Universities should honour all offers and ignore flawed A-level grades

[Notusuallyshocked]

Worcester College, Oxford, are treating this year's A-level results with the scepticism they deserve...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-53780498?intlink_from_url=&link_location=live-reporting-story

They've said they will honour all offers regardless of A level grades.

AIBU to think all universities should do the same?

Especially now the algorithm determining A-level grades has been shown to be unfair:

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/aug/14/do-the-maths-why-englands-a-level-grading-system-is-unfair

Since the results have only a tenuous link with an individual student's ability/performance, no individual student should miss out on their university place due to this complete mess.

But they do allocate places based on other info, not just a levels, why do you think students need to write personal statements, do extra curricular etc?

And of course a levels shouldn’t be permanently abandoned. It’s a sign of achievement and capability to progress to the next educational level. This year is an anomaly because we, you know, had a global pandemic, for the first time in living memory.

[quote Notusuallyshocked]@Frazzled13. Almost but not exactly. By doing a pure lottery (and ignoring assigned grades), you give an equal chance to:

• Outliers (exceptionally talented students in poorly performing schools).
• Strong cohorts (students in a strong cohort who would have outperformed previous years at the school in question).
• Students from large schools with large subject groups (who are subject to the flawed algorithm).

It's not true that everyone with an offer has the same chance of achieving their grades under the present system.[/quote]
Oh I know, I was being a bit flippant

@SueEllenMishke I agree that the discussions about post-qualification admissions are normally pointless/fruitless - but I actually do wonder if this year has shaken everything up enough - and fucked it up enough - that the conversation could be worth having again.

@Lifeisgenerallyfun

Slightly off topic but wondering whether universities will hold open their offers for a year. If I was doing my A levels and didn’t get the grades I would be looking at taking them next year and going to university when hopefully there won’t be as many restrictions in place. Can you imagine freshers week in masks.

Students will have to officially defer if they don't want to start this year. It will them be up to individual universities whether they'll allow them to. Universities may not look favourably on not wanting to experience freshers fair in a mask as reason to defer though....

[quote Hardbackwriter]@SueEllenMishke I agree that the discussions about post-qualification admissions are normally pointless/fruitless - but I actually do wonder if this year has shaken everything up enough - and fucked it up enough - that the conversation could be worth having again.[/quote]
I'm hearing people in the sector encouraging these types of discussions already ..... just as they do every year.

@Bluntness100

But they do allocate places based on other info, not just a levels, why do you think students need to write personal statements, do extra curricular etc?

And of course a levels shouldn’t be permanently abandoned. It’s a sign of achievement and capability to progress to the next educational level. This year is an anomaly because we, you know, had a global pandemic, for the first time in living memory.

Not all of them do, we've been at universities looking round (not this year) which have explicity said they don't use the personal statement.

[quote Notusuallyshocked]@Frazzled13. Almost but not exactly. By doing a pure lottery (and ignoring assigned grades), you give an equal chance to:

• Outliers (exceptionally talented students in poorly performing schools).
• Strong cohorts (students in a strong cohort who would have outperformed previous years at the school in question).
• Students from large schools with large subject groups (who are subject to the flawed algorithm).

It's not true that everyone with an offer has the same chance of achieving their grades under the present system.[/quote]
It wouldn't be legal to decide that now after applications and results. I also suspect OfS would have something to say about such an admissions process!

Not all of them do, we've been at universities looking round (not this year) which have explicity said they don't use the personal statement

That will very much depend on the course and it will most certainly come into play if results are borderline/below the offer.

We contacted the Oxford College yesterday and they said they would hold the place open until 7th September while we were appealing. This morning we got another email saying if the appeal was successful ds place would have to be deferred until next year. Since Oxford candidates sit entrance exams and undergo an average of 2 interviews they rarely have to over offer and only 10% of pupils do not make the offer in normal years. My point is if it’s only 10% more students and with fewer international students Oxford could take all its offer holders for this year

ds has deferred. He has adhd and knows full well he needs in person classes and won’t cope with online programming.
I’m guessing a lot of kids will do the same although some of his friends have accepted. It’s a weird time all round. I’m expecting the deferrals to balance those that didn’t make grades.

Agree, it’s just not possible. We had to completely pull out of Clearing due to caps imposed by the Government. Due to over offering, it’s just not possible for highly oversubscribed universities to take students who didn’t get the grades. We have agreed to keep places for students who have met the criteria to be upgraded on appeal but there are no further spaces.
Universities who have lots of extra spaces and are willing to lower grades significantly are obviously not at full capacity & if EU student students don’t com ethics year, they face the possibility of International fees next year, so they are also trying to get places.

@AndromedaPerseus

We contacted the Oxford College yesterday and they said they would hold the place open until 7th September while we were appealing. This morning we got another email saying if the appeal was successful ds place would have to be deferred until next year. Since Oxford candidates sit entrance exams and undergo an average of 2 interviews they rarely have to over offer and only 10% of pupils do not make the offer in normal years. My point is if it’s only 10% more students and with fewer international students Oxford could take all its offer holders for this year

No it couldn't. If it recruits over its SNC (which is set at 5% over projected intake - which was determined pre-COVID) the financial penalties are HUGE!

