3 A Levels or 4?

Worcswoman, you are right if that is the choice. However students capable gaining competitive places at top universities can often take four A levels without dropping grades. Students at these Universities seem to have to work incredibly hard, a lot more than in my day. And will find that many of their peers from overseas see working hard as the norm. Certainly in STEM subjects a bright student with access to good teaching should be able to take 4 subjects without sacrificing extra-curricular (or gaming time...)

It's better to secure 3 good grades than 4 mediocre ones so a student concentrating their energies on 3 A levels is perfectly fine and a sensible choice for most students. A cv of supporting extra-curricular activities can be helpful in swaying a decision between two candidates with the same exam results.

Finally lots of independent schools are recommending 3 A levels now

While the middle classes in state schools were worrying their children couldn't take 12 GCSEs and telling each other on MN that without this, their children would end up doing a Level 4 qualification at an FE college, private schools were doing 8--10 GCSEs to a high standard, with some extension work ready for A Level. The private schools have always understood the reality of admission: carefully chosen subjects, top grades, no diversion into things of little value. Meanwhile, state schools (is this the thread where TalkinPeace has been making the point about good careers advice? I forget) are insufficiently critical about rumours about what universities "really" want, and do all sorts of strange things.

You know that frustration you felt when your children were in Y5, and all around you parents and headteachers were talking nonsense about the operation of the Equal Preference system, and talking about "having to put the school first" or "if you only put down one school they have to give it to you" or "of course, the council say that, but they do something else, my aunt told me"?

At my children's school, there are in my children's cohorts alone three children whose parents are admissions tutors in two good universities, and many more who are lecturers or equivalent. They have tried, in vain, to stop the school talking nonsense about weird conspiracies in which if you turn thrice widdershins you can get a university place through magic inside knowledge. The main inside knowledge is "make sure you are doing the right A Levels at the right grade and meet the other published requirements". Everything else is, almost without exception, froth. And froth that Eton know is froth.

However for the top 3-5 courses in popular subjects the basic entry requirements will normally not get you in unless you offer something else

I'd need a lot of evidence for that being true. A department which routinely failed to make offers for candidates predicted the published standard offer, and even more so failed to routinely admit candidates making the published standard offer, would do so at its peril. If it is operating hidden criteria it does not publish it is asking for an awkward conversation with its university access and diversity team, and properly so. Do you evidence this is actually happening (ie, that the majority of students are not offered the published standard offer?)

Relatively few, I expect, will have lots of music and drama awards

They don't need to. Two A* and an A: 400 points. An A in the AS they didn't take forward (which for the current cohort is absolutely standard): 470 points. An A in an EPQ or AS Critical Thinking or AS General Studies (remember, these totals aren't for admissible qualifications, just for anything on the tariff tables): 540. How many students have more than this? Anyone with Grade VI in an instrument, anyone who did an FSMQ, anyone who picked up a second spare AS on the way, anyone who did further maths, even if only to AS. How many students have less than this? Not many, but some. Hence an average is 400 points of A + 150 points of other stuff just means that some students did better than the usual pathway, in what is probably a somewhat right-slewed distribution.

I agree with most of what Needsmoresleep has stated.Apart from DD applying to vet.colleges has been told there is no advantage to getting higher than the minimum qualifications - whatever that is 6A*'s,A's in English/maths.They select via your statement/work experience,EPQ ,panel interview etc.There is no point whatsoever to be doing Gen.Studies (not recognised).Speech and drama is good as it helps you to interview well,as does proper constructive careers advice.She has also discovered a lot of students round here wanting to apply for vet. Science without the minimum requirements.Are they the ones who don't get an interview?
Finally lots of independent schools are recommending 3 A levels now( its not just due to lack of funding).I have personally spoken to admissions officers at several universities and they have said that many schools are only doing 3 this year and this will not prejudice their entry.

I'm not sure Oxford is a good example to work back from because their standard, relatively low, offer for arts and humanities comes after a sift via aptitude tests and interviews.

