A private candidate is someone who pursues a course of study independently, but takes an examination or assessment at an approved examination centre.

They may be a part-time student, someone taking a distance learning course or someone being tutored privately.

This section provides private candidates wishing to obtain an OCR qualification with the administrative information they need to get started.

The exams officer will be the first port of call at your centre for any queries.

Private candidates will be assessed this year on a range of evidence, in a similar way to other students. Centres will have considerable flexibility to determine the appropriate range of evidence for you. Centres that assess private students will have flexibility to select evidence which reflects your particular circumstances, including the content you have covered in your studies. 

Centres accepting private candidate entries will need to understand how you have been studying, what evidence you have already generated, and how much of the specification content you have covered. This could be achieved by means of a short interview with the you – which could be conducted remotely – or a short questionnaire. This will enable the centre to identify what types of assessment might be most appropriate for you, whether pre-existing evidence is available and whether any reasonable adjustments or access arrangements are required. We want as many private candidates as possible to receive results this summer.

A list of centres accepting private candidates is now available on the JCQ website. Please note this list may be updated.

The entry deadline has been extended to 26 April 2021 for centres to make entries on your behalf without incurring extra charges.

You can find details of fees in the OCR fees list. These fees should be treated as an indication only. Although your centre will charge you the relevant fees for the cost of the assessments you are taking, they may also charge an administrative fee. These vary from centre to centre, so you will need to clarify this with the exams officer at your centre.