21 Year Old With 2023 DAE Grade B: How to Plan a Filmmaking Bachelor’s Abroad for 2028
Last Saturday, I was wiping ketchup off the patio table after our neighborhood BBQ when Ravi, my son’s 21-year-old friend who’s been crashing on our couch between freelance shifts, leaned against the railing and pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his jeans pocket. It was his DAE result slip from 2023, a clear Grade B in media production. “I want to apply for a filmmaking bachelor’s abroad, 2028 intake,” he said, kicking a stray crumb that our beagle missed. “I just don’t know where to start. Everyone says DAE doesn’t count, I’m taking too long, I messed up my shot.”
I’ve worked as a high school guidance counselor for 18 years, so I hear this a lot—kids who took a non-standard path after secondary school, have a few years of work under their belt, and think their dream of an overseas degree is off the table because their grades aren’t top tier or their timeline doesn’t match the straight-from-high-school mold. Ravi’s situation isn’t uncommon, but it’s also not something you see a lot of clear guidance for, so I wrote down what we walked through that afternoon.
Ravi finished his DAE when he was 18, right after secondary school. He picked DAE because he knew he wanted to work with video, and the program gave him hands-on training that A-levels didn’t at his local school. He’s spent the last three years editing wedding videos on weekends, cutting promotional clips for small local businesses, and saving every extra rupee he makes. He picked 2028 because he wants another three years to build up his portfolio and save enough to cover the deposit on tuition, without taking on a huge student loan right away. That makes total sense for him, but he’d spent months scrolling forums where people said five years after DAE was too long, that a Grade B wouldn’t get him accepted anywhere.
The first thing I told him was to stop worrying about DAE not being recognized. Most overseas filmmaking programs care far more about the quality of your work than your old exam marks, but you do need to do one concrete thing well in advance: get your credential evaluated officially. For 2028 intake, that means starting the process in early 2026, so you have time to sort out any issues before applications open. If you’re applying to schools in the UK, use UK ENIC; for Canada, use IQAS; for Australia, do it through the official Department of Home Affairs evaluation service. A Grade B DAE in a relevant field like media production almost always comes back as equivalent to a Level 3 Diploma or 12th grade completion, which meets the basic entry requirement for almost all bachelor’s programs. That’s a non-negotiable step, but it’s also not the big hurdle most people make it out to be.
The second thing is that that five year gap between 2023 and 2028 isn’t a weakness—it’s a strength, if you use it right. I’ve seen kids straight out of high school with perfect A-levels get rejected from top film schools because their portfolio is just a few class projects. Ravi already has professional experience, but we mapped out specific things he can do in the next three years to make his portfolio stand out: instead of loading it with 20 wedding edits, he’ll pick 3 original short projects (written, directed, and edited by him) that he can work on one per year, even if they’re shot on his phone with friends as actors. Each will be 5 to 10 minutes long, and he’ll add a one paragraph note to each explaining what he learned while making it. He’ll also add one 2-minute editing reel and one 3-minute showreel of his best commercial work. Next year, he’s going to volunteer for 10 days at the Mumbai International Film Festival, which will give him a line on his resume that admissions tutors notice. Instead of trying to hide the gap, he’ll frame it in his personal statement like this: “I completed my DAE in media production in 2023, then spent five years working on local productions to build my practical skills and confirm that narrative filmmaking is the career I want to pursue.” That’s it, no excuses needed.
Finances are the biggest concern for most kids in this position, and Ravi is no different. We talked through a few concrete steps that don’t involve taking on crippling debt. First, he’s already saving, which is great, but he’s going to start a spreadsheet this month listing all portfolio-based scholarships for international filmmaking students. The Commonwealth Scholarship Commission has awards for creative arts students, and most top film schools also have their own scholarships for incoming international students that are based on work, not grades. Deadlines for these are usually 18 months before intake, so he’ll mark all 2027 deadlines in his calendar now, so he doesn’t miss them. Second, we agreed he’ll narrow his school list to 2 safety schools (public universities in Canada and English-taught programs in Poland, both of which have tuition under $15,000 a year) and 2 reach schools, instead of applying to 10 schools just to check boxes. Application fees for international programs are usually $50 to $100 each, so that saves him a few hundred dollars he can put toward tuition.
We finished the conversation as the sun went down, and Ravi stuffed his result slip back into his pocket, already texting his friend about locations for his first short film. We’re meeting again next Saturday to start mapping out the school list, and there’s still a lot that’s uncertain. He might decide he doesn’t need to go abroad after all, or he might get a great local opportunity that pushes his timeline back another year. But for now, he doesn’t have to wonder where to start. The biggest mistake I see kids in his position make is assuming that a non-standard timeline or a good (not perfect) grade closes all doors. For filmmaking, especially, what you can do matters far more than when you did it. Right now, that’s enough for him.
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