BDE A-levels due to mitigating circumstances - will this still block me from City law firms after Durham Law?
Sorry if this isn’t the right place — I’m mainly hoping to hear from people involved in City/BigLaw recruitment.
My academics are messy on paper because of pretty extreme disruption. In my first year of sixth form in the UK I was predicted A* A* Dist* (Politics, Business, CTEC IT), with Distinctions already achieved in two IT components.
I then had to move back to Pakistan because of family circumstances/bereavement, change subjects, and had repeated UK/Pakistan moves because of residency issues. I ended up having roughly 4 months to prepare for three A-levels, including subjects I hadn’t originally planned to take, and finished with BDE.
I’m now going to Durham’s International Foundation Year via International Study Centre, progressing to Durham Law LLB if I meet the required grades/LNAT. My aim is to score in the 80s on foundation and then get a First/high 2:1 on the LLB.
Long term I’m targeting corporate law at major City/US firms. I also have business experience: I ran a small business at 15 doing around $12k/year revenue, now work as a partner in a marketing agency, and have B2B sales/business development experience. At Durham I’ll also be pursuing legal experience, societies, first-year schemes, vac schemes, etc.
My concern is firms that still show AAB/AAA A-level requirements.
If an application sees BDE, will some firms simply auto-reject regardless of a strong Durham record and mitigating circumstances? Or do recruiters actually consider the full academic trajectory?
I’ve considered resitting two A-levels later to get something like AAB/AAA, but I assume firms asking for full education history would still see the original BDE anyway.
So, if you were in my position, would you:
1. Resit A-levels to clear formal cut-offs, or
2. Forget them, focus entirely on smashing Durham and building the strongest possible legal/commercial CV?
Also, if an application only asks for your most recent pre-university qualification, would listing the Durham Foundation be acceptable, or should the original A-levels still be disclosed?
I’m not looking to hide anything, I’m just trying to work out whether one very disrupted year can realistically keep blocking me even if I perform strongly afterwards.