A level results day 2026

I'm looking for a microwave rice cooker for mine and some small jars for spices/ mixes, and I'll decant some curry powder, mixed spices, fajitas mix into them.

Hi, I needed a few days before writing here. I’m ready now, and I’m hoping people might be able to help or offer some advice.
My DS missed his firm (the dream uni) by one mark — not one grade, literally one mark. So instead of getting an A, he got a B in Maths. He has been accepted by his insurance, but he’s now wondering whether he actually wants to go there.
We spent Thursday afternoon calling five universities that he might have preferred to his insurance and that, because they had courses available through Clearing, seemed more approachable. Unfortunately, no luck.
We are also getting two papers remarked by the exam board, although his school has already said that, on a first look, it doesn’t seem likely there will be a mark to gain.
I’ve told him that he has to accept the situation and move on — sometimes things just don’t go the way we want. But what has left me a little baffled is that the course at his firm university is now showing as available only to international students.
Do you think there is any chance that this could change and the course might become available to UK students later in Clearing? And if they don’t fill all the places allocated to international students, is there any possibility that they might accept an extra UK student?
I know nobody can predict what the university will do, but I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has experience with this or knows how it works behind the scenes.

@Sunnyskiesa afaik if they've said no, it's a no. They had the option to take him with the grades he has and didn't.

@Sunnyskiesa that's so hard, my heart goes out to your son. Unfortunately, the places for international students will be fee-related so unless you'd pay three times as much to go there (theoretically I mean, I don't even think that's poss), it's not places that would ever become available for home students. It's like there being seats left in first class but you can't sit there with a standard ticket (analogy inspired by a thread on mumsnet yesterday). So don't let those places tantalise you/him, they might as well not exist at all.

Same goes for the firm sadly. Some places would have budged for one mark, but I'm guessing the 'dream' must be one of the top places that simply won't take a B under any circumstances. So unless the remarks go his way, a miss is as good as a mile, as they say, and your advice is dead right - better to let it go and start talking up the insurance or other viable options.

Sucks though. DS had a couple of rejections from his dream too (twice rejected by Cambridge, post interview and via the august pool) so I know a little of how you/he must feel, but thankfully DS embraced fate and is now looking forward to the uni that wants him. That means a lot. Hope it all works out and your DS can start looking forward too.

We are also getting two papers remarked by the exam board, although his school has already said that, on a first look, it doesn’t seem likely there will be a mark to gain.

@Sunnyskiesa I think I’d throw everything at the remark. If I understand correctly, you have a week post results to apply for a priority remark and this should be back by 31/8. I think most universities agree to hold the place until that date. How many papers were there in the A level? I would ask school to take a second look and I would go over those papers with a fine toothed comb myself. I know it’s not the same thing, but my DD went up 7 marks to the next grade on a GCSE last year. I spotted three of those marks with zero knowledge of the subject: two as a clerical error (two ticks on screen and a 0 on the marks list) and one really basic rule question that was marked wrong. It was also missed on the review of marking, so we had to appeal, but won - and she got the higher grade.

I would say - if you can bear it - throw all your energies into exploring every option with remark and appeal if you have to, while simultaneously trying to manage your son’s expectations that he may have to go elsewhere. At least you’ll know you’ve ttried every angle, even if it ends up as one of those desperately unfortunate things that happens. Fingers crossed for your son.

Really feel for him, so close. Few of DD’s friends in a similar situation. One rejected with AAB,(read two A stars) with her offer being A*AA. My understanding is that admissions for Home vs International students are separate, with quite strict number quotas, so don’t interchange if one category has a few spaces, hence your DS being rejected even if a few spaces were available in the International category. I think the door has closed on his firm, especially if a review doesn’t look like helping.

The question now I suppose is how to help him move on. Maybe a visit to his insurance uni? There must have been something he liked about it originally? Look at the course/module details to try to bring back some enthusiasm?

A 7 mark gain is very unusual, though. Ofqual data shows 55% of reviewed papers show no change to the mark. Only around 20% lead to a change in grade. It's worth doing but not worth pinning your hopes on, and the chance of a change is even smaller with a science or maths paper, so it depends on the subject as well. Sometimes you have to accept you weren't quite there.

Fwiw data also shows that 80% of predicted grades are wrong, the majority too generous.

It's worth doing but not worth pinning your hopes on

That’s fair - and I accept that there is limited read across from another GCSE to a maths A level. But my DD would have been a “no change” had I not scoured the reviewed scripts and found a mark that had been missed. I would say it is worth doing just so that the OP can say that she’s done everything possible and not wonder “what if”? (I also know of someone whose GCSE maths went up by 10 marks, so I think I am now rather cynical about the quality of exam marking and moderation! But I do take your point that most papers will be marked accurately and it isn’t a sure thing to pin hopes on etc.)

