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.

France have created extra University places due to record numbers of their kids passing the Baccalauréat based on school work as like here they didn't take exams. France chose to believe in their children/education system and recognise the unprecedented nature of the situation. This country chose to shaft our children instead and ensure privilege was further bestowed on the privileged. What do people and this Government expect these kids to do? It's going to be incredibly hard to find a job in this current economy. They can't travel and see the world. The French recognise this and know it makes much more sense for their kids to continue in education.

Maybe some of these kids would have had a bad day but funny how a lot of these bad days only fell on kids without wealthy backgrounds. We are holding back young people based on, from all accounts, a flawed algorithm. Even worse other countries are not doing the same. This cohort will be at a disadvantage compared to those from Scotland, France and the rest of the World.

I believe students should get their CAGs as their formal grades and based on this they can go the correct HE establishment for them. This will mean those at Eton etc may get lower marks and may have to give up Oxbridge places, if this is the case then I'm sure the Government will intervene to create extra places for them.

It is unacceptable to ruin so many young lives, for a tiny initial risk to them, that almost all would choose to take

Fuck off with your tiny risk to them - potentially huge risk to others. So selfish attitudes like yours.

And these decisions are out of my hands. I'm just an academic.... I'm not making these high level decisions.

Interesting that you say just move things online - have you missed the threads slagging off hard working academics for delivering content online? Apparently it's not worth paying for and is considered low quality ( which is bullshit btw)

you ruin so many young lives who have already sacrificed so much

Young people who have sacrificed so much? What? Really? Is a few months of not being able to go to 'spoons a big sacrifice then? Well blow me, no wonder every calls them snowflakes.

It's hardly being sent to the trenches is it. Or working on a COVID ward. Get a grip.

@BigChocFrenzy you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

I teach on a course which has a 50% clinical component. Our students come to us from all age groups - they're not just low-risk 18-year-olds. Our teaching capacity for essential clinical skills, when you take into account SD (1m +mitigation only, not 2m) means that rooms that once held 25 students now hold 6 or 7 plus a facilitator. We won't have any more staff in Sept than we do now because there's a recruitment freeze. These skills cannot be taught online. Would you want to have blood taken by someone who'd only done e-learning?

Plus, these students do then go into clinical placement where they will potentially be exposed to higher levels of C19 and have a higher likelihood of spreading it. Even more so if they are crammed into teaching rooms with no SD.

It's fuck all to do with 'fear'. It's our professional responsibility to keep numbers to a sensible level because otherwise our students won't learn the skills they need and will be dangerous in practice ffs.

I am so fed up with the usual suspects on this board mouthing off about subjects they know absolutely sweet FA about.

And can I just with my work hat on say this - which we all say every year: there are always disappointments on results day. Always. Whether it's because of algorithm downgrades, or poorer than anticipated exam performance. It's a huge kick in the gut when that happens (regardless of age - don't forget it isn't just the young that go to university). But there are always alternatives. Foundation years, resitting, gap years then Access, apprenticeships.

This one disappointment feels huge right now, but in the grand scheme of things it isn't. You/your offspring may well now end up in a different path, but if they are determined, that alternative path can still get them to where they ultimately want to go with their lives. Please don't buy into the 'this has ruined your life' myth. Honestly it hasn't, even though it may feel like that right now. You will get through it, and embrace the challenge of the new.

@titchy

And can I just with my work hat on say this - which we all say every year: there are always disappointments on results day. Always. Whether it's because of algorithm downgrades, or poorer than anticipated exam performance. It's a huge kick in the gut when that happens (regardless of age - don't forget it isn't just the young that go to university). But there are always alternatives. Foundation years, resitting, gap years then Access, apprenticeships.

This one disappointment feels huge right now, but in the grand scheme of things it isn't. You/your offspring may well now end up in a different path, but if they are determined, that alternative path can still get them to where they ultimately want to go with their lives. Please don't buy into the 'this has ruined your life' myth. Honestly it hasn't, even though it may feel like that right now. You will get through it, and embrace the challenge of the new.

Absolutely. As a qualified careers adviser and someone who managed clearing for over a decade I completely echo this. For those who haven't got into their first choice then seek advice from a professional. There are always options.

Excellent post @BoxAndKnife
@BigChocFrenzy - you can't seriously believe the utter shite you are posting ? I presume you are just trying to wind people up ?

I don't work in a university.
I have a dd who was downgraded and who spent all of Thursday going through clearing, and is now in limbo waiting for UCAS to update. She can't book any accommodation or make any other prep until that happens.

But I can see why universities can't just continue to stuff any number of students onto a course. Quite frankly, I wouldn't want any of my dc on a course where they just continued to jam more and more people in to satisfy the shouting from a few parents, rather then with the interests of students at the heart of the decisions.

Interesting that you say just move things online - have you missed the threads slagging off hard working academics for delivering content online? Apparently it's not worth paying for and is considered low quality ( which is bullshit btw)

It's not in some cases where people were given slides as usual and extra notes. Sadly not every uni could manage move online well. 2 or 3 zoom sessions are not adequate either instead of month of sessions.

