Contextual offers - how do they work please?

[GnomeDePlume]

DD is just about to enter sixth form at our local school. She will be studying for A levels and hoping to be heading for university afterwards.

I have heard that some universities make slightly lower offers to students from some state schools.

Can anyone explain how contextual offers work and whether DD will need to apply for a contextual offer please?

Anything that lawyers can charge for becomes expensive and I am sure that charges for teaching on these courses is no exception.

Referring to BPTC courses of course not the universities above.

I think that one of the strategies for receiving a lower offer is to be realistic about predicted grades. Universities tend to offer in line with teacher predictions.

There are far more foreign postgraduate students - they are in the majority on many courses - so the percentages of foreign undergraduate students are much smaller. Only about 1/3 of non-EU students in the UK are undergraduates, as opposed to postgraduates.

I think Exeter is between 10 and 15%, and that's typical of good universities outside London as you can see on HESA's statistics.

Edinburgh has more, as it is a capital city, very cosmopolitan, and also Scots universities desperately need foreign students to counterbalance the low funding from the Scottish parliament.

Foreign undergraduate numbers are in any case likely to be down this year because of Brexit. We are anticipating about 10,000-20,000 fewer undergraduates from abroad this year (corresponding to loss of income of 100-400 million). That's a few hundred students less per institution.

Sorry, I meant 1/2 of non-EU students are undergraduates, not 1/3.

Anticipated A level grades are bit of a minefield. The very selective state and private schools tend to estimate the grades right and even a bit meanly, some pupils think. Overall 50% of schools over predict which does no one any favours. My son has been looking at Bristol where his sibling went and it does feel a bit unfair to have their brand of contextual offers. There are plenty of boys in his fee paying school where every family penny that is apare from 4 adult incomes is pooled to get that child a place at the fee paying school and the children work very very hard and a good few are on full academic scholarships. If they went to the comprehensives insteat (some of the local ones) he could get lower grades and probably still get in. Despite that I am glad he is at his school which he loves even though it means a lot of sacrifices for the family to fund his sixth form place so we will just have to hope for the best. I have never had a problem with the way most universities over the last 30 yars have operated - if you get the 11 A* outlier from the sink school (or even someone with just much better results than most at a poor school) they have always given some credit for that - that always felt fairly fair to me whereas the formal contextual offer system is a bit of a blunt instrument.

For all children however the aim should be high grades as that is what is giong to get you in at the end of the day

Sigh 2016. As explained in this thread Bristol's contextual offers are to balance against poor teaching, not household deprivation. They'd use different factors if they wanted to encourage poor kids.

I don't see that it's at all unfair Blyton, since the contextual offers recognize the quality of education a pupil has, not family income (even if the two are generally linked). As far as I can see the contextual offers aren't sufficiently different, by which I mean low enough, to make up for some of the poor schooling too many kids get. I don't think any parent whose kids go to good schools should complain about any perceived unfairness, because the unfairness is in the poor schooling and nowhere else. We have a lot of well off children in our village who go to top boarding schools and I find it quite funny when they've moaned about discrimination at top universities being the reason why they and their friends failed to get into certain institutions. My DC don't qualify for a lower offer either but I'm well able to see that the quality of their education in the sense of good teaching and lack of disruption by peers, more than compensates for a couple of grades difference, so absolutely no moaning here, just a feeling that none of the adjustments go far enough to actually ensure enough kids with potential are picked up.

Cross post titchy, apologies for repetition (the plumber came in the middle of me typing my diatribe!).

I agree that often the one lower grade, in one A level, is not suffient to make up for poor teaching. There are often more problems than poor teaching too in some of the lowest performing schools. Low aspiration is a major factor and poor schools frequently do little to address that. So the brighter children just drift along with their peers. These families are often risk averse too, so going to a better university miles away is seen as an expensive risk when the student can stay at home and just go to the local university, even if it is at the bottom of the league tables for the subject. Aiming high for students is too often the preserve of better schools and the poorer ones have a "that will do" mentality. Links wth lesser universities are often sought to boost the school's standing with parents (and is beneficial tosome students), but sometimes these universities are not where students should go, but they seem attractive because they are known to the students. Top class schools tend to have a much broader outloook.

I think poverty is not necessarily an indicator that a child needs lower grades but poor teaching almost certainly is. The two together is usually a major problem. It is extremely difficult to see what can be done about raising aspiration for children who are being taught badly. Who can intervene early enough if the schools and their family do not? Poor schools often have poor tracking of student progress and attainment so even that does not ensure the best children are noticed and advised appropriately. Lots to do!

I think that one of the strategies for receiving a lower offer is to be realistic about predicted grades. Universities tend to offer in line with teacher predictions.

This seems daft. There was a lot of angst on MN last year (and on Student Room too) because at Exeter they were making higher offers to more highly-predicted applicants. The idea seemed to be to stop people using them as an insurance, but surely what would happen in practice is that you'd get lesser students. Or you'd get someone who got AAA missing their place (if they were offered A*AA) yet someone else sailing in with the same grades.

none of the adjustments go far enough to actually ensure enough kids with potential are picked up.

Unfortunately potential is insufficient to tackle some of the more demanding degrees when basic skills are lacking from poor teaching or disruption. Contextual offers are a compromise between sufficient adjustment and academic standards needed not to struggle. Ideally there would be more foundation courses and these would be free depending on parental income.

TBH I am not sure that poor schools should be allowed to have a sixth form if they cannot provide the right advice and teaching for brighter students.

sendsummer I realize that but my main point was that parents with DC at good schools with good teaching sound extraordinarily mean minded when they complain about contextual offers being 'unfair'. The adjustment is in fact ludicrously small, in the context of the educational disadvantage these kids are meted out.

