Degree classification - Is a 2.1 the new 2.2?

[Plutonium]

Please help settle this argument between DH and I.
All our friends kids who graduated in the last 5yrs or so have all got either a 2.1 or a first class. When I went to uni, most people got a 2.2, a fe odd got a 2.1. A first class was as rare as hens teeth. I was telling DH that there was more academics stress now for Dd because everything’s has revved up several notches and she’ll have to be aiming for 2.1 unlike our time. DH said it’s all nonsense that most people get a 2.2 and a 2.1 is very rare. DH isn’t the most up to scratch with academic expectations /pressures in schools etc and just thinks everything is the same as when we went to school/university. I told him most graduate schemes now expect a 2.1.

I’ll be delighted if he is right. But what do you think?

Douglas Hurd? Haven't heard that for years!

I think that's absolutely true Plutonium. There really needs to be some sort of standardisation.

My kids are bright but idle (slightly ADD I suspect). DS1 had mediocre A levels and did an extra foundation year rather than go to a poorer quality uni. He came out with a 2.1 but I wonder if he has gained much from it being from a more academically rigorous institution. Looking at the stats, the ex poly in his uni town awards more 2.1s in his subject than the Russell group he attended. Given the vast difference in entrance qualifications, that is unlikely to be a fair reflection.

DD1 has really struggled with her degree (drugs and partying and mental health) and scored 60.3% overall. There was much celebrating in the Tinkly household. But I'm not going to lie, DD1 isn't the sharpest tool in the box, nowhere near people who got a 2.1 when I went in the 80s.

DD2 is somewhere very academic. She got 59% for her first year, (she's very idle). Fortunately first year doesn't count. I'm really worried she'll end up with a 2.2.

Has no one mentioned a Trevor Nunn, a Geoff Hurst or a Dan Quayle yet?

And when DS was applying for Grad scheme jobs I notice many of them requested a certain level of UCAS points, probably to filter out those with questionable 2.1s while still claiming not to recruit by institution.

My American son has a degree from a uni in England and has a 2.something. Whatever it is was supposed to be good but sounds terrible compared to the American grading system - where a 4.0 is good. I told him not to tell anyone here he got a 2.something because they will be thinking of the American grades.

I agree OP. There’s been grade inflation.
When I did my degree at a high ranking uni back in the Olden Days one person got a first (not me!).They were a clear cut above everyone else. About 25% got 2-1s including 3 who were published by the time their degree finished.
Most of the rest 2-2s, a handful of 3rds and one ‘ordinary’.

The entrance requirements were BBB (in the days when As were like hens teeth)

But I noticed it had changed by 10 years ago - we were employing graduates with firsts and they were OK but not brilliant; hardworking but no spark, took a while to pick things up, etc. They were definitely not the same as ‘first’ graduates in days gone by.

So for some, its actually better to go to a lower tierd uni and get a high classification than struggle to get into an and RG or whatever only to get a mediocre 2.2 if thats all what they are capable of because graduate scheme criteria does not account for name of institution.

In my experience, students at the higher ranked universities are more likely to get a good classification than students in lower ranked ones. We only admit applicants with very high grades, so there really shouldn't be much or any chance of them dropping below the 2.1 floor. I have friends and family who teach at lower-ranked universities who say that around 40 or 50% of their students get 2.2s. The degree grade is (mostly) dependant on the academic standard of the student, not the university.

The only students I've seen get 2.2s or below in my dept in the last decade were (1) people who had very serious problems (and even most people in that situation get at least a 2.1 if they can complete their degree because we try very hard to support them); (2) were pathologically lazy (and normally had deductions for plagiarism and/or missing deadlines); or (3) a tiny number of people who somehow got themselves admitted even though they weren't performing at the minum standard we would expect - often these are people who started a degree in another dept or university and somehow managed to get themselves transferred to us.

The 2.1 band is much wider than it was 15 or 20 years ago. That's why some MA programmes require an overall grade of 65 or 67 in an applicant's BA.

