Change to Uni Applications Process Proposals

[Sventon]

Posting in AIBU for traffic - also posted in Higher Education. Question -
Does anyone understand the benefit of the new proposals relating to changing the University Application process??
I don’t see any benefit in these proposals. DD is applying for uni this year so won’t impact her but DS applies in 4 years so may impact him. I genuinely can’t see how these proposals are better for anyone. Any help in understanding this would be appreciated.

YANBU - This is change for change sake
YABU - The changes suggested will benefit students.

Thanks!

There was some suggestion this summer that poorer students were getting lower prediction grades than their more well off peers. Offering university places on actual grades and not predicted grades would benefit the poorer students who do well as they get offers which they might have otherwise missed out on.

If they start uni in January, which is one of the proposals, that would mean an enormous black hole in university finances in the transition year.

@Ellmau

If they start uni in January, which is one of the proposals, that would mean an enormous black hole in university finances in the transition year.

That's an appalling idea because it'd mean the ones who don't have parents who can afford to support them financially from the end of school right through to January would be less likely to go to university. Child benefit and child tax credits finish at the end of august after leaving education so parents would need to have enough money to support them for four or five months instead of for one or two,

@slothtrot well they would need to get a job and support themselves then as adults not in education. If they struggle to find work they would be entitled to UC.

Hey. Why not introduce Citizenship Service for those 6 months?

Like a souped up NCA?

Available to all young people? Adaptable according to circumstance; residential/ from home?

Would cost ££ but would benefit the young people enormously. And reflect back on society.

It's such an opportunity!

NCS, I mean!

I wonder if Oxbridge might consider bringing back the seventh term exam in these circs? Faculty aren't going to want to do interview and other admissions things over the summer when they would normally have their research time.

@Sventon

Posting in AIBU for traffic - also posted in Higher Education. Question - Does anyone understand the benefit of the new proposals relating to changing the University Application process?? I don’t see any benefit in these proposals. DD is applying for uni this year so won’t impact her but DS applies in 4 years so may impact him. I genuinely can’t see how these proposals are better for anyone. Any help in understanding this would be appreciated.

YANBU - This is change for change sake
YABU - The changes suggested will benefit students.

Thanks!

The reasoning given by Gavin Williamson is that disadvantaged children's grades are under predicted by teachers compared with better off children. Many children lost out on places this year due to the confusion around results day. They are saying it is a fairer system to give offers based on actual achievement rather than predictions.

Still lots of questions about how it will be implemented but I believe most of the universities are happy about the change

In some ways I can see the benefit, it's just the transition.

I wonder what the impact would be on international applications.

The theory is that disadvantaged children tend to have lower grade predictions.

I suspect what will happen is that universities will go more into the extra exam (history and maths are two that do it already) or step papers will become more important, all of which will tend to advantage the less disadvantaged children anyway.

It will also add to the stress of results day.

I'm not sure it will actually make much difference overall. I hope I'm proved wrong.

The idea has been around for a long time, but as someone said above, there would be a term's gap in funding, so if and when it happens there would need to be some bridging funding.
It's a pity we didn't see covid coming - we could have cancelled the summer term, used that time to prepare to teach the summer term in the autumn largely online, and moved to a Jan-Dec academic year in 2021. It would have given more time to play with in deciding what to do about 2020 A-levels - they could perhaps have happened early September. There would still have needed to be some bridging funding, but it might have removed a host of other problems.

Other countries, like Australia and Ireland, have for decades based university entry on actual grades. Much more efficient, much fairer, and just requires a reset of the current process. In Australia exams are in November and university starts in February, so things just move more quickly. Can't happen soon enough IMO

Something else: will they abandon teacher references altogether? Because some staff may not want to bother once the pupil has left.

Coming from a post exam application country - Aus it really is so much simpler.

If we hit high enough points we got a place. No interview, statement, extra curricular. No predicted grades.

Got high enough..

Thanks everyone for responding. I just didn’t see how students would be able to get their exam results in the middle of August and start uni in September. If the academic year is being moved to Jan-Dec then this makes more sense.
I was worried about how do we apply for funding/ loans get accommodation and everything else set up in the matter of a couple of weeks. I’ve obviously missed the Jan-Dec suggestion.
It will mean though that we will need to support students a bit longer from end of exams until Uni.
I like the NCS idea - my daughter did NCS last summer and she enjoyed it (in the main).

Listening to R4 this morning on this it’s unlikely to academic year will change to Jan

More likely that students will apply before grades are out but universities would accept with the actual grades

Secondary school teacher of 25 years here. This reform is long overdue as the current system really doesn’t work very well. Schools inflate their predicted A level grades for students and Universities do the same for their offers. It will be an adjustment but those working in schools and 6th form colleges have seen the need for change for a long time now.

They already have this system in Ireland and it works well.

I was a secondary school teacher for over 30 years and doing the predicted grades for A’level was an absolute nightmare. Teachers had to be accountable to the Head if any grade was out and considerable pressure was put on us to over predict grades.

Predicted grades have long been a waste of time. A huge % of them are wrong. As a teacher I was often put under pressure to up grades - by the students, parents, management. I know my students. I know what they had achieved at GCSE and in tests throughout the year and I was very accurate with my predictions but up they would be bumped - the student would get offers that were far too high for them to realistically achieve, and then there are tears on results day.

The unis really don't need the predicted grades. They have access to the students GCSE results, and in Wales to their AS results. In the last few years the number of students who got on to places well below their offer grades has been striking too. Why give an offer of ABB if you will take them on BBC eventually?

It makes far more sense to give offers on the basis on actual grades.

When you have used a system that is as simple as it can be - just point based - it does feel complex, uncertain and a huge amount of extra work.

How would it work though? I just can’t get my head around being provided a place at a uni in August and starting there in the September.
I must come across as stupid, and I’m sorry about that - I went through the uni system and postgrad system myself and I can’t get my head around how this would work from a logistics point.
Would applications still happen at the end of the year with the offer coming g out in August? Would the uni course come with a halls offer attached?

@Champlyo DD wants to go to York or Sheffield, she loves the ethos of the Russell Group Universities. 😊