I do think that there is a risk in a poorer performing school of there being an attitude that 'good enough is good enough'.

One of my concern's with DD's school is that as a consortium college (meaning different A levels are taught at different schools) there may be a lack of consistency in the way student performance is recorded resulting in less accurate grade prediction. This could result in a conservative grade prediction.

It is very difficult to know what to do for the best. DD1 changed school for 6th Form, going over the county border to a better school. This meant starting over and I think lost half a term settling in and getting used to a new syllabus etc. This is a lot to lose at the start of an A level course.

I think there is a huge problem with the rapidly increasing inaccuracy of predicted grades. It's not a matter of a few more applicants getting overly ambitious predictions it's a massive rise in a few years. It must make the whole application process more unfair and more difficult. BBC Feb 2016 article HERE
It would be a lot fairer and transparent if applications were made after students had received their grades. It would probably mean that exams would have to take place earlier in the year but it would save masses of unnecessary expense and stress.

I've screen shot the numbers Taken from an article in the independant Feb 2016. Predicted grades are getting ridiculous and now with fewer AS exams for Unis to look at they are presumably becoming more important.

I should add that I'm a bit bitter about predicted grades as one of my DC was predicted a B in a subject due to a stupid teacher that they then went on to achieve an A* in - fortunately they successfully 'upgraded' to a better Uni on results day by utilising the adjustment process.

Hug we hard the same problems as you with underpredicting rather than over inflating. Was a very frustrating time. DD went to a very unorganised upper 6th form school with very poor management as well to boot. They really didn't give a crap about the future of the kids. DD achieved 4A grades at AS but the school wanted to predict ABB as they felt that A2 was a lot harder and DD would feel less pressured to achieve straight A grades, talk about backwards thinking . We had to explain to them that if they were predicting ABB that would mean DD wouldn't be able to apply to all the uni's she wanted to go to as she doesn't meet the entry requirements, all the hard work she put in at AS would be a waste as she worked hard so she could have a chance to get a offer from 3A and over uni's. It took a very nice concerning maths teacher DD had to explain to the english teacher who was doing all the ucas stuff to change her mind. It just shows there's schools out there that are poorly managed who put people in charge of important areas such as uni applications who have not got a clue what they are doing and are incompitent. If the child or parents aren't clued up with the whole uni app system. They will unfortunatley have their future determined by poorly trained teacher's and their judgements who aren't properly best serving the child's interest. I suppose this is just as bad as overinflating grades but in way is worse.

Goodbyestranger yes I agree.

GnomedePlume I think if the consortium college are capable of producing the highest grades in the subjects she is doing that is reassuring. Luckily with maths and physics there are lots of opportunities for extension that does not depend on school and will demonstrate all the qualities required for university application without having to rely on references.
Should only 1 or 2 students get top grades in her subjects or students are generally under predicted as in the examples above that would be more compelling reasons for a move.

My daughter enjoyed Bristol and it is still very highly regarded. I would be glad if her brothers get in their next year although they certainly have other choices too (they are not trying Oxbridge).

Coffeewith1sugar Sun 07-Aug-16 14:41:37
What an interesting point you make about teachers setting good students up for less than they are capable of.

It is good you and your daughter stood up to the wrong teachers and had the back up of her maths teacher! If by any chance she does not get those grades, she will have had nothing to lose by aiming for the best, but as she did so well in her AS, that is well over half the battle so I think she was right to do so. So much has been set up by all her hard AS work. I hope everything goes well for her

KindDogsTail Thanks for the kind words. All this drama we had was last summer. DD is now at uni and had exceeded the ABB grades they wanted to predict. There's no way she would have got into the uni shes at now with those predicted grades they wanted to give her. So glad for the maths teacher taking sympathy for dd. She still keeps in touch with him, who has since retired. She credits him for helping her against the odds getting her to where she is today. In dd case it was the battle-axe of a English teacher learning the UCAS process as she went along. Using dd cohort as a trial and error way of learning on the job
However, I do wonder if with some schools. The real reasons why they would rather under predict, is to cover their backs in the event that if students don't achieve their predicted grades, parents and students aren't likely to blame the school and the teachers for poor teaching. Covering themselves rather than doing the right thing for the child.

I am so pleased she got to where she wanted. It is amazing what one wonderful teacher can do isn't it?

There might be an element of arse covering but a lot of it I think stems from just not understanding the difference between top and lower standing universities. A top university is looking for specific grades in specific subjects. Lower tier universities are often looking at a points total.

If the teacher in charge of managing UCAS applications doesnt understand that fundamental point then there will be mistakes in predicting grades.

If the school management isnt experienced in getting students into high tier universities then they may not see that this matters. UCAS teacher wont get training and will base their actions on their own experience which may not be helpful.

I think low aspiration and thinking any university will do is a much wider problem than anticipated. Even a girl at my DDs fee paying school with AAA* at A level in demanding subjects went on to do Criminology at a lowly ranked university. This may present problems now she wants to be a barrister. Aiming high is not always understood by schools!

Also, I have just seen a post on a school website in Sheffield which says their y9 science groups visited Sheffield Hallam University and the undergrads there presented a talk on "Sheffield - What a great place to live". Given every child in the school already lives in Sheffield one can assume they know this. It is also unashamed recruitment from Sheffield Hallam. There are a few very bright children in that year group who should be aiming much higher - but will they when they are fed a diet served up by Sheffield Hallam's marketing department and their own school?