I read that there has been a similar problem in France and the government has made 10,000 extra university places available for this year.

Titchy I understand what about quotas you’re saying but the circumstances this year are so exceptional that if Worcester college can make a generous offer to U.K. pupils then the other colleges should have a good hard look at themselves. What could burnish their credentials more, make a Tory government look bad and throw off their elitist image than to follow Worcester’s example.

There's also the question of where Oxford would put an extra 10% more students - very few colleges have spare space knocking around and Oxford as a city is not exactly overflowing with available accommodation that a student could afford

24balloons we know a fair few students from ds school who didn’t meet their offers and were still given places at Oxbridge and some of those dropped several grades. How is that fair for those who like my ds pass the entrance exam, had 2 interviews and dropped one grade and got an instant rejection from his college?

we know a fair few students from ds school who didn’t meet their offers and were still given places at Oxbridge and some of those dropped several grades.

They didn't sit any exams. So they didn't drop any grades. Instead, they had lower grades assigned to them, while other students had higher grades assigned.

The grades are entirely meaningless as they're not based on actual exam performance.

How are they mysteriously supposed to provide all these extra places?

@AndromedaPerseus

Titchy I understand what about quotas you’re saying but the circumstances this year are so exceptional that if Worcester college can make a generous offer to U.K. pupils then the other colleges should have a good hard look at themselves. What could burnish their credentials more, make a Tory government look bad and throw off their elitist image than to follow Worcester’s example.

The cost is too high. I suspect those in the central university are spitting feathers right now and bricking it. The cost will be millions if they have over recruited. For all it's academic credentials, the colleges do not function in the best interest of the uni as a whole.

@AndromedaPerseus Tbh you need to let go of the idea of fair when it comes to Oxford. The individual departments have autonomy over the students they accept, as do the colleges. It mostly works because the interviewers work for both the college and dept simultaneously.

So when I applied, I was given an offer for the subject at x place because that interviewer liked me. I did not get an offer for the same course from a different college because that particular interviewer didn't think I had what he was looking for. It's basically like applying for a job!

The fact that other students on other courses where allowed to drop more grades is neither here nor there tbh. Other students courses will have had no bearing on the individual faculty meetings of how to deal with this year's intake. You might as well be comparing to a student from a different uni.

Yes it's shit, but welcome to Oxford. If your son does go I have no doubt it will be the first of many seemingly batshit and unfair decisions. But they get away with it because, you know, they're Oxford.

Op, have you skin in the game here. Your posts seem angry? Do you have a child who has lost a place?

They can’t do that op, they need to work to capacity. They don’t have rhe places to blanket say they will honour all offers. They need to work it in terms of capacity

Can you imagine the list of threads on MN over the next tree years, asking why their dc aren't getting enough support from their tutors / aren't getting their essays back in time / their lecturers have no time to respond to their e-mails. Do you know how much longer it is going to take a lecturer to mark 30 more essays / assignments / dissertations, or supervise projects, or pick up on pastoral issues ? Even if some universities have the capacity to physically house these extra students, and physically sit them (socially distanced ?) in tutorials etc, they don't have the capacity to magic extra lecturers / tutors up.
Someone (who lectures on a science course - thereby needing practicals) told me at their university, her course is full to capacity (which has increased over th last few years anyhow). The University management are trying to pressure them into taking additional students, as they are missing out on a lot of international student, but they are mainly students who want to study politics, economic, business studies and the like, not students who want to study her field. It really isn't anywhere near as simple as 'taking a few more students' that people are suggesting.

In addition they seriously need to delve deeper into capability. Getting a place is only the first step, being able to do the course is the next

This ^ is also crucial. You are doing the young person no good whatsoever to take them on to a course they would then struggle with.

Now, don't get me wrong, there will be deserving students who have missed out. I feel incredibly sorry for them. I also speak as a parent who has spent the last two days supporting my dc to grapple with clearing. But you are over simplifying this. There are always students who don't get the grades they were aiming for (I understand about 25% of applicants don't get taken in to their first place University each year). It is just this year people have a single excuse to blame, rather than having to understand that it is a competition and that means there will always be some who lose, usually for a lot of different reasons.

Andromeda, I suspect other colleges will follow Worcester’s example. I am an Oxford graduate (and mother of a soon-to-be-Oxford-student) and have been in touch with my college to make my feelings known. I know that many other Oxford graduates are doing the same thing.

Oxford works hard to keep links with alumni (and hopes we will prove to be generous donors!) and will hopefully listen to what we are saying. This year’s system is brutally unfair to students.

@Bluntness100.

Nope, (fairly) disinterested observer...My DC are too young for this, thank god.

But I find this whole debacle contrary to everything the university admissions process stands for...which is centred around determining, as far as possible, the individual potential of each student and their suitability to study the course in question. That students can have their marks 'downgraded' based on factors which have nothing to do with their individual achievements is an affront to natural justice. They have not 'failed' to make their grades, they were never given the chance to do so in the first place.

here are always students who don't get the grades they were aiming for

Because they underperform in their exams...Not because they're on the wrong side of a mathematical algorithm. Key difference. One is in their control, the other is not.