The whole degree classification system is useless, really. It would be much more sensible to just have people graduate with a final grade and confidentially (for employers and masters programmes) a formal confirmation of whether they were in the top 1%/2%/5%/10%/25%/50% of their degree programme cohort - that's a standard question for referees, but not formalised, so we have to guess.

Charolais a little googling suggests that a 2.1 is roughly equivalent to a 3.3 MINIMUM grade average under the American system if that helps?

My father is one of the most intelligent people I know, he graduated in the late 50s when only 1% of the population went to university and he got a third. It was a good degree in those days, he went on to help set up the computer dept at Manchester uni and research with PhD students. Times have changed!

I lived in England in the 50’s and 60’s and only the very, very brainy went to university.

My own dad was the most intelligent man that I knew and he left school at 14 - during the war. He had an incredible memory and read a great deal. I don’t think there was a subject he couldn’t talk about intelligently. The last time I saw him he was very ill and also had Lewy body dementia. We were discussing the coincidence of there being high rates of MS in areas that are on top of basalt. He was watching the imaginary circus that he told me had been set up in the back garden and turned and said, “It might have something to do with Radon gas”.

I really miss him. His sense of humour was magnificent.

I graduated last year with a first, averaging 85%. According to Unistats, 5% of people on my course got a first and almost half got a 2.1. I was surprised to learn that the average for firsts across universities is much higher. I went to an ex-poly and it seems to suggest that the assessment standards are applied equally but universities like mine are likely to have students with lower entry qualifications (and I include myself in that) so they end up awarding fewer firsts.

It would be interesting to see a 'value-added' league table comparing average entry qualifications with degree classifications, actually.

I went to a RG university in the 90s and 2:2 was fairly common but a bit disappointing. Only one person got a first in my year! What I have noticed is people appeal more now. I was 1% off getting a first but was told that if I appealed I wouldn't be able to graduate with my friends. I chose to keep my 2:1 and go to graduation!

Graduated in early 90's with a 2:1 DH graduated following year with a 2:2. He was bitterly disappointed and had worked really hard. Academically he was much more able than me. He currently earns about twice what I do. Both STEM subjects.

Russell Group university- although in those days I had no idea what that was!

The fact that academics weren't using the full range of marks at the top end was the reason why one of my last employers abandoned percentages and now marks out of 24.

My own dad was the most intelligent man that I knew and he left school at 14 - during the war. He had an incredible memory and read a great deal. I don’t think there was a subject he couldn’t talk about intelligently.

I think this is was so common. I remember Ddad telling Dd when she was 14 and moaning about school that she had already got two more years schooling than him and to count herself lucky she wasn't headed for service at the big house. 🙁

She starts her degree in a few weeks!

Anecdotally, the year after I graduated they got the actual archbishop tutu to the graduation ceremony to give out the degrees. I missed getting my tutu from tutu by a year ........

I think most people on my course (University of London, 1990s) got a 2:1 if they put in a reasonable amount of effort. Perhaps 20% didn't do so well and ended up with a 2:2. I think there were 4 people out of 70+ on that course who were awarded a First; i.e. 6%.
In the last couple of years, I've heard of so many kids of friends and colleagues achieving firsts that I did a bit of digging and found this article which suggests that over 40% of students at some institutions are now getting firsts. It does devalue it and am now not so impressed with their achievements!
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-40654933
Also think a First from Oxbridge is a very different thing to a First from many of the less prestigious universities.

Institutions won't admit it, but there has been grade inflation across the university sector, I think. Very roughly, I would say that, in my field, a student who would have graduated with a mid-high 2.2 10 or 15 years ago is graduating with a low 2.1 now, and a student who would have graduated with mid-high 2.1 is now graduating with a low 1st. Anyone graduating with a final grade of 75+ would always have got a 1st, though.

Yeah I think it's changed.

I have a 2.1 from my previous degree and most people got 2.2s and 2.1s, I remember one with a first. It was rare.

