How do A level grades affect Class of Degree?

[catslife]

There are loads of threads about GCSE and A level grades needed for university but cannot find any information that answers my question.
Would a university student with a grade A (or A*) at A level achieve a better class of degree to one who had a grade B (or possibly grade C). This would be for an "arts" subject if that makes a difference.
Trying to work out if B/C at A level is a suitable level to make it worth applying for unis. If a child does better than this can they make a late application/ go through clearing if they haven't already applied?
Any answers and thoughts welcome.

Dd got 3C and 1D at A level, got 2:1 in Philosophy, just completed MSc at RG uni and has been asked to apply for PhD after working abroad for a year!( got 8 offers of employment within 48 hrs of posting her CV!)
She is badly dyslexic/dyspraxic/dyscalculis and hated A level exams ( enjoyed the syllabus) but excelled at Uni and loved researching for her essays....also didn't have finals per se but continuous assessment and a dissertation

So got 5 As at Alevel and a third in his degree. I got ABC and a first.

igivein I've got perfectly sound reasoning faculties thanks - I was merely making the point of fact that the top echelons of the law profession are overwhelmingly dominated by Oxford and Cambridge grads. So it's certainly not outdated, it's very current. I don't see that it's especially wrong either, for the sorts of job where a high level of academic ability is required. Seems fine to me.

I got a BDE and ended up with a 2.1 for OK uni (not poly but not top) first from an excellent uni at MSc level.
I think I worked hard but only got study skills / away from home and all that brought (distractions and no support for education - benefits lifestyle)

From

the top echelons of the law profession are overwhelmingly dominated by Oxford and Cambridge grads. So it's certainly not outdated, it's very current. I don't see that it's especially wrong either, for the sorts of job where a high level of academic ability is required. Seems fine to me.

You may think it's fine, but the vast majority of those law firms do not think it is fine and are actively working to broaden the range of their trainees beyond Oxbridge. And, law firms being as they are, this is not because of altruism or social engineering, but because they want to recruit from the best talent available, much of which is outside of Oxbridge.

It is outdated to believe that, without more , going to a top ranked university improves your chances of getting a training contract - and students who believe that damage their chances by being complacent. A more realistic statement is that if you are someone who can gain entrance to and succeed within a top ranked university you are likely also be someone who can gain a training contract. It is also outdated to believe that progression within firms has anything to do with what university you attended.

Gannet I said I reckoned it was fine because it's not exclusively Oxford and Cambridge and I got a ticking off from the other poster for stating a fact.

Those law firms that you're talking about want to be seen doing the correct thing but in reality they know that recruiting overwhelmingly from Oxford and Cambridge suits their books. It's worked for decades and decades. The Bar to an even greater degree requires a high level of academic ability so it would be a bit daft to ignore the very obvious fact that there are plenty of very clever students at those places (and at UCL, LSE type places) who are perfectly deserving of a pupillage or training contract and also possess the other qualities required to succeed. I understand that recruiting without knowing the institution seems to result in even more Oxford and Cambridge grads being taken on so I'm not sure what you think should be done, other than actively marking down anyone who happens to have a degree from either of those two places.

I'm sure that a few law firms are only paying lipservice (particularly the US ones, from experience), but by no means all. I am at a RG university, but not Oxbridge or London, and the Magic Circle and Silver Circle firms regularly meet with us to discuss how they can get more of our students to apply to them because they want a broader spread of applicants and trainees - they come to us, not vice-versa, and I know they are having the same conversations with non-RG Law Schools. They put a great deal of effort into it - they actively want more of our students to apply and they put a great deal of resource into coming to see us, bringing our students to see them, and various schemes from Year 12 onwards. It's so significant that it actually creates an imbalance - our students think that the only law they can practice is big commercial law, because the big firms throw so much resource at recruiting them, whereas smaller, non-commercial firms can't afford to.
The notion that big law firms are such lazy recruiters that they only recruit from a tiny pool is simply not true - they have plenty of automatic filters to save them time in sifting applications, but university attended is not one of them. Many of our student obtain MC, SC and big city training contracts every year, and progress through the ranks and the same is true of many other similar Law Schools.
I know of some current research exploring the extent to which a big part of the problem is that students 'rule themselves out' of certain firms or types of firms precisely because, for example, they think MC or the Bar is only for Oxbridge people - that's why I think it's really important to dispel the myth that the top law TCs and pupillages are only going to Oxbridge and London, because young people may be reading this and be put off.

