URGENT - Desperately need advice, please help!

[l***@gmail.com]

First off, its nearly september. So if Im going to do something, Ive
got to do it quick!

I dropped out of the last year of GCSE's and have been working sence. I
did manage to get a D in english and a B in maths studying at home, not
sure of how useful that was though..
Anyway that was a year and a bit ago, and only now do I realise how
stupid I was for leaving school. If I hadnt left school Id be starting
the 2nd year of A levels in september.
I really really want to do a computer science degree at uni, but dont
want to waste a year or 2 playing catch up. So my goal here is to get
to uni as quick as possible. What are my options?

After doing some research I figured I could:
1) Beg a local training centre/college to let me onto one of their
Access to HE courses, even though Id be 18 when the course starts, not
19. Also I could combine this with AS level Maths to improve my chances
of getting onto a compsci course.

I thought about this for a while, but figured even if I could do the
access course somewhere, no uni would accept me or Id have a very low
chance of getting into one.. Right or wrong?

2) Do AS and A2 level Maths and Physics in the same year, as a "private
candidate", along with AS level Electronics at a local college.

I figured if I managed to pull that off, my chances of getting onto a
compsci course would be pretty high, right? It might seem like a lot of
work doing it in 1 year, but I know Im a smartass when I push myself,
and learning hard stuff outside school is something Ive been doing all
my life.
I cant do more than 1 AS level course at any of the local colleges
sence that would bump the entry requirements up from 1 GCSE pass to 4.

It said on an entry requirement page somewhere that if you didnt meet
the entry requirements for a course, theres still a chance you could
get onto it if you showed you had a lot of experience and background
knowledge. Computers are pretty much my life, so if I mentioned the
stuff I know, would that improve my chances of getting on to a compsci
course? Which universities in london would I have a chance at getting
in to?

Is there anything Ive missed? Anything else I could do alongside one of
those 2 options? Hell, why not do both of them together.. I really
dont know. If youve got a suggestion, please, Im desperate here..
Someone PLEASE help me out!

[Matthew Huntbach]

Post by l***@gmail.com
I dropped out of the last year of GCSE's and have been working sence. I
did manage to get a D in english and a B in maths studying at home, not
sure of how useful that was though..
Anyway that was a year and a bit ago, and only now do I realise how
stupid I was for leaving school. If I hadnt left school Id be starting
the 2nd year of A levels in september.
I really really want to do a computer science degree at uni, but dont
want to waste a year or 2 playing catch up. So my goal here is to get
to uni as quick as possible. What are my options?
1) Beg a local training centre/college to let me onto one of their
Access to HE courses, even though Id be 18 when the course starts, not
19. Also I could combine this with AS level Maths to improve my chances
of getting onto a compsci course.
I thought about this for a while, but figured even if I could do the
access course somewhere, no uni would accept me or Id have a very low
chance of getting into one.. Right or wrong?

The problem is you don't have anything to prove you have the required
ability. You may be very smart and just have foolishly not taken the
qualifications to show that, but then anyone can say that, and plenty
of not very smart people who are lacking qualifications but somehow think
they can wing it on a degree do say that.

Access courses are very variable, but my experience with students coming
from them is that they don't mean very much - I might take a student from
an Access course if the student had plenty of other relevant work
experience, but I certainly wouldn't take someone who was obviously
just doing Access to try and avoid A-levels.

Post by l***@gmail.com
2) Do AS and A2 level Maths and Physics in the same year, as a "private
candidate", along with AS level Electronics at a local college.
I figured if I managed to pull that off, my chances of getting onto a
compsci course would be pretty high, right? It might seem like a lot of
work doing it in 1 year, but I know Im a smartass when I push myself,
and learning hard stuff outside school is something Ive been doing all
my life.

If you could really do two full A-levels in a year self-taught that would be
a good proof of your ability. I don't think any admissions tutor would
believe you would be able to do it if you wrote that's what you intended
to do on a UCAS form. If you did manage it, you could make an application
at this time next year.

Post by l***@gmail.com
It said on an entry requirement page somewhere that if you didnt meet
the entry requirements for a course, theres still a chance you could
get onto it if you showed you had a lot of experience and background
knowledge. Computers are pretty much my life, so if I mentioned the
stuff I know, would that improve my chances of getting on to a compsci
course? Which universities in london would I have a chance at getting
in to?

As an admissions tutor for a university Computer Science department,
just about EVERY applicant we have says "computers are pretty much my life"
or similar words. And many of them turn out to be crap at proper academic
Computer Science, in fact the best students on the degree tend to be those
who haven't been computer hobbyists.

So, to be honest, you don't come across as a very good prospect. You come
across as someone who thinks he knows it all but probably doesn't,
someone who's dropped out of formal study in the past and would probably
do the same again if he started a degree. Sory if this sounds mean, but
that's what goes through my head when I read what you've written.

Now, as it happens, Computer Science as an academic subject has suffered
from a big drop in applicatins recently, to the point where many less
prestigious up to medium ranking departments are finding it really hard
to recruit sufficient students. As such, even with minimal qualifications
you would probably find you could wangle your way on to some sort of
CS degree somewhere. However, if you want to get on one of the better
degrees, there really isn't any alternative but to go through the
A-level route. If you really think you are capable of getting good
grades in A-level Maths and Physics, or even middling grades, it
would be much better to do that and get into a good CS degree than to
get into a low-level one which is so desperate it will take anyone.

Matthew Huntbach

[l***@gmail.com]

Thanks for the advice! Now to find a college to sit the exams in.. =)