Is it too late to Enrol onto A-Levels?

As the academic year has already begun, you might find yourself asking ‘is it too late to enrol onto A-Levels?’, the short and simple answer is no.

Although traditional schools and colleges are no longer accepting students for this academic year, online colleges (like Open College) are. Online colleges often offer ‘open enrolment’ on courses, which simply put, means you can enrol and begin studying the course at any time. This means, if you have had a change of heart about going on to study A-Levels or re-sitting your A-levels, you can still do this without the worry of having to wait until the next academic year.

Why can online colleges offer open enrolment, but not schools or colleges?

This is one of the those questions that has so many contributing factors, it makes it quite hard to answer in a short blog. The main reasons are available classroom spaces and the restrictions of term times. That said, for exceptional circumstances, schools and colleges will always do their best to help and assist students.

For online colleges, as the courses are studied online by students and there is no need for a classroom, there is far more flexibility in how many students they can accept onto a course. When it comes to factors like term times, again, because the course is online and the bulk of the study is done by the student as and when they have time, there aren’t the traditional restraints of school terms.

With this kind of flexibility online colleges are able to offer open enrolment to students and in turn, that means that it’s not too late to enrol onto A-Levels now.

Are online A-Levels as good as school or college A-Levels?

So, having read the above, you might start thinking there must be a catch and this all sounds too good to be true. Which is understandable if you’re a student who has changed their mind last minute and now been told there is no way they can start studying this academic year.

Online A-Levels deliver exactly the same result as studying A-Levels at any school or college. Once you have successfully sat your examinations as a private candidate at an exam centre, you will receive your certificates from the same awarding bodies as the schools and colleges use. So depending on which board you have opted for, you will get certificates from AQA, Cambridge International, Edexcel or OCR.

Is there anything I need to be aware of?

When it comes to studying online A-Levels, the freedom of open enrolment is great, but you should be aware of your chosen examination period. One A-Level subject is approximately 360 hours of study time and that doesn’t include the revision time for examination preparation. So if you’re looking at studying three A-Levels, you’re going to need to be sure you have enough time to study all three and revise sufficiently before your chosen examination period.

For example, let’s say you enrolled onto A-Level Mathematics with a goal of sitting your examinations in the June 2021 examination period. If you enrolled now, or anywhere up to the end of the year, you would be able to study and revise for your exams easily. But if you enrolled on the same course in March 2021, you would be cutting your study time very, very short and probably not giving yourself the best chance of achieving your best grades.

If you would like to talk about your options or enrol onto an online A-Level course with Open College, you can do so through our website or by contacting our friendly Student Team here.