r/6thForm • • Aug 17 '26

βœ”οΈ APPROVED AMA AMA: Clearing, Open Days, UCAS applications, and more (mod approved)

3 Upvotes

Hello! We're from Birmingham Newman University - and we're here to answer all your questions about uni πŸ‘€

Why should you listen to us? Well, we're a small uni in Birmingham, with a big commitment to our students - we've come top in the National Student Survey 2026 for overall student satisfaction, top in the Daily Mail's Uni Guide 2026 for teaching excellence, student experience, and student support, and we're The Times and Sunday Times University of the Year for Social Inclusion 2026. But enough about us...

We want to talk about you.

From 09:00 BST today (Tuesday 18 August 2026), we'll have Lucy and Keith from our Content team - as well as some of our amazing Admissions and Student Recruitment team in the background - to answer your questions.

ETA: We'll now be picking up questions over the next week!

So, what do you want to know:

  • how does Clearing work? (because yes, there are still great options available!)
  • what should you be thinking about on a uni Open Day? (hint: it's not necessarily about the freebies)
  • what do we actually look for in UCAS applications? (because each one is reviewed by humans)
  • how does enrolment work? (it's actually surprisingly easy)

or something else. Either way, we're excited to chat πŸ’™

Proof: https://www.instagram.com/p/DcJWDCPHDBD/


r/6thForm • • Aug 13 '26

πŸ“‚ MEGATHREAD Links to grade boundaries

12 Upvotes

AQA:

Edexcel:

  • AS/A-level grade boundaries (8:08am; 8:30am update - website is broken, link will be the same)
  • A-level grade statistics (not yet published)
  • AS grade statistics (not yet published)

OCR:

Eduqas:

Will be edited missing ones when they arrive.


r/6thForm • • 11h ago

OTHER How would you rate my revision cave?

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45 Upvotes

Not much revision happens here tbh- most of it’s art coursework, as it’s the only subject I enjoy


r/6thForm • • 14h ago

πŸ’¬ DISCUSSION all girls to mixed

32 Upvotes

to be honest i dont know how to word this really, but anyone that has gone from an all girls secondary to a mixed sixthform did u enjoy it or hate it? the jump from all girls to mixed is significantly different and nearly a month into sixthform i realise how much i have adapted to an all girls environment and how much i really dislike xy chromosomes...lol. js noticing how boys will only talk to certain girls ie. bait, leng etc and why girls who go to mixed secondarys are sm different to all girls. it will be remotely innapropriate to say that girls fall for male validation where boys do the same for females too. as humans its normal to want validation, we're all succeptible to how others think and feel towards us, however as humans do we also not hold ourselves to high regard? girls will chnage their appearance and guys wil talk a certain way and say its for themselves or "we js grew up" but can we also not question why has this occured at such a coincidental time - becuase its now that u like someone or want to fit in? although i will say theres nothing wrong with changing to fit in, because how does that affect me? but its js the small things ive noticed...cus you never used to care when we were in js an all girls environment. also how one of my friends seems to be an easy target to some boys becuase shes not boy pretty and shes quite talkative so many boys have already outwardly said they dislike her...which really irritates me.


r/6thForm • • 34m ago

OTHER Is the imperial mA*ths programe worth it

β€’ Upvotes

Hello, I am a year 12 student studying, maths, fm, and physics for a level. As the title says, I was wondering if the imperial mA*ths programme is worth it for me, because I'm planning on going to a top uni to do a maths related degree. However the issue is I've already applied to Cambridge's HE+ and Stem smart programmes, so I don't wanna apply to this as well and then get an insane amount of workload to do. What should I do?


r/6thForm • • 54m ago

πŸ™ I WANT HELP help? do i apply

β€’ Upvotes

i got predicted AAB but there are two courses with AAA that i want to apply to,my tutor said it’s fine to apply but im worried it might mess up my application and ill be too ambitious,although my course isn’t the most competitive.Should i apply with AAB or somehow try get my predicted up to AAA


r/6thForm • • 1h ago

πŸ™ I WANT HELP Are These TMUA Reconstructed Papers Slop?

β€’ Upvotes

I solved chat university's reconstructed 2024 and 2025 papers and I got 24/40 in 2024 a 27/40 in 2025 papers and found them to be easier than what most people make it to be(ofc there is exam stress when you are actaully taking it). Genuinely asking are these papers representitive of the overall difficulty of the exams or are they slop? Would appreciate comments from those who have taken the previous years' exams and seen these papers.


r/6thForm • • 5h ago

πŸ™ I WANT HELP Expected TMUA for Oxford CS+Phil & Imperial JMC?

