How easy is it to get a first on your course at King’s?

Ever wondered how easy it is to get a first on your course at King's? Is it really a mythical thing that only happens to a rare few?

We asked King's for the statistics on last year's grade classifications for some of the most popular subjects and here's the results:

Percentage of people who achieved each grade in 2019

Computer science had the highest percentage of firsts at over 47%, with 66 out of 139 students achieving the top grade – it was the only subject we looked at where most of the graduates achieved a first.

In other popular subjects such as English, 23% of students got firsts, with 72% receiving 2:1s. That's just 37 out of 161 achieving the highest award and a much higher number of 116 getting an upper second class honours.

For Film Studies, a subject King's is particularly renowned for, the number of people who received is a 2:1 is just over double the amount who got a first. The same goes for Spanish where 25% get a first and 50% get a 2:1.

In Law more than 70% of students get a 2:1 with only 22% receiving a first. That's a massive majority of 103 out of 146 getting a 2:1 compared to just 33 getting a first.

Although these stats show it is definitely hard to achieve a first in most subjects, they also suggest it's rare to receive a 3rd – in fact you're far more likely to just fail.

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