I think the real thing here is that the points system is in itself extremely misleading. Comparing the average grades of entrants for the most competitive courses might have some purpose, but not points.

GetAHairCurl - fine if the course is not oversubscribed. However for the top 3-5 courses in popular subjects the basic entry requirements will normally not get you in unless you offer something else (eg doing well in a poor performing school). Having a look at the average entry tarriff can help as it gives a sence of the standards reached by the rest of the field. For example the average UCAS points for UCL, Warwick, St Andrews and LSE for economics hovers around 550. Relatively few, I expect, will have lots of music and drama awards, so most sucessful entrants are offering more than 3A*s at A level.

I am not convinced that this is discriminatory in the way that some seem to. DC were at a high performing school. (Better results than Eton!) DS was rejected by Cambridge, UCL and Warwick despite a 4A prediction and indeed achieving 700 worth of UCAS points (though is now doing very well at LSE). I am sure that other candidates will have been admitted who were only predicted the standard AAA entry requirements, and this seems reasonable. Universities are lookng for potential. If they are oversubscribed, they won't necessarily want to raise their minimum entry requirement, but will keep the pool wide and then sort by other factors including contextual data, aptitude tests including STEP, interview and personal statement. It will not go all the way to redressing inequality in education, but Universities also want to be satisfied that students have sufficient knowledge before arriving at University to cope with demanding courses.

FWIW Imperial seem to vary their offers on a candidate by candidate basis more than most. They usually interview and seem to give out individual offers, even for pupils from the same school and for the same course. These offers, and indeed some Cambridge STEM offers, will often be over four A levels and include more than one A*, though presumably a good candidate taking three A levels would get an offer based on three A levels.

It is accepted that if you want to get a place to study medicine you need to dig a bit deeper and identify how each medical school is selecting, and look to see where you have the best fit. The same probably now applies to top engineering, economics and law courses. Applicants should probably make sure they are not wasting a choice (Oxford may say their standard offer is 3As, but 3As on their own would probably not be enough) and that they do their best with the other factors which will be taken on board, like personal statements (follow any guidance given by the University), aptitude tests etc.

Yes absolutely Hocus. roguedad's DC are going to be in for a shock when they get to uni and realise that their peers cruised in with five less A*s than them and enjoyed something akin to a life in Years12 and 13: poor roguedad's DC!

I'm really relieved as to where this thread is heading in its conclusion. dd is deeply interested in the subject she is likely to do a degree in, does a lot of extra work and does well in it - but her successes don't get awarded ucas points. It would seem highly unfair if she were to have to fit in a lot of irrelevant extra stuff just to jump through hoops.

Which course is your DD interested in?

That sort of points score must seem insurmountable. Only if you look it up .

Ds (humanities) (and I think a large number of his friends) just looked up the grade requirements for their courses at the universities they wanted to apply to. I have no idea what the UCAS point score is for the course Ds is on and I'm willing to bet a fig to a pound of oranges, nor does he. Blissful ignorance was a marvellous thing for us.

grinkle yes I'd say it was unusual and symptomatic of obsession :) Most ordinary people just consider grades - the points score thing gives a wholly misleading picture which it's best to ignore.

grinkle then you are highly unusual for raising the tarrif as an issue.

Most young people and their families look up courses on line. They go to the web site of a university and check out entry requirements for courses.

It's all there. Easily accessed. Anyone with any queries can call admissions.

And if I've thought that, then how much more must people who've never been to university.

You're missing the point. Mos families (in general) wouldn't know an average points attained figure, or what it means, or how it relates to their own child, if it fell on them. For what it's worth, I don't know that figure either for (a) the courses I teach on or (b) the courses my children are on, and I've never heard them mentioned at open days, applicant days or anywhere else. I move in largely HE-working circles and no-one has mentioned them in regard to either their own courses or their children's courses, and they aren't mentioned in (for example) college education committees when we discuss applications. Outside MN obsessives, no-one looks at those. This is the only place I've seen them discussed.

