To think this years university entry requirements were just ridiculous

[Bildungsroman]

My own DD this year was applying for a Uni with AAB entry requirements and was accepted with no problems with BBB. Similarly, a friends DD was applying to an RG Uni which wanted AAA (for history) and was allowed in with ABB. Again, another persons DC was applying to a course which wanted BBB and they got CCC. I remember a person posting about a year ago about how ridiculous entry requirements were with lots of Unis asking for AAA and even less academic universities asking for 112/120 UCAS points as standard. I think it’s fair to say a very large number of DC didn’t get their grades this year. The governments nonsense policy of harsh making and raised grade boundaries (A level maths in particular is a disgrace) but it seems as if the universities are partially to blame for setting totally unattainable entry requirements. Aibu to think that this year most universities set unrealistic entry requirements and it’s just led to lots of disappointment and stress for no reason, especially when the universities go onto take those students who they advertised they wouldn’t. Aibu to think lessons should be learned from this for future cohorts?

I think everyone was a bit unsure what to expect with this year's results, although in theory the overall grade profile should have been the same as in 2019.

Each course will have to be careful not to over-recruit. If they offer AAB and then more people achieve that than expected, they could end up with too many students. It's further complicated by the firm/insurance offers; when they estimate how many they'll get on an AAB offer, they have to build in assumptions about how many of their insurance candidates will get their firm offer, or near enough to be offered the place.
If they offer AAA or A*AB, they might then be safe from the risk of getting too many students - and then they can admit as many of the AAB people as they have room for - which might turn out to be all of them.

So it's probably inevitable that most courses offer at least one notch above the level they're expecting to take.

I wouldn't be surprised if teachers' predicted grades were less reliable this year. With the gap since the last "normal" year, it's a bit harder to compare students to previous cohorts, especially for teachers fairly new to the profession. They also had less data about how these students tend to do in exams, because they didn't take GCSEs as normal. The tendency is to give optimistic predictions - because you'd feel so bad if your predicted B prevented a student getting an offer, but then they managed the A in the end. So again, there's a good reason why a lot of students do less well than their UCAS predictions. Some schools give students both a "UCAS predicted grade" and a "most likely grade", so that they are realistic about the possibility that they might not live up to what's on their UCAS form.

I have read about children entering university based on their predicted grades after covid and then not having the skills / structure to succeed and dropping out with a huge fees bill to pay but nothing to show for it. A uni setting a standard then dropping it makes me concerned that they are just dropping that standard to get bums on seats for finances and I worry the kids getting in with lower grades will struggle.

I think universities are rightly cautious after the disaster of the 2020 results, where the government did a u-turn and left them to pick up the pieces!

Setting the bar high is the only way they can ensure they don't get more people meeting the entry requirements than they can accommodate.

It's worth considering that grades aren't the only measure by which a university decides whether somebody should be accepted on a course. A lot of folk will be getting offers lower than standard anyway in a normal year.

With that said...you have to consider how the grade boundaries are set - to my knowledge, back in my (old) days, they'd take a sample and then set the grade boundaries proportionally and on a curve - the idea being that, proportionally, they can pretty much control how many get each grade when the population is large.

That means that, should the entire population get lower grades than were expected, the universities have to drop their entry requirements accordingly. They'll still get effectively the same quality of students, it's just the letter next to the subject is different.

Once bitten twice shy. Why the covid marks shot up universities found themselves obliged to accept more students than they had space for. Some ended up trying to bribe students to defer entry - which would also have reduced spaces the following year increasing competition ans therefore grades again. Unless they have confidence the same won’t happen again they will keep their expected grades high.

As I understand it the system is working exactly how it should- when grade bounds were changed offers were lowered accordingly. So basically the university has the same students it would have had anyway- it’s just that those who would have been turning up with an ABB turn up with a BBC or something. What wouldn’t have worked is if those unis stuck to their original offers meaning that the courses would have bet half empty/ underfunded.

Also remember that in many cases unis set offers not just by popularity (although that does play a part) but by what the uni thinks a student will need to be able to do the course and not drop out. So for example, many might think if you want to do a French degree you’ll need to get a B (or maybe a C this year) at A level or it’s likely you’ll not cope with the course.

The problem has been predicted grades being too high in many many cases.
Something has gone radically wrong when a student applies to Oxbridge on the basis of in year assessments predicted grades and comes out with EUU.

Lots of threads giving more detailed reasons as to why what disappointed students (and parents) are seeing as a travesty is simply, quite rightly, a return to reality.

91% of A level students this year have got into their first or second choice university.

And actually not all the Universities dropped their grades....course missed here because of 2 marks below a grade and no offer. Some places and some courses can "afford" to be choosy and set the grade requirements really high

With the exception of the most competitive universities and courses, I think that universities deliberately give conditional offers for higher grades than they expect most applicants to achieve.

A university hopes to be the applicant's firm choice. Applicants perceive higher tariff places as more aspirational / prestigious than lower tariff places. If an applicant doesn't have a strong preference for one of their choices over the others, then they are likely to choose a higher offer as a firm and a lower offer as an insurance.

A university would rather have fewer applicants meeting the offer requirements (then they can accept as many with lower grades as they have places for, and control entry numbers that way) than be forced to accept too many for the number of places.

I don't think the unis knew that the government would lower the boundaries this much and probably based the entry requirements on last year's grade boundaries. Considering NI and Wales still had lower boundaries, I guess unis had to make exception for students applying from England.

I had AAA requirements in 2002, it's not new. I got mine my friend has an offer at aab got abb (high Bs) and didn't get her place

I think many universities are largely full of students who met / exceeded their offer. My dc exceeded both their offer and predicted grades. I think that is the case for most at their universities and that there were a small number of near misses who were accepted as is normally the case. The vast majority of my dc’s friends also met / exceeded their offers.

Op, legally they have to give a place if they give a conditional offer and the grades are met. As such unis set it higher than the actual intake, so they know they won’t go over their capacity and then pick from the best of those who didn’t meet the grades, to finally fill the space.

tney don’t really have any other options. They can only take so many students. It becomes way more complex if they make it bbb for example, because then they need to pick and choose who gets an offer on very different criteria and it becomes contentious.

it’s all about making sure they are not over capacity,

Universities aren't to blame - they set the offers based on last year's results. They had no idea what the government were going to do with grade boundaries.

The universities didn't set "totally unattainable entry requirements" - they were attained by last year's cohort. Before anyone knew that the grade boundaries would be moved for this year.