The Offer
Queens' makes individual offers based on the education system in which the applicant is studying e.g. A2 levels, Scottish Advanced Highers, Irish Leaving Certificate, International Baccalaureate or whichever final year examination is taken in the country where the student is studying for entry to higher/university education. Some overseas examinations are more well known than others: if you are unsure whether your qualifications are acceptable please check with the Admissions Office before applying.
Suitable Subjects (A2 levels)
As a general rule, for Arts courses Queens' is happy to consider students with different combinations of A-level subjects. For Science courses the choices are less flexible (see individual subject sheets). If you are unsure about your A-level subjects, please check with us before applying, or better still, before making your choices. Where an A2 subject is specified as 'essential', we would normally accept a Higher Level in the IB as being equivalent. For your information, the university has provided information in preparation for our courses. For details, please see here.
Level of Offer
Typically an offer by Queens' made on A2 levels would normally be A*AA. Where a candidate is offering more than three subjects, then we would usually specify which subjects we would like the grades to be in. We also usually only make offers on subjects completed in Year 13. Where a candidate has already completed the equivalent of an A2 in Maths, whether certificated or not, we would normally exclude that from any offer that we may make. All offers in other exams are based on an equivalent level of achievement. We would expect candidates offering the IB to achieve a points total of 40 or 41 (including TOK and EE) with scores of 776 in their Higher Subjects. We remain committed to making offers on the basis of individual circumstances.
Additional exams
Queens', like other Cambridge colleges, faces difficult choices in differentiating between a number of well-qualified applicants taking AS and A2 levels. The University as a whole is engaged in an extensive programme of research to help us discover whether we might be able to use information that we already have about unit/module scores to help us make our decisions without the need for additional tests and examinations.
The only subject in which we consistently set conditions based on exams other than A2 is Maths. Offers for Maths would normally include grades in STEP. For those candidates taking Further Maths and whose school offers support for STEP, we would usually make an offer of 1, 1 in STEP II and III. We look carefully at individual circumstances when setting STEP (and all our other) offers.