Entry requirements gone up?

[tobee]

Been having a look at entry requirements for 2017 and out of interest checked with 2016. I keep finding entry requirements are now higher eg unis offering AAB in 2016 are offering AAA for 2017, same course. Why?

...because they can! They will be looking at what this years cohort achieved in their exams and base it on that. not looking forward to trying to get the rest of my DC to unis in future if everyone is asking for high grades.

In the past is has always been to with grade inflation: each year it got easier and easier to get higher marks. With the new syllabuses (syllabi?) however, I'm not entirely sure!

It doesn't have to be about grade inflation. Even if there are more people with AAA due to increased intelligence or better teaching, if there are X places available and the university thinks that there would be 1.5X people interested in the course with AAA and 4X people interested in the course with AAB then they set the minimum requirements at AAA. Whereas thinks that there would be 0.5X people interested in the course with AAA and 2X people interested in the course with AAB then they set the minimum requirements at AAB.

I was just a bit surprised because I thought that unis were 1) ever expanding 2)only getting fined for too many ABB now not AAB.

This just fits in with my suspicion that unis are letting in more overseas students because they can charge more. I'm all for students meeting a diverse range of people from around the world but it's a bit tough for our kids. I'm amazed more kids don't study abroad where it's so much cheaper.

DS2 started uni in 2015 and I'm interested to see that 2 - possibly 3 - of the 5 offers he had were one grade lower than the typical offer quoted for the same courses for 2017 entry. Bit scary for ds3!

Universities no longer get fined for over recruiting.

Increasing offer requirements is in all likelihood strategic rather than anything else. One way to increase your league table position is to recruit stronger applicants, so you increase your offer to attract such, particularly if you're a selecting course.

Given the decreasing number of 18 year olds and a possible 3-4% drop in EU applicants next year (more for London HEIs), I'd say it was entirely possible that despite a higher standard offer on the website, HEIs may well accept grades at the current level once results are out.