Andy Millar:

I think as a profession we can help this GCSE question by being very clear that what we want is well rounded people entering, My suspicion is that no engineering manager has any interest at all in exact GCSE grades, types, or quantities.

Are well rounded people your own personal preference or is it a preference across the engineering industry as a whole? How do you define well rounded people and how does this square with GCSE subjects and grades? Very rarely have I been asked about GCSEs in engineering employment and it is not convention to list them on a CV, so your suspicion is probably right.


There have been concerns amongst parents that admission to degree courses in medicine often requires a minimum of 6A or A* GCSEs and they often give preference to students who have GCSEs in a diverse selection of subjects including music rather than those which are strongly relevant to medicine. Many universities also insist on a foreign language GCSE and often won't accept a GCSE in Latin as an alternative despite it being an essential requirement in decades gone by.  


I have been informed several times that middle aged managers tend to think of secondary school in the same way as when they were at school themself, so could have tendencies to downrate GCSEs in subjects that did not exist whilst they were at school or those that they are not familiar with.

Andy Millar:

I think as a profession we can help this GCSE question by being very clear that what we want is well rounded people entering, My suspicion is that no engineering manager has any interest at all in exact GCSE grades, types, or quantities.

Are well rounded people your own personal preference or is it a preference across the engineering industry as a whole? How do you define well rounded people and how does this square with GCSE subjects and grades? Very rarely have I been asked about GCSEs in engineering employment and it is not convention to list them on a CV, so your suspicion is probably right.


There have been concerns amongst parents that admission to degree courses in medicine often requires a minimum of 6A or A* GCSEs and they often give preference to students who have GCSEs in a diverse selection of subjects including music rather than those which are strongly relevant to medicine. Many universities also insist on a foreign language GCSE and often won't accept a GCSE in Latin as an alternative despite it being an essential requirement in decades gone by.  


I have been informed several times that middle aged managers tend to think of secondary school in the same way as when they were at school themself, so could have tendencies to downrate GCSEs in subjects that did not exist whilst they were at school or those that they are not familiar with.