For 1 mark I’d want to see papers and go over with a fine tooth comb, you can check everything has been marked and added up correctly. Son with teacher help if necessary can see if possibly a mark to be had.
Nothing to lose except fee per paper.
If not you will always think what if.

Thanks all.

@Sunnyskiesa I really feel for you both. I can imagine how upset he is. I’m not going to give advice but earlier in the thread I mentioned how things will change for the better but I know it can be so painful when you are in the eye of the storm so to speak.

My daughter went up in a remark to an A* last year so it is always worth while. I’m a secondary school teacher and know first hand that marking can in some cases be inaccurate and as you are looking for one mark do check carefully.

Wishing you both the best and that when he’s had some time to reflect he can move forward with confidence - a year later after a disappointing results day my daughter is now off to her dream course. It does happen!

Let’s face it - very many, if not most, things happen by chance. You’ve just got learn to ride the waves. And this is one such occasion.

Last year DS got a D in maths and was one mark off a C. Got first 2 papers marked n grade didn’t change. Felt hopeless getting paper 3 marked and DH was against it but i felt it was worth a shot. Managed to gain that extra mark.. so grade went up to a C. Which meant he did not have to resit it thank goodness. I hope your DSs grade does too.

Can someone clarify if I am correctly understanding the grade boundaries please?

For example the overall mark for psychology is 300, for an a you need 220 or better so 73% in the exam would be an a?

Sorry the star symbol is turning the rest of the text to bold!

I haven’t seen the specific grade boundary you are talking about and am most familiar with CCEA grade boundaries, but the premise is the same across all exam boards.

Grade boundaries are set following the marking of all papers and are decided on a bell curve meaning that a certain percentage will achieve each grade.

In CCEA it is always 80% for an A for instance, and 90% for an Astar. However, those percentages are for the UMS - Uniform Mark Scheme - and the raw marks needed to convert into those UMS are changed every year.

Take for example the Physical Geography A2 paper - it is marked out of 70, but those marks are then translated into a UMS out of 120. (Total across all 3 papers is 300 - 120 for physical, 120 for human and 60 for DME)

In previous years, you have needed around 47/70 (approx 67%) in raw marks to convert to 96/120 (80%) get an A. That means that an Astar is likely to have been approx 59/70 (approx 84%).

This year, that paper was particularly tough and you only needed 43/70 (approx 61%) to get an A, meaning that you likely needed around 56/70 (approx 80%) to get an Astar.

The UMS grade boundaries stay the same for the duration of the spec, but what changes every year is the conversion from raw marks to UMS and this is dependent on how tough the paper was and how the cohort as a whole found it.

It varies by exam board and by subject. Humanities have a far lower percentage of A star as low as 5 percent in some cases. Some stem subjects have 15-20 percent A star. System is pretty shit imo. So the marks that may have got you an A star last year may not get you this year. So the curve varies by subject!

It's based on marks and not %.So 220 is Astar, 200 is A, 170 is B etc. (OCR from Studydog.co.uk)

They also give indicative grade boundaries for each paper. This is important for subjects such as history and further maths where there are optional papers and the grade boundaries are different for different papers to reflect differences in difficulty.

@NellyNoMates Did we have this back in the 90’s? I was completely unaware until DS starting taking exams!

can you explain the way that raw marks are converted to UMS? Is it a simple multiplication?

DS had full UMS in several of his papers and is grumbling about one that he didn’t!

I assume we did, but I don’t recall getting a breakdown of marks when we got our results. Maybe we did - I just don’t know!

As far as conversion from Raw-UMS, that is way beyond me - I’m pretty sure it’s not a simple multiplication though. In NI they don’t actually release the marks you need for Astar, it’s just “An A grade overall and >90% UMS at A2”. You generally just work it out based on roughly the midway between the mark needed for an A and full marks. It’s definitely not an exact science though.

The point where you reach full UMS is also a bit of a mystery and is totally dependent on that bell curve I mentioned earlier.

The PP who also said that humanities tend to have less Astar is also correct. (Which makes me even more proud of both DD and DS who got their Astars in all humanities subjects!)

I've sent my DD paper in for a remark, only need 1 mark for a B to a C. I did my A levels in 1997, expected an A but got a B in both Biology and Geography, missed out on uni place. Was a re mark a thing back then? No one ever suggested it ...

I heard of at least two people around that time (90s) who got zero in one paper due to an admin error and got it sorted and the mark corrected. I never heard anything about reviews of marking though.

You could do remarks in the 90s. Brother and sister both had one subject they tried that with. Neither went up.

It was harder to decide though as I don't think you got your mark, or the boundary mark and you definitely couldn't view the papers.