Kate Marritt – Customer Support Manager for Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Isle of Man, Lancashire, Merseyside, Shropshire and Staffordshire

As we release Cambridge Advanced Nationals qualification results for the first time this summer, I wanted to provide some practical guidance for managing results, including what to check if any results are missing or incomplete.

How Cambridge Advanced Nationals work 

Cambridge Advanced Nationals are unitised qualifications. This means students can take units throughout the course.

At the start of the course, you register your students and then, when they’re ready, make a unit entry for each exam or coursework unit. At the end of the course, you need to make a certification entry (‘cash-in’) to pull together all the unit results into an overall subject grade. The certification entry lets us know the student needs an overall qualification result in that series to be able to progress.

You may have students that have already completed enough units for the Certificate size qualifications (150/180 GLH). If your students are expecting an overall qualification result this summer and you did not make certification entries with your June 2026 unit entries, you should do this now.

Certification entries are always free and there are no late fees for making certification entries now.

How are Cambridge Advanced Nationals results graded? 

Units are graded as pass, merit and distinction and the overall qualifications are graded as Pass, Merit, Distinction and Distinction*. It’s worth bearing in mind that the unit grades are useful  – what really matters are the marks students get.

The overall grade is determined by adding together all the marks for each unit and then using the qualification grade boundaries to work out the grade.

But we don’t just add all the ‘raw’ marks from each exam paper or coursework unit. 

The difficulty of exam papers may vary from year to year. To make sure we can compare exam papers across years, the raw exam marks are converted into a common scale. This scale is known as the uniform mark scale/score (UMS). It gives a fixed scale with common boundaries that don’t change from year to year. The UMS grade boundaries are available now in the specifications and will be published on our grade boundaries page on candidate results day.

For NEA units, the total number of assessment criteria achieved is known as the ‘raw mark’. This raw mark is converted into a mark on the uniform mark scale (UMS) so it can be combined with the UMS from the examined units to contribute towards the student’s overall qualification grade. You can find the thresholds for the raw mark grade boundaries and the UMS grade boundaries for the units in section 6.4 of the specifications. 

The overall grade for Cambridge Advanced Nationals will be determined by adding together the uniform marks (UMS) for each unit and then awarding the overall grade based on the standard qualification grade boundaries (which do not change). 

To find out more about how unitised grades are calculated you can visit the results pages of our website and, from results day, you can use our online tool to convert raw scores to UMS.  

How and when we issue results 

As for A Levels, results are embargoed until the official result release date.

• Restricted results release: 12.01am on 12 August 2026
• Candidate results day: from 8am on 13 August 2026

A key difference with Cambridge Advanced Nationals is that you will already have the moderated results feedback and report which is available to download from the Moderation Service about a week after your visit. On results day we issue the confirmed grades and UMS.  

Both the unit uniform marks and grades, and the final uniform mark and grade are given on the results slip.

Please see the JCQ release of results guidance for further details, as this lets you know who’s allowed access to what and when.

EDI results files

You will receive two EDI result files on restricted results day:

• one containing unit marks and grades
• one containing a qualification marks and grades (any A Level results will also be in this file). 

We provide refreshed EDI results files daily via Interchange until the end of the post-results period. These files will overwrite any manual changes if you choose to use them. To access the updated files, log in to Interchange, hover over ‘Results’ in the left-hand menu and click on ‘XML/EDI Results’. 

Accessing Interchange

Before the results period begins, make sure you can access Interchange successfully. You log in via our single sign-on service, My Cambridge.

We use two-factor authentication (2FA) for Interchange. If you’ve not already set this up, see the instructions on our website and our short video.

If you've changed your phone or tablet, you will need to pair your new device with your My Cambridge account – see our FAQ.

Interchange results reports

There are a number of results reports on Interchange available for you to download from the restricted results release date. In addition to the statement of marks (results slip) and results and grade boundaries report, you may find the following reports useful:

• For each candidate with a certification entry, the cumulative specification results report (PDF) shows their qualification grade, total uniform mark, all unit results from all series and an indicator to show which units were used towards the qualification grade.
• The special consideration report (CSV) can help you respond quickly to queries. It shows where special consideration has been applied, including the tariff and marks awarded, and highlights results that have been calculated due to absence. You do not need to share this information with your students, but it can be helpful for internal checks.

Take a look at the results reports page of our website for more guidance. 

Missing or incomplete results?

If you have any missing results on results day, it’s a good idea to work through the following checks:

• Check whether you still need to make a certification entry. You can make a late certification request via Interchange up to the closing date for this service (24 September 2026). 
• Check your students have been entered for the correct combination of units. You can find more details on the entries rules page of our website. 
• If you still have missing results, submit a missing or incomplete results (MIR) request via Interchange. Log into Interchange and hover over ‘Post-results’ in the left-hand menu. Click on ‘Missing and incomplete results’ and follow the on-screen instructions. This service is free of charge.
• If a candidate grade is showing as ‘Q’, a result is pending or is currently unavailable. In each instance we should have contacted your centre in advance to explain why. If you have not received any communication from us, please speak with your Head of Centre who will have more information about the issue. 

If you encounter any of these issues or have any further questions, contact us on 01223 553998.

On the restricted release and candidate results days, our Customer Support Centre lines will be open between 7.30am and 5pm.

For further guidance on managing Cambridge Advanced Nationals results, see our website.

About the author

Kate joined Cambridge OCR in January 2018 and has been working in the education sector since 1998. She has experience of exams administration through her role as Assessment Manager at a university medical school and as Exams Officer in a large high school, so she understands first-hand how challenging the role can be.