AIBU to think Bs at GCSE are ok?

[catwalker]

Some issues with DS and GCSEs/6th form. He didn't get the grades he was predicted (As and As) but then I didn't expect him to as he doesn't put much effort into anything apart from his x box. He got mainly Bs, a couple of As, a couple of Cs and a couple of Ds. I was quite happy until I started reading the secondary education forum where people are tearing their hair out because their dc's didn't get straight As and may have blown their oxbridge chances. I get the impression that anything less than an A just isn't worth the paper it's written on. He could have done loads better but Bs are OK aren't they?

Lilymaid - things have changed a lot since then.
Not so long ago (well I like to see it that way!) you could get into Oxford with 2 Es (at A level, that is, I'm not suggesting you would've spiked the admissions tutors and got them all loved up...)
It aint like that now.

lily - oh good, we agree - don't know why I thought not!

Xenia may very well be "clever" and may be x or y in RL but, among the many other sweeping generalisations that have been made on this threads, stating that those who don't include GCSE's on CVs are "thick or idle" does not immediately make evident any RL levels of intelligence.

Firstly, apologies for not reading the whole thread.

Second, congratulations to your son! You should be celebrating and are right to be proud.

This whole thing frustrates me.

On the one hand, I do a lot of work with very able students in the school that I work and yes, Oxbridge won't consider students with grades like your son has achieved at GCSE level. We should be encouraging young people to aspire to achieve the best they can.

On the other hand I think it's ridiculous that next week when I return to school I'll have a meeting with senior management about that fact that in my subject, there were 'not enough A*/A grades according to the grades that the students were calculated'. Yet 85% of the students in year 11 I taught this year achieved grades A-C, and there were a LOT of B grades.

So in my opinion, B grades are a very good achievement. Well done to your son and good luck to him in the 6th form (sounds as though he might need to start putting in a bit more effort if he's to do as well as he might hope to at A level though!)

Milly - yes, it matters if he's not allowed to do A Levels because he got a B. But this doesn't seem to be the case?

tchoot - the 2E offer thing is not what it sounds like. They'd offer you 2Es as a compliment if they thought you were dead bright. They'd have been fucking pissed off if you actually got 2es! It's done because you must have 2Es to matriculate at any UK university, so they can''t give you an unconditional.

lol,no likey posts content doesnt equate not clever
some of you are bitty juvenile.so you dont like a particular pov...well it happens.but to extrapolate this to is everything not as it seems is conspiracy theory lite

LRD - once you'd passed the entrance exam, you needed only to get 2Es... It was exactly 'what it sounds like'!

You can be clever and still a prat

Oh, and the interview...

Tchoot, it was a way of giving what was effectively an unconditional offer to students so they wouldn't piss of to Harvard. To say Oxbridge let people in on 2Es is just daft. They let people in on the strength of their interviews and tests.

I know people who got 2E offers - all mathmos or scientists. By the time they got those offers, it would no longer have been possible for them to get 2Es - they'd already got the modules to take them to around a C. I have never heard of someone actually getting 2Es and getting into Oxbridge. The offer is a compliment.

Cross-post!

I get sent CVs every week. I look at the GCSE grades, A level grades, degree result. If they leave off the GCSE grades entirely you know they are thick or idle.

This is ridiculous! Perhaps someone else should be looking at the CVs. I fail to believe that someone with a first class degree is overlooked because they didn't get top grades at 16yrs old.

By a weird coincidence, the only qualifications that both my DH AND my DB managed to acquire at 16 were grade 1 CSEs in Woodwork.

DH has a degree in Computational Sciences from St Andrews University. He is severely dyslexic.

DB has a degree in Geology from (gulp, whispers...) Oxford Brookes Polytechnic University. He also has a Masters Degree in Environmental Sciences.

DH and DB both got into Uni via the less academic route of ONC and HNC qualifications - the old version of the BTECs which are so so so despised by the MN cognoscenti .

DH now manages his own IT consultancy. DB is married to a University Professor. He was a soil scientist for British Gas for 20 years and is now a v. content SAHD .

Young people develop and mature intellectually at different rates. I just can't stress this enough. My own father left school at 16, having failed his School Certificate in the 1940s. 10 years later he won a King George V Scholarship Award to study for a Masters Degree in an American University. He got there by studying for a degree at night school. Whilst working in a factory.

So there.

LRD - I think we're at cross purposes, here.
My post was in response to Lilymaid's (see above).

No, I don't know any Oxford graduates who actually got 2Es either. As far as I know, everyone got 2E offers, though.
There may be a big discrepancy between scientists and people who did humanities subjects. Certainly I know lots of humanities Oxbridge grads (over 35 y.os) who have very unremarkable GCSEs and A levels.
That wouldn't happen now.
That was all!

I think the point I'm making is that there are now huge numbers of students going on to university. To be equivalent in job prospects or the perceptions of employers in graduate professions to graduates a generation or two ago, you need to be at a very good university, in a very good department, studying a very good subject area. That means that the students getting A/A* at GCSE and A level and doing extra curricular activities such as olympiads and placements are the ones likely to secure graduate jobs.

The students just below that (or if my son's school's results are to believed, many of the A/A* students) are going on to secure jobs from degrees in teaching, nursing and so on - things that used to be training college professions not degree professions.

What I think society is being incredibly disingenuous about is what all the other B-C grade students are doing going on to university and in some case even on to A level, and if their job opportunities are actually improved by doing so.

milly basically he said that he's had some postgrad applicants with firsts in maths, accountancy etc and who couldn't hold a decent conversation but could explain til the cows came home about how financial advising worked - but when faced with a client he would fear they couldn't actually advise in the manner required iyswim? He said that sometimes the 'skills' needed degree wise aren't always just the skills needed and someone with a 2 maybe be a better all rounder.They only employ one person, and only because his partner has retired now. Obviously he didn't tell me her credentials as it's confidential but she is lovely, and has a manner about her that sells the company as well as being able to advise financially.

It used to be considred a HUGE compliment to get a 2E offer from Oxbridge (or any other uni) . It meant they were so impressed with you they just wanted you as a student regardless and were convinced that you would do well, even if you somehow managed to screw up your A levels on the day of the exams. Of course, this was back in the day when interviews for uni were standard.

Ouch!
Since we're splitting hairs, here, it should say 'Oxford' twice in my last post - not 'Oxbridge'.
Cambridge was different (2As + 1B IIRC).
(Are you with us, btw, Fabby? )

Tchoot - sorry, I just got confused because you sounded as if they don't happen any more? They were still on offer about 8 years ago, IIRC. And they were a science/maths thing.

I think some other universities also give slightly lowered offers to students to encourage them, perhaps it's not so uncommon.

Milly - yes, agreed. I do agree with most of what you are saying, just coming from a very dyslexic family I am evangelical about the potential for people to improve unexpectedly when they hit a different kind of teaching system. But it is a side issue to what you're saying.

This is ridiculous! Perhaps someone else should be looking at the CVs. I fail to believe that someone with a first class degree is overlooked because they didn't get top grades at 16yrs old.

VERY VERY WELL SAID exotic. I keep repeating myself have said the same. Surely the highest acaedemic award you have should count including what you are like as a person.

Totally agree with you, Milly.

My brother in law used to go around the univerities recruiting the best-I don't think he was remotely interested in GCSEs.

It would mean that Winston Churchill wouldn't have got anywhere-held back by his early qualifications.

Seen, seen, LRD

I'm quite surprised, but stand corrected if 2E offers still exist. (?)

You don't need any qualifications to run the country. Most people don't want to be the Prime Minister; they just want an okay job.