A Level results day is only 10 days away, what will you do?On Thursday 18th August many of you will be collecting you’re A Level results. This might be AS levels or your final A level results. It’s a big day, full of mixed emotions, sometimes disappointment and sometimes a fabulously good result of all your hard work over the last year or two.What do you do when it all goes wrong on A Level results day?For some, results day is a disappointing day and when it all goes wrong it can be very difficult to deal with, especially when all around you it seems that everyone else is having the best of times and looking forward to the next stage of their education.Don’t get the AS results you wantThe important thing to remember is that when you get your results for AS levels and they are either not what you were expecting or they are not what you need to continue into the next year of study is that these things happen. It may feel like the end of the world on the day, but try to keep in mind that it really isn’t. It’s hard, but try to turn your disappointment into an opportunity – an opportunity.What other options are there?Assuming that your results are more than just a mild disappointment, when are your options when your results go bad?An alternative course is one option, either at your school or at another place of education such as your local college. Believe it or not, lots of young people embark on a course and they stick out the first year even though they know that it’s not right or being unhappy. Now is the time to sort this out – perhaps you took A-levels simply because you though that it’s what you ought to do or perhaps you didn’t really understand the different qualification and training routes available to you. Now it’s time to re-evaluate.What do you want to do in the future?Make sure that you spend some quality time researching careers. This means doing more than simply identifying the obvious roles like doctor or teacher and it means getting more specific than ‘I want to be an engineer’ – ask yourself, what other roles exist within the medical and educational fields and what kinds of engineers are there in the world? – The devil’s in the details!How to get on track for the career that you wantOnce you have done your research into careers and you have an idea of what you want to do (bearing in mind that you also might always have known what you want to do but now might be thinking that you have blown it by not getting the A level results that you want) it’s time to consider all the different ways that you can get yourself ready for that career.You don’t necessarily need A levels to start your careerThere is more than one way to skin a cat – horrible saying, but the message is that there a many ways to get into most careers – there are vocational courses, apprenticeships and A-levels and beyond this there are school leaver programmes, internships higher apprenticeships, part-time work combined with study and of course university.Don’t just choose anything else to doPossibly the biggest mistake that you could make is to simply choose to switch to a course that has space on it or that someone else tells you to do simply to ‘do something’. Education isn’t about just doing something / anything – it’s about preparing yourself for a successful future and developing the skills that you need. This is a mistake that some of you might already have made with you’re a-level choices. You might have simply chosen subjects that sounded interesting, that do not complement each other, or worse still, that your friends are doing so that you can stay together.Have an end goal in mindHaving at least some idea of what career or further study you are aiming for ensures that you are in the best place to choose the right course or subjects. If you want to go to university then check out the entry requirements for the university and courses that you want to do and make sure that you study the right subjects to avoid disappointment later on.What happens when you have to completely rethink what you are going to do?In some cases, results day really is the time that some realise that they have been going in entirely the wrong direction. Don’t be afraid of changing course. Plenty of young people ditch their A-level studies after year one and start again on a technical / vocational pathway, which in the end makes them much happier and more successful in their studies. If this is you, speak to someone as soon as possible about making the change. Yes, it will possibly mean adding a year on to your study because you will be starting again, but ultimately it might be the best thing for you.A-Level results that go wrongIf you have applied to university and you don’t get the results that you need, you might think about going through clearing.Clearing is the UCAS process used by universities to fill any places that they have left and by students to find a place. You can read detailed guidance on how to go through clearing, including costs and what you need to have handy, in our results day guide.
