With a third of A levels being at A or A star and presumably the proportion to increase how are universities going to select students for high status competitive coiurses?

[mids2019]

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/aug/14/students-squeezed-out-university-courses-bumper-crop-top-a-level-grades?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwdGRjcATtEpdjbGNrBO0ShXBkb2YFZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEeF2JA4R42PnBId2QTWTFQ95frB8yvf0pY8AzajXUe5PVrefFR3aDd56drkKc_aem_LR9dNpZoutWCESSQrZoh5A#Echobox=1786725857

Oxbridge can use interview and additional tests in selection of students but where does this leave other universities? Will other universities such as Durham need to introduce their own interviews or tests to stop applications becoming a lottery?

I have looked at some of the Oxbridge rejection threads and there are many unlucky applicants with perfect grade profiles at GCSE and A level.so have we reached a point that the perfect 'grade A' student does not hold the prestige it once did and you are now just one of many.

I think we need to introduce an A star star grade as we have to accept grade inflation is a thing so we just need to accommodate to make university recruitment (and employment) make sense.

Presumably then it is not an insult to say A levels students today do not work any harder but the A levels are easier, hence the higher grades?

You can say it if it makes you feel better about yourself!

The Maths A- Level syllabus has been scaled down. Research comparing past and present UK exams indicates that overall A-level mathematics standards were higher in the 1960s than they are today.

It isn't true. There's plenty of research. Grammars are often underperforming given their cohorts.

As opposed to being ageist…

@concertinacornflake In Bucks you will find none of the 13 grammars are under performing. They generally out perform all the other schools in terms of progress 8. They do take a broader spectrum of dc than many other grammars but they absolutely don’t under perform. A few grammars might but here they don’t.

It’s the same with firsts. In the 90s they were really rare only the super bright got one. Now I swear every friend or acquaintances child graduating has a first. I wish I was joking. And sorry these are not super academic kids. I googled it actually if AI is to believed in the 90s 7% got a first. Now it’s 40% 🙈🙈🙈. Which totally bears out my anecdata.

I'm not ageist, and of course you don't know what age anyone is.

@titchy FM a a very very self selecting group for obvious reasons. Most know they cannot contemplate it. That does not make it hard for the dc who do take it.

I don’t think dc are brighter overall. The top dc would have been top cohort 40 years ago. But - only in the hard subjects! We now have photography, media studies, law, and many other options which certainly were not available 40-50 years ago. Far fewer did A levels and subjects were limited. If you got a good teacher, you were lucky. Many just droned on.

My DD got A star in photography and A in art and A in business studies. Is she very bright? Well no. Well taught - yes. Choice of subjects to suit? Yes.

I know this thread is just about A Levels, but focusing only on grades, tutors, etc. may bring out more people who perform well under these exact conditions, good knowledge retention, etc. but it misses other skills that kids might learn in school (if there was time).
I don't just mean non-academic kids, I mean academic students with more to offer than three As or three A stars.

I'd be for more interviews, more personal statements and deciding between students with top grades that way.

You can say it if it makes you feel better about yourself!

I genuinely don't understand why you're irritated at a light-hearted remark.

Every generation since the dawn of time says standards are slipping.

The truth is education is changing.

I agree with this, tutoring is also problematic as someone who is well coached may have less natural talent than another candidate.

Well yes that was kind of my point. The range of subjects offered is much wider than it was, the range of alternative level 3 qualifications is much wider than it was, so effectively we have a self-selecting group of kids that do A levels - generally those who are better at exams, and it’s that, along with the inclusion of subjects like those your dd did, that means the grade profile is higher than one might expect. It doesn’t indicate A Levels now in subjects that were offered 40 years ago are easier. Ds’s AL Economics syllabus was certainly very similar to mine back in the 80’s (and made me shudder now as it did then!).

Standards have definitely dropped. Some of the very hard A-Level Maths is no longer on the syllabus.

The thing I've found quite shocking watching my DC go through school was that they were very well taught to pass the exam rather than well taught about the subject. I remember that when I was in the lower sixth no one studied their A set books - we read around the authors - works by their contempories or a series of their books showing their development. Set works weren't looked at until the upper sixth. My DC basically read nothing else for 2 years - so dull. Our week was also scheduled so everyone got one free afternoon in the lower sixth and most of us were encouraged to find an extra or super curricula we could do in that time - I spent my afternoons cleaning up archaelogical finds and taking groups around a Roman site. DC were expected to spend their free periods on site in the library or a supervised study room. Grim.

On the subject of A**, students are told their actual mark for each paper and the total marks for each subject. Could universities take that into account, eg 95% or more in every paper?

Offers now are not just on straight grades, one might be A A A* insisting that the A star is in Further Maths.

This would skew things even more towards those who can afford tutoring and those who don't have a virus on exam day.

I think maths is an odd one though. It’s now the most taken A level and that wasn’t the case years ago. Far more now have access to FM. They didn’t years ago. Plus they didn’t need it. Maths was divided into pure and applied but you rarely saw FM. DH didn’t need it for Engineering at Sheffield and don’t forget the polys took degree students with 2 A levels. You didn’t need 3. So the landscape has changed to get bums on seats at the vast number of unis we now have. That was inevitable.

As for choosing students - have a preferred core list as Cambridge do and say students must study 2 of them. They make it clear what they want to see and others could do exactly the same. We don’t need a star star grade but the star grade should possibly be much elite - so redefine grade boundaries? Plus add in tests. Maybe more interviews? There’s various ways to differentiate between applicants but how much is this needed? The elite unis will just have to review what they want and test.

Grade inflation is very real at all levels. I have had this confirmed to me by a former university lecturer. Also, exams are less exacting and certainly many young people so not seem to have the breadth and depth of knowledge that would have been expected forty or more years ago. They are definitely less mature on the whole than their counterparts from a few decades ago. Occasionally, BBC archives shows clips of children and teenagers from years ago being asked about a wide variety of topics. Their vocabulary and maturity is very different.

Having said all this, I am genuinely pleased for the youngsters who have worked hard and achieved the grades they needed and wish them well for the future.

As you rightly point out Oxbridge largely ignore A level grades because whilst they are not considered worthless ( they expect the prospective student to reach them), they are don’t feel they can sift the students on the basis of them alone. As so many have the same grades.

You don’t bring in a new extra star. You make the decisions about grades more carefully. There was a time before Stars were even invented.

If you get an A and you deserved it you should get it.

The point of the grades is to identify the elite, the academically very able from the slightly less, still very good, and also to identify those that are not.

The system arguably is still not doing that.

Couldn't agree more. This was exactly how my music teachers approached our sixth form studies - a general overview in the lower sixth and in depth study in the upper sixth. The results for my A level music class were two As and two Bs in 1983 - Cs and Ds were normal grades for most universities then and not many people achieved A grades. More importantly, it gave us a long-term interest in and knowledge of music.

Part of the problem was that Tony Blair politicised education. Every parent wanted to believe their child was able to go to university. And universities became businesses. Many previous polytechnics became universities and joined in.
The loan system has crippled many young people.
It is clearly a bit of a mess.
No, not everyone can go to university. The loan system stinks and needs changing. There are too many organisations offering degrees.

Gosh I don't know so much about a levels but my dd has just taken her gcses and the standard ofnteaching she received in a state school and her level of knowledge FAR exceeded mine (30 years ago). And I got decent grades too but in a really quite poor state school.

Slight touch of political bias here.

Education has ALWAYS been politicised, since the very beginning of schooling. It is hugely political.

Thatcher, Gove - both made very politicised decisions.