I'm doing another degree now and I'm on track to get a first, thing is in this field (psychology) it's competitive and I know a lot of people with firsts ... so I'm not even sure it's worth my time and effort given that so many people end up with a first and if I dropped back and scored a 2.1 I'm never going to get a graduate course.

I do this it depends on the course and the university though.

I also think, from what I've seen at my University, that the teaching is generally better than it used to be. At the lower end anyway - there was always some excellent teaching, but now there is less dreadful teaching. More organised. A closer relation between lectures, tutorials and exams. More revision classes. More model answers available. More care for students who are struggling. I can't speak for the general case though - this might not be true at those universities that have grown student numbers very quickly.

Interestingly when my dad worked with PhD students at Manchester uni in the 70s/80s/90s he used to say that he preferred students that came from polys rather than unis as they were more practical. He thought it a shame when everything turned into universities.

In reality does it matter if it's changed though? And if it has is it not beneficial? What's the point in allocating a first every five years, it makes it a pointless grade. The realistic highest grade achievable would be a 2:1. So for me it's right that a certain top percentage of rhe year can achieve it.

On saying that my daughter just graduated with a first in law from an rg. I did a rough calculation of how many students had a first as they were called out on the graduation ceremony programme and it seemed about 10%. She said it had been the highest number the uni had ever awarded. I don't know if that's because the marking is more generous or the students more arduous or both.

It does depend on the uni and the subject though. For example there was some research recently that showed maths had the highest number of firsts across the U.K., in the region of 30 percent achieved a first. Where as something like law was 15 percent or something.

Most grad schemes have wanted a 2:1 for a very long time.

On saying that though my daughter is employed in one of the big top twenty law firms, and was employed before she knew her final degree classification, and when she informed the partner for her dept she got a first he looked a bit bemused and said "well yes, we all got a first here". 🤷‍♀️

In reality does it matter if it's changed though?

I think it does, for a couple of reasons.

First, not everyone realises how much it has changed and they/their parents think that all they need to do is scrape a 2.1 (which you can do with a mark in the high 50s in some places), to have a good degree. In reality, if you graduate from my department with an average of 60, that would put you in the bottom 10% of your year and that will rule you out for lots of good jobs/MA programmes. I had one student this year who was obviously shocked to be turned down for MA programmes because, even though he was predicted to graduate with a 2.1, his referees couldn't even say that he was in the top 50% of his year, let alone the top 10 or 25% they were looking for. So in that respect what matters is the fact that many people's understanding of what a 2.1 or 2.2 means hasn't caught up with the reality of what it means in the MA or jobs marketplace - and god knows universities are not about to tell students, given the impact that might have on their precious NSS scores.

Second, because even good 2.1s are now so widespread, they are less useful as a measure to differentiate between applicants for jobs. That means that applicants also need more additional CV points than they used to, which is one of the things that fuelled the explosion of summer and post-degree internships. But since internships are normally unpaid, they are often (though not always) something that only students from richer families can afford to do. So one effect of the ever-widening 2.1 classification is to, in effect, skew the graduate jobs market back towards the richer students, despite all the efforts of universities to address inequalities at their admissions stage.

Looking at The Hollow's link.

I mean come on, Salford is not a great Uni, consistently bottom of the league tables and so teetering on the brink of bankruptcy they basically offer a place to anyone with a pulse.

Yet 30% of students were of the calibre to get a first from there? Like hell they were.

Some league tables rate unis higher if they award more firsts. I think that should be noted.

My graduating class had already been selected as one of the more competitive life science courses, so I don’t know how representative it was, but there were 4 firsts, majority (16) 2.1s and two 2.2s (and the girl we don’t mention who was caught cheating in the exams who failed and was escorted off campus in floods of tears.)
Certainly a 2.1 was needed to progress to a masters or PhD then, and was expected by most employers for graduate roles.
Two of my younger relatives have got 2.2s in recent years and neither are in graduate jobs.