GCSEs and university

Over on the HE-UK list, somebody is asking for information about young people who have got to university without the tiresome chore of taking GCSEs and A levels. This is of course part of the mythology of home education; that it is possible to get into university without bothering about formal qualifications. Let's look at the facts.

A number of universities now boast that they are open to non standard qualifications when considering candidates. They do this partly to make it look as though they are 'widening access', to use the modern jargon and also to attract foreign students who pay more. This usually means that they will accept the International Baccalaureate, not a handful of Open University credits. Dundee University advertised an access course last year which guarantees a place at this prestigious university. When I rang them up to enquire about this, the woman to whom I spoke laughed at the idea that a teenager without any GCSEs could use this course to get into Dundee; it was specifically designed with mature students in mind, older people who may have got Bs at A level rather than As.

It is true that a few people have managed to get on to courses at universities to study non-academic subjects, but if you are aiming for a decent university and a conventional academic subject, then without A levels you will experience great difficulty in even getting as far as an interview. Chris Ford in Manchester is often cited as an example of what can be achieved. It is sometimes forgotten that he actually had to go to college at fourteen in order to take GCSEs and A levels in order to get to university. Alex Dowty is also well known for having got into Oxford to study law without any GCSEs at all. How did he manage this? He had some OU credits, but the clincher was that he had spent years working part-time in a solicitor's office. Readers will be scratching their head at this point and asking themselves, 'How did he get a job at a solicitor's without any GCSEs?' The answer is of course that his father is a well known lawyer. Unless your father is actually a well known lawyer, this particular route is closed to you. Alex Dowty of course spent four years at school, learning the basics.

The truth is that good universities want not only three A levels at A or B, they also want to see a string of GCSEs as well. Places like Oxford and Cambridge expect at least six GCSEs at A*. Without them, you don't really stand a chance. Even getting into college to study for academic A levels is all but impossible these days without GCSEs. I know of no FE college which will allow students to study A level mathematics without their already having a GCSE in the subject. It is often claimed that it is possible to get into college or university on the strength of an audition or portfolio of work. For things like Performing Arts, Photography or Textile Design, this might just prove possible. You will not be able to do it for more academic subjects like engineering, medicine or law though.

The decision by parents not to enter their children for GCSEs casts a very long shadow indeed. From a purely legal point of view, it is interesting to speculate whether or not the decision of parents not to bother with GCSEs or other formal examinations might not go against one of the established cases of precedent in this field, that of R v Secretary of State for Education and Science, ex parte Talmud Torah Machzikei Hadass School, 1985. As will be recalled the judgement in this case held that a suitable education was one that:

Primarily equips a child for life within the community of which he is a
member, rather than the way of life of the country as a whole, as long
as it does not foreclose the child's options in later years to adopt some
other form of life if he wishes to do so.
(Woolf 1985)

It could well be argued that by not allowing their children to take GCSEs, parents are indeed foreclosing their children's options in later years. It is an interesting point legally. In the meantime, parents who really hope that their children will later be able to go to university if they wish, such as the mother who posted on the HE-UK list, should start teaching their kids to a curriculum which will enable them to sit GCSEs at fifteen or sixteen. Realistically, this is the only way that most young people are going to be able to get into college or university.

It is also interesting, looking at the matter from the point of view of a child's autonomy; that by deciding not to prepare their children for GCSEs and then enter them for the examinations, parents are actually choosing the future course of their children's lives. Without those GCSE's, the child will not be able to consider becoming a scientist, doctor, vet, architect, engineer or mathematician. Instead, she will be limited to art, design, music, carpentry or various other careers which don't need good GCSE's or A levels. Those parents are thus deciding the future course of their children's lives for them, long before the children themselves are able to understand the consequences of not sitting formal examinations.