Poor GCSEs, TC's and mitigating circumstances

[jamieclarke]

Hi, can anybody help me with how having poor GCSEs will affect me with gaining training contracts, and other schemes I'm wanting to apply to in order to improve my application. I'm talking really bad here. I left school with only 3 passes, being 3 GCSEs grade 4 and above. I had to resit my maths and english and now have passes in those at grade 5 and 6 respectively. My A-levels, however, are A*A*A.

I'm currently a first year law student and for first year schemes such as insight days, there's a mitigating circumstances box, but I don't know if what I want to put is serious enough and it's not really what they're looking for. I feel like putting what they'll consider to be weak mitigating circumstances will only make my application worse. What I've drafted now to put in place for mitigating circumstances is just effectively blaming my school for being poor and student behaviour which disrupted every lesson which the teachers couldn't control. I didn't care about my GCSEs and never revised for them at all. Being in an environment every day for 5 years around the same people who mucked about in every lesson, who didn't care about school effectively rubbed off onto me. With parents with no real academic qualifications, there was no academic pressure on me at all. The school I attended scored 'well below average' for GCSE attainment and was ranked 'unsatisfactory' by OFSTED for a time when I was there.
There are also some personal circumstances (arguably medical) but again nothing serious and tbh, the reasons I listed above is really the main reason I failed my GCSEs.

One of the questions for a CC programme aimed at 'disadvantaged' students asks for 'an achievement of importance which you are most proud of'. I've used my poor GCSEs and going on to attaining high A-Levels as my achievement and said that this makes me 'unique' and how I'm resilient etc. I think I'm going to use this for the CC app as it is specifically for 'disadvantaged' students, but would this be good to use in future apps of any kind, as I suppose it is rare for somebody to perform so badly at GCSE to go on and get top A Levels. Would firms recognise this as an achievement and could my poor GCSEs almost be an advantage as it would make me stand out amongst other applications?

 

[jamieclarke]

@Jessica Booker hi, can you help me with this please?

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

Hey. Not Jessica but based on what I've researched about the process, almost none of the firms assess your GCSEs. I don't know if you should claim the circumstances or not but no decisions would be taken on your GCSEs alone, plus your A-levels are fantastic so I don't think you need to worry.

Personal story here but I was unable to add my A-levels and GCSEs to my Linklaters application because of some technical glitch in their application portal. So, I emailed the grad rec team telling them that I could do it manually if they want and they said that it won't make a difference. Just to quote, "Please note that the 14-16 and 16-18 exams sections are not mandatory. In case we need this information, we would request it at a later stage."

They didn't even ask for my A-levels which is kind of surprising but this just goes to show that poor GCSEs should not be a roadblock.

Anyway, I'm still a student and could be wrong here so if anyone thinks I'm wrong, please clarify.

 

[Jessica Booker]

I very much doubt it will have any impact if you went on the get strong A-levels and also go on to get good grades in your degree.

Feel free to PM me about your mitigating circumstances.

I strongly advise not blaming the school though. That usually comes across pretty negatively in an application, even if it is true. It’s just negativity which is always something to avoid in an application. Given the firm is unlikely to care about your GCSEs , I don’t think much will be gained from doing so either.

I don’t necessarily see your poor GCSEs being an advantage though - your explanation for how you ensured your did well in your A-levels coming from a lower starting point could be really positive evidence to put in an application however.

Firms like CC that use contextualised recruitment processes are going to see you went to a low performing school and will consider that accordingly using the algorithm.

Also be mindful that because you are applying via a programme for disadvantaged candidates means your circumstances might not be that unique/stand out.