CIE A levels btw.

for example if you get an overall B in your maths AS and you resit and you got an A, CIE will take into account that A. but if you got C during your resit, CIE will take that B.

Top universities?hmm...can KCL be counted as top university?lol...
Err...i resit for my chemistry and KCL still accept me:)

Uh not true... Cambridge will take the most recent results hence if you choose to resit you are discarding your previous result of a B... I know this because my chemistry grade got pulled down bad by bad practical retake results... my lecturers did caution not to simply retake for the sake of it because of this clause...

it is because ur overall recent grade is better than the previous overall grade.

your chem practical is only 1/3 of the overall AS grades..

If resit they won't take the recent, they will take the best...

Well My break down was B B U C C U it ended up as a D... I can only think they did not take into account the B's I got... but then again I took the CIE almost 4years ago now... things could have changed... back then I am pretty darn sure they discard the previously obtained results... the reasoning was that otherwise it would be too easy to score good grades for alvls...

Now my grades are not bad, it is just that my breakdowns are bad, for example, my chemistry got A but my breakdowns are BBA, thus indicating my A for my AS is very, very borderline. With a harder A2 exam to come, and as my lecturers says, it is better to score as high as possible in AS because although AS to A2 is 50:50, but the 50% in AS is easier to score. What I am worried is that UK universities have access to our results and will know whether I retake an exam or not, and thus affecting my chance to get into a good university. I just want to confirm whether this is true or not.

p/s: I get my information from an education agent, and they said some top universities would consider a lower mark of the retaken exam or would not even consider people who retake. With the deadline to register soon closing, I need to clear this contradiction ASAP.

This post has been edited by xzjasonzx: Aug 23 2010, 07:04 PM

well, you need to list out the top universities that you want to apply first so that people can give the opinions about that

my friend resit his chem and got into UCL

Dude just retake the AS paper then. Its gonna be a little more to juggle but its worth the effort. I re-took both my Physics and Chem for AS

Hey, really? I sat for 9709/12 (p1) a few days ago. And I wasn't satisfied with my performance. So can I retake just that component p1 alone or do I have to sit for the m1 too? I am doing CIE AS level. Would be grateful if you fill me in regarding this matter.

If you are taking P1 M1 now in AS, you will need to retake both if you are considering a retake.