About getting extra points, someone mentioned General Studies. Not sure if this is still offered at dd's school, but if it isn't, I'm contemplating even putting her in privately to get the extra 'free' UCAS points,

Why the hell would you do that? It's discounted by almost all selective universities. It might be accepted as part of a 240 point tariff by some recruiting universities, but even they are wise to it. I took it way back by walking into the exam room and answering the questions (and got an A, too) but these days it's close to worthless.

Why do you care what the achieved points score of other applicants is? Offers at selective universities are made in terms of three (exceptionally four, but it's extremely unusual, and usually relates to M/FM) A2 grades. The end. Only on MN would people obsess about UCAS points that no-one, outside the wonks in the very plush offices HESA occupy in Cheltenham, and a handful of obsessives who pore over the broadsheet league tables as though they mean something, cares about?

Carl I'm not in the least naive about the finance issues generally. I was making a specific point to counter your own about the decoupled A2s.

Well you may not be surprised but I've been surprised about just how much this particular comp, given its circumstances and location, have done for this student. You'd think from reading MN that not a single comp like that would be equal to the task of providing opportunities and enthusing this boy with the idea of applying to Oxbridge or the Ivy league, but it has. It's amazed me to be honest - I'm just hoping he'll get a place at whichever institution he'd most like a place.

goodbye you are extremely naive if you do not realise how much funding plays a part in decision making. Especially at sixth form stage where cuts are biting very hard.

As for a school doing what it should do, I don't doubt it. Of course some do.

However, if that were a consistent we would no longer be having conversations about widening participation at the most selective universities ( which would please me and save me a lot of time ).

Carl I should imagine that the thinking behind not doing decoupled ASs in the same subject as an A2 is driven by sound professional judgement rather than either finance or ideological beliefs.

I reckon you'd be quite impressed actually at the opportunities I can see working in action at the local failing unleafy comp which I'm sure you'd assume would be riven by anti elitist beliefs - one very able youngster there that I know has had opportunities heaped on him without him soliciting them: Cambridge courses, the Sutton Trust US programme, an internship at JP Morgan in the summer. Neither parent university educated and a dad dead set against education generally but the school at least seems to be getting it right.

There are some sectors of the teaching profession that stands squarely against elitism

Except for their own children, of course. My experience is that the louder they shout about "elitism" for the kids they teach, the more likely they are to be sending their children private. It's like Corbyn and Abbott: non-elitist comps for the proles, selective academic schools for their own children. They think that children should be educated together, except for their own. See also Emily Thornberry, Seamus Milne, Harriet Harman, Tony Blair, Ruth Kelly...Labour politicians who send their own children to state comps are very rare. I realise she isn't a Labour MP yet, but gob on legs Salma Yaqoob made a lot of noise about her support for Birmingham's local schools during the Trojan Horse affair, but she wouldn't touch them with a barge-pole: she went to one of the most selective schools in the country, and her own children have followed in her footsteps. My MP doesn't have school-age children, but the Labour MP in the neighbouring constituency again bangs on about comprehensive education, but his own children are again at the most selective schools.

Clearly lack of funding in the state sector is an issue.

The lack of careers provision, the decision to offer only 3 A levels from L6, to not offer decoupled AS etc are driven in part by funding issues.

However, I would say that some of the culture surrounding university applications comes not from finance ( or lack of it) but ideology.

There are some sectors of the teaching profession that stands squarely against elitism ( as they see it) and will argue for parity amongst subjects, destinations etc.

Some schools simply offer a bad deal for the most able.

hayita
I looked up the tariff this afternoon - nothing for DofE
but I remember DD saying that there are two sections to the skills list - one is the drop down UCAS points, provide proof list, the other is stuff like DofE

ricardian
The "not for the likes"
point is why decent careers education for all schools is so essential

but the chances of it from a government that gave the whole public sector a stealth 2% pay cut last week is pretty slim.