@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.

Definitely.

Plus, any academic who has experienced the joy that is the annual NSS results will tell you for nothing that cramming more and more students onto a course - any course - is NOT the answer. Students don't want that any more than we do. We struggle to provide the personalised experience they want (and deserve) with the numbers and staffing we already have. Year after year students complain that the experience of higher education feels more and more like a conveyor belt, with students treated as walking pots of money rather than individuals. That's not the fault of the staff who bend over backwards in most cases to get to know their students, but it is currently untenable as it is, and only going to get worse.

I feel for every single student who has lost a place through absolutely no fault of their own. I honestly do, the system this year is appalling. But cramming students onto courses is NOT the answer.

@SchrodingersImmigrant

Interesting that you say just move things online - have you missed the threads slagging off hard working academics for delivering content online? Apparently it's not worth paying for and is considered low quality ( which is bullshit btw)

It's not in some cases where people were given slides as usual and extra notes. Sadly not every uni could manage move online well. 2 or 3 zoom sessions are not adequate either instead of month of sessions.

There were threads where people refused to acknowledge that any university or academic had done a good job. They were disgraceful.

Now we're being told to add more online learning so we can take more students - which is far too simplistic anyway as students still need to be supported and work needs to be marked.

As someone who works in the sector, I can also say (in response to someone upthread who was writing to their former college) that these kinds of emails we've been bombarded with since Thursday are massively unhelpful (and a lot of them are worded in a way that is frankly rude and insulting to staff who have been working flat out all week to mitigate the effects of this). To correct a number of other misapprehensions:

1. universities do over offer as a percentage of students miss their offers every year and if you don't over offer, you don't have enough students. These offer levels were made as usual before Covid.

1. Institutions gets fined with heavy penalties if numbers targets and Offa targets aren't met or are exceeded. The government hasn't so far waived these this year. Just as an example: the cost to one college of taking just one extra student in a quota subject like medicine can be £50,000.

1. Intsitutions are already struggling with the financial impact of Covid. No student rents for the last half of the year means a lot are facing serious financial problems. Even in Oxbridge, contrary to popular imagination, most colleges are not rich and either break even or work to an income deficit (they are charities so don't make a profit anyway). Apart from a small number of the richest colleges, endowments are normally in illiquid property assets, including agricultural land, shops and other commercial property, as well as restricted funds. Colleges can't easily liquidate these and may be prevented from doing so in any case by bequest terms. Interest rates are very low at present and income from any investments is minimal. Most colleges run on income from student rents, catering and conferencing businesses and don't have ready cash assets to spend. By far the biggest cost on the balance sheet is salaries and labour of academic and non-academic staff. Making savings costs is making staff redundant, basically.

1. Students who have met their offers have a contract with the university through UCAS. You can't take it away so that you can offer those places to others.

1. Also contrary to popular opinion, few offers at undergraduate level are to international students. See also 4. above: you can't legally take these away once met.

If your normal offer ratio is to make 130 offers for 100 places, and you only have 100 bedrooms, how do you honour those extra 30 places? Where do you put those students? If you say they need to find their own accommodation (much more expensive), isn't that discriminatory? (Students don't get given bedrooms; they pay rent to the college.) The suggestions I've seen on twitter that the colleges just "lease more accommodation" is frankly daft. With what? Selling a large parcel of farmland in less than a month? Making all the catering staff and porters redundant? Where does it come from? Where does the money come from to pay the fines for taking the extra students?

How do you provide extra staff to teach them and do administration? Extra places in labs? Extra hardship grant funds? Extra teaching rooms? (As a PP said, to comply with Covid guidelines we're having to basically double our workload as we can only have half the usual number in a room.)

Universities have been left with a huge mess to clear up and as usual are getting the flak for a government policy which has been dumped on us and the public expect us to wave a magic wand and sort it out.

They couldn't give all the students places now but could give deferred offers for next year. This could cause chaos though as people who have now accepted places through clearing may try to pull out and go back to their original choice.

Now we're being told to add more online learning so we can take more students - which is far too simplistic anyway as students still need to be supported and work needs to be marked.

It absolutely is. Creating a good online program takes crapload of money and time. Plus as you day, you need to provide support and grades. Academics are generally already stretched

@mrpumblechook

They couldn't give all the students places now but could give deferred offers for next year. This could cause chaos though as people who have now accepted places through clearing may try to pull out and go back to their original choice.

Which then stuffs up the numbers for next year's intake.

If they've overoffered, then clearly you have to cut off somewhere, but if eg the offer was AAB and they got BBB give them the place.

But most universities have already done this, where they have capacity to take the students.

However, most of the students under discussion missed predicted grades by significant amounts and the universities do not have access to CAGs. Is it fair to anyone to take a student with CCC on a course where all other students got AAB+?

they really need to do a bit of digging before saying no. They have the teacher predictions so use those if someone has come in way under prediction.

Sigh. What do you think admissions teams and academics did from the time they got the results until Thursday? Don't you think results were looked at very carefully, particularly for students from low participation backgrounds?