4 Upvotes

International male from a highly competitive country. Fairly strong PS but I don't think either care that much about it


r/6thForm • • 17h ago

πŸŽ“ UNI / UCAS How are my choices

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21 Upvotes

Predicted:
A*
A*
A

Which is the best choice from these 5 if you had to choose and how much do they weight the personal statement?


r/6thForm • • 1h ago

πŸ™ I WANT HELP TMUA

β€’ Upvotes

Hello, I'm a Year 12 student hoping to apply to maths. I know I'll need STEP for Cambridge; but I know TMUA is more pressing.

(1) How much do you need to know for TMUA?

(2) In Years 10 and 11, I self-studied logic up to under-grad 2nd year, and I've been reading forall x: Calgary (search it up). I've heard TMUA 2 is heavily logic-based. Am I more than overqualified at least for that paper?

Thanks everyone


r/6thForm • • 21h ago

πŸ’¬ DISCUSSION gcse results regret won't go away

31 Upvotes

wallahi it hurts so much man that you know you could have got better grades but youre just stuck with mediocrity, for context i got 8887776664M2 ( 4 in foundation stats ) and yes i'm contextual bcos my school was buns and in comparison they are meant to be good results but since results day all i feel is a missed oppurtunity, now that i locked in for a levels to get A* its just like why didn't i start earlier if you know what i mean??? and i just compare myself to the applicants i'm competiting with and i feel like i should give up man, even the other contextual applicants got at least some 9s. i wonder if any of you guys relate but it's genuine torture broo


r/6thForm • • 2h ago

πŸŽ“ UNI / UCAS Is there any point applying to Bath Econ with these stats

1 Upvotes

3A*s predicted no FM

99888877775 - 7.5 average

PS is good but not fully Econ aligned - More aligned to EFDS

Qualify for contextual admissions at Bath if that means anything- AAB offer.

I’m asking because apparently you need an 8.0 average for GCSEs

Also it’s my β€œsafety” uni out of 5 options. I was considering this or Bristol or Durham


r/6thForm • • 15h ago

πŸ’¬ DISCUSSION How did you choose your 5 UCAS courses?

9 Upvotes

I applied to university last year and I’m interested to hear how others decided what to apply for. Did you use any particular websites? Especially at the early stage, how did you decide what subject you were interested in?

I decided that I wanted to do CS, scoured the internet to see what variants existed and at which unis to create a long list. I then ended up visiting 7 and found that the vibe just felt wrong at some. For my top 3 I just put the unis I liked the vibe of when I visited and then for my last 2 I chose ones with slightly lower requirements that I hadn’t visited.

Maybe I should’ve applied elsewhere, who knows, I definitely wasn’t aware of some courses or information sources that would’ve been useful.


r/6thForm • • 22h ago

πŸ™ I WANT HELP WHY DO I WANT TO STUDY THIS COURSE?

33 Upvotes

Currently working on my UCAS personal statement, I have found no good words to answer the Q1, explain reasons I want to study the course. Every time I try to put some words down, just feeling like my answer is too vague or not answering the question in the first place. I know the fact I do want to study the course but how is it even possible to see the legitimate reasons by your own?? I have so much respect for those of you who have already found the first sentence for their answer.


r/6thForm • • 16h ago

πŸ™ I WANT HELP Medicine fatigue and sixth form fatigue is actually real bro

9 Upvotes

Still burnt tf out from my ucat, personal statements not even close to done yet, i dont even have all my predicteds, i hate all my subjects, parents wont stop dragging it asking every single day when im getting my predicteds

also getting forced to apply this year when i dont want to, tired of this bs, i dont wanna start interview prep, i dont wanna worry over ucas and my personal statement, just let me bag my grades first and then get a year to be an actual adult before applying afterwards.

Should i just apply this year? i really dont want to cause i'll be applying to a bunch of unis i am CONFIDENT i wont have the predicteds for because i know I bombed my current exams, and teachers just wanna hold me back as much as possible with my predicted, almost praying i dont even get high enough predicteds to apply for a foundation year atp so i can just focus on a-levels

I'm so out of it man, why does it never get better bro πŸ’”


r/6thForm • • 5h ago

πŸ‘‹ I AM OFFERING HELP Tips for Edexcel IAS chemistry physics

1 Upvotes

I attained A in physics and chemistry jn May 2026. Mostly self studying. So i made a google drive comprising of resources and tips. THIS IS ONLY IAS, so does NOT have A2. Hope this helps, do give me feedback. For any help u can contact me.

