AS-levels could become increasingly irrelevant if teenagers apply for university after receiving their final A-level grades, a leading headmistress suggests.
Under proposals to revamp the application system, universities would no longer need to reply on predicted grades and AS results when making offers to potential students.
Such a move is likely to take away the emphasis on AS-levels, and free up time to focus on A-levels, according to Louise Robinson, the incoming president of the Girls' Schools Association (GSA).
AS-levels are taken after the first year of A-level study, and are qualifications in their own right. The results are often used by students to help decide which subjects they should continue to full A-level.
In an interview with the Press Association, Mrs Robinson, who is also headmistress of Merchant Taylors' Girls' School in Crosby, Liverpool, said: "From a student's point of view, AS-levels are good in terms of a break in learning, and for finding out halfway through whether they're on target.
"What I'm not so clear on is of the fact universities are placing so much credibility on AS results. We are spending an awful lot of time making sure they do as well as possible in those exams.
"If we are going to do post qualification application (PQA), it would take away not quite the need, but the emphasis on AS results and it would mean we wouldn't need to spend as much time preparing for them.
"There would be longer preparation for A2."
Universities use AS results because it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between candidates, and AS-levels, along with individual marks are hard evidence of achievements, she said.
"We wouldn't need them, you have still got to have modular exams, but you wouldn't need the results in this way."
Mrs Robinson added: "We don't need the level of intensity of AS results, if we are going to PQA."
Proposals to move to PQA were put forward by UCAS in October.
If agreed, it is likely to be introduced in 2016 at the earliest and would have a massive impact on the application system.
Teenagers would sit their A-levels earlier and apply for university over the summer, with courses starting in mid-October.
But Mrs Robinson suggested that it could be difficult to move the university year, as institutions have other commitments such as research.
"I don't think starting later, that's a viable option, therefore it may be schools and exam boards that would have to adjust."