@SchrodingersImmigrant

Now we're being told to add more online learning so we can take more students - which is far too simplistic anyway as students still need to be supported and work needs to be marked.

It absolutely is. Creating a good online program takes crapload of money and time. Plus as you day, you need to provide support and grades. Academics are generally already stretched

Absolutely. I've had to convert my entire course to be available online - as even though we'll be doing some in person teaching we have to ensure everything is online for those who are shielding or if we have second lockdown.

I've barely had a break this year. I'm completely burnt out and term hasn't even started yet.

Why should the problem be pushed onto universities, which over-offer as standard, accepted practice? A levels need to be regraded in line with CAGs, as Scotland has done, as a matter of urgency, and from that point universities need to honour their offers.

Offers were made on the basis of grades predicted a year ago. The CAGs should be much more accurate given that they were assessed within a few weeks of the date of the exam.

The other thing which Choc doesn't seem to have realised is the cap for university spaces was put on for good reason:
To stop the popular universities (mostly at the top) just taking a higher share of the available students, leaving the other universities to face financial crisis.
If they change that, then you'll be looking at bankruptcy for some universities with the loss of jobs and fewer student places in the future.

Sue, I'm surprised you can fit 30 people in a room for 75. At work we've been looking at around 25% capacity to give people a 2m space. Are you requiring masks?

As others have said there are winners and losers every year. It feels more unfair this year when it's done by an algorithm, but every year you'll have people missing out because they had a paper that just didn't suit them, had hay fever, misread the time, grandad died last night etc.
None of these things are fair. But they happen every year, we just don't hear about them.

What I would like to see is statistics. I want to know if it is genuinely a larger number of people who missed their offers this year. Has anything been released?

Are we being manipulated by the press. Normally the press story is the wonderful students and the pass rate's gone up again. This year the story is how unfair it is. But the pass rate has still gone up, and I'm sure there are still the quads in Northamptonshire who got their 67 A*s between them if they chose to run that story.
An example is how people are saying about it being a postcode lottery, and I'm not sure there is a case for that. It seems to be a small school lottery, but that's not postcode. Some of the large selective schools are reporting poor results too.

Yes, it is not fair on each individual level. But as a whole? I'd like to see admissions rates. Anyone at university admissions like to tell me if their rate of misses is higher, lower or the same?
If it's fair on the whole, then the appeals procedures need to start looking at it as an individual case.

I do have a vested interest in it. I have a dd who will be getting GCSE results. She is one who normally does better in exams than expected, and is at a large comprehensive with a better year than the last two. I suspect she will have far poorer results than she's always looked like she would.
No, it won't be a comfort to her that her results are poorer than they should be, but other people are better than they should be.
However I think we need to be encouraging the students to look onwards. Not standing still and blaming others. Asking themselves, what do they want to do. Do they want to retake the year? Try the October exams? Accept the clearing offer they have? By hanging onto he hope that the government will cave and tell all universities they have to take them they're not able to consider their options properly until maybe it's too late.
We need to be supporting our youngsters to move forward and make their own decisions. That way we will be building up the leaders for the future, who will be able to take leadership when crises happen when they're our age.

Sue, I'm surprised you can fit 30 people in a room for 75. At work we've been looking at around 25% capacity to give people a 2m space. Are you requiring masks?
Most of our rooms are at a much lower capacity but the room I've been able to secure has a strange layout which means we can get more in. It's a flexible space which helps. Lots of our classrooms are down to a capacity of 10 max.

We're saying masks in all indoor spaces on campus but I'm not sure yet if that means while teaching. I just can't see how I can teach effectively wearing a mask - especially as we will be relying on recordings more this year.

@SueEllenMishke
That makes sense. DD's been told that lectures are online only, tutorials will be with a mask. She does feel that's going to make things very difficult for teaching. For maths though it probably means doing more on the board. For subjects where discussion is more important I think it will make more difference.

What I would like to see is statistics. I want to know if it is genuinely a larger number of people who missed their offers this year. Has anything been released?
Yes, it is not fair on each individual level. But as a whole? I'd like to see admissions rates. Anyone at university admissions like to tell me if their rate of misses is higher, lower or the same?
If it's fair on the whole, then the appeals procedures need to start looking at it as an individual case.

I watched a broadcast from UCAS on Wed I think it was. It was said that usually 75% get their first choice at University. this year 80% have got their first choice place.

I totally agree with your post Witchend - and that is coming from someone whose dd has had to go in to clearing.

Of course with social media being so readily available to us all nowadays, you get to hear so many more stories which do sound 'wrong', but as you say, every year there are people that miss out, but they don't have a common thing to vent at, there are normally individual circumstances.
I'm not minimising the pain for our dc, but, considering the nightmare this year has been, I don't think the overall statistics are showing it to have been the horror show some people are trying to portray.

My entire course is discussion based so I've had to think really carefully about what to deliver on campus and what will work remotely.....and don't even get me started on placements which are all in schools and universities!!