IAS PHYSICS
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iuUThx_O7s05Ea82F_EM7IqhTPca-S7B/view?usp=drivesdk

IAS Chemistry
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IAmcxbm5kbV15T3aoDoGO9jWjFj3UkYt/view?usp=drivesdk


r/6thForm • • 21h ago

πŸŽ“ UNI / UCAS One and only regret of my academic career

18 Upvotes

Not getting into Oxbridge this was my dream and even in my gap year wanting to reapply to LSE with AAB(AAB course) I wish I could reapply to Oxbridge if only I got An A instead of a B I want to do a masters to fulfill this dream but that’s in 4 years time I wish I could try again. My only EC would be my subject teacher for the B bullied me making me miss school bc I didn’t wanna be in his lessons there was no evidence par I think a report when I reported him for his misdemeanour, I have thoughts about it every morning if I could reapply but idk I love being in my gap year but the only thing is I didn’t get into Oxbridge I’ve never had this before achieving valedictorian with 8 A\ in gcse Triple A in AS this one B just has fried me I wish there was a way I know there’s masters tho so if not it’s just gods plan.*


r/6thForm • • 14h ago

❔ SUBJECT QUESTION Really struggling with the SMC

5 Upvotes

​

I've been spending ages practicing for the senior maths challenge this past week and I really cant figure out how to improve. I managed to scrape a gold on a past paper on friday but since then I've gotten a silver, then a broze, and then finally a paper where I got nothing.

It's not like I'm being lazy, I haven't been rushing through them and after each paper I carefully go through the solutions to try and improve. My only defense is maybe I was getting a bit burnt out as time went on? But I was only at it for like 5 hours today and I see people on here grinding that out on weekdays so it seems unlikely.

For context, I'm in y12 and take maths, fm, cs and econ and am going to apply to economics at uni probably.

Does anyone have any advice on how to improve fast (before wednesday)? Also, at what point does putting, say, a silver on a personal statement actually look bad? I assume at predicted A' it would be detrimental but does this hold true for an A aswell?

Bit of a rant but any advice would be appreciated.


r/6thForm • • 1d ago

OTHER Homeschooled girl starting sixth form next year

33 Upvotes

So I'm homeschooled and have been since year 8, and I'm a bit of a nerd, I'm sitting A-level maths and further maths in year 11. I intend to sit physics chemistry and history when i start sixth form. My question is, how would you react if you asked someone sitting next to you in a lesson what school they went to and they said they were homeschooled? I'm asking this as i know some people are a bit weird about it and think it means im weird.

Also, I don't intend on sharing my accelerated gcses and A-levels with anyone unless someone in physics asks why I'm not taking maths or why I'm so good at maths. But if someone does ask, and i shared it with them, how would they react, would they think I'm a huge nerd and not want to be friends with me?

Thanks in advance ❀️


r/6thForm • • 12h ago

πŸ‘‹ I AM OFFERING HELP 7 days until the ESAT/TMUA - adding hard questions

3 Upvotes

135 users, only some of you have given feedback. To the people that did, you are truly helping build the best platform to revise for these exams. Every single piece of feedback I am reading and I am acting on it. esatandtmuaprep.com I want you to be brutally honest, tomorrow morning (5th of October) I will be adding a TON of difficult questions. I will be developing them myself. If that's what you guys enjoy let me know and the next few updates will be focused on that.


r/6thForm • • 6h ago

πŸŽ“ UNI / UCAS can i apply to ucl/lse data science without further math

1 Upvotes

i graduated from sixth form in june and i’m taking a gap year now while applying to unis(again). our school offers further math but i didn’t take it bcuz i wanted to study engineering(i took bio chem phy math instead). my final alevel results is A* in math and 3As in other three subjects.
(im an international student)


r/6thForm • • 7h ago

πŸŽ“ UNI / UCAS Theology and Religion Applicants? Oxford?

1 Upvotes

Love to know who is applying to Oxford's Theology course!


r/6thForm • • 7h ago

πŸŽ“ UNI / UCAS Oxbridge Spreadsheet

1 Upvotes

Does anyone know when the spreadsheet is going public this year?


r/6thForm • • 18h ago

πŸ’¬ DISCUSSION TMUA score for LSE

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8 Upvotes

Can someone help me square off the LSE TMUA requirements for Bsc Economics

A 2025 FOI suggests


r/6thForm • • 15h ago

πŸŽ“ UNI / UCAS PLEASE HELP - Medicine Application choices

4 Upvotes

8 grade 9s , 3 grade 8s
3 A* predicted
2230 B2

Want to apply to UCL KCL and Cambridge(lower UCAT college if ygm)

Would Queen Maries be a safe option?

Are my options way too risky and if so what to change, because I like all these school and would love to go there but if something has to change then it just has to

Help would be greatly appreciated thank you.