Linklaters stopped CV blind recruitment because their pilot suggested it actually increased Oxbridge success (which in itself shows they don't want more Oxbridge trainees , otherwise why not pretend CV blind recruitment worked for them and use it to pay lipservice....) - they use contextual methods instead, measuring academic achievements within specific contexts (much as some universities do). There's a lot of people out there whose job is to research, implement and review these kinds of schemes. The Bar is also investing a huge amount in diversity schemes to broaden the range of applicants for pupilage

A lot depends not just on grades but on previous effort to get those grades, how much they work etc etc.

I did a science double degree and it was known for being a tough course. The top three of us in the year were all state school kids. Everyone who dropped out had one thing in common - they'd been to very good selective/grammar/private but weren't quite as good as their grades suggested. They'd obviously been spoon fed and tutored a lot and they didn't cope well with independent study.

The super smart grammar/private did fine. A lot depends on ability+work ethic and lower ability can be masked by intensive tutoring.

Later I worked in universities and I had this bias confirmed multiple times. The super smart ones do fine regardless. The ones with ok but not brilliant results - their success is down to their personality and work ethic. Some do really well, others have a real crisis.

Have just found this article on my Twitter feed that answers my question www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/news/state-school-pupils-do-better-at-university-cambridge-assessment-research-confirms/.
There is some new published research here (Oxford Review of education www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03054985.2015.1090967?journalCode=core20

What is this obsession with the Russell Group on Mumsnet for undergraduate degrees? It's like some sort of self-fulfilling prophesy on here.

Scared aspirant to middle-class parents?

This article is interesting on the topic (could be describing bits of MN):
www.timeshighereducation.com/news/middle-class-arms-race-thwarts-access-efforts-summit-hears

Gannet I know all that but as things stand, despite a good number of years of these initiatives, the new entrants to the MC firms and the London Bar are overwhelmingly Oxbridge. That's all I said and got told off for it. It's not possible to argue that it isn't a good pool of talent because it is, unless Oxbridge are getting their admissions horribly wrong. The admissions blind thing at Linklaters has had the same result in other historically Oxbridge dominated professions too, and the real question to ask is why, and the answer doesn't take the brains of an archbishop to work out.

Not publicly available but my dept at Oxbridge did some regression analysis relating admissions information (achieved and predicted grades, aptitude test, interview scores) to final degree result. It was used to inform some parts of the admissions process. Yes there was a positive relationship between AS grades and (predicted) A-level grades and the probability of getting a First. But GCSEs were a better predictor if I remember correctly. And obviously that is only an average relationship - it doesn't mean it is true in every case. And is limited by only looking at those students who were accepted.

I hope no one is suggesting my twins who have just bust a gut over two years to get into Bristol were wasting their time and could have gone to London Met and had just as good a chance of getting a good City job.

My daughter's ex colleague and friend lives with his London black single mother and alleged drug dealer sibling (and has a City TC) in London. He is a brilliant young man and rightly got a TC. Great personality too. Good communication skills, ability to get on with anyone etc. Rare things amongst all kinds of people actually. I have forgotten his university now (it was not Oxbridge but he has high grades in exams). My Muslim immigrant cleaner's son who did the same LPC course as my daughters struggled however - lower A level results, bad ex poly although he has now got a para legal City job so there remains hope and I wish him well.

I certainly agree City institutions want the best people. Most changes in HR practices and indeed law in these fields come about because of money - even giving women jobs and votes in the past was often more about money than ethics.

I can see no point though in deliberately going to a badly regarded university if you do not need to just to imrove your university chances. My son met by huge chance a boy from a local comprehensive on the tube the other night who had been in touch with him on line - I think they are both going to study the same subject at Bristol. The other boy got one of those lower contextual offers. He lives very near us (posh area, expensive houses) so I am not sure it is particularly fair that because of the school he gets the lower offer but there we are.

goodbyestranger I think you need to check your data.
The 2014 Bar Barometer has 28.4% of pupillages going to graduates of Oxbridge - clearly disproportionate, but not 'overwhelming' on my understanding of the term. 25% of pupilages went to gradutes of non-RG universities. And that is from a few years ago - I'm not sure if there are more up to date published stats on that. www.barstandardsboard.org.uk/media/1599997/bsb_barometer_report_112pp_june_13.pdf

There's less obvious data from the solicitors branch - Chambers student did a survey a while back which, IMO, has some methodological issues but which found that Oxbridge graduates made up 25% of London trainees - again, disproporitionate, but hardly overwhelming. The fact is there simply aren't enough Oxbridge graduates to staff the legal profession. That shows a huge predominance of RG in large commercial firms (which were the only ones surveyed) - but, as it acknowledges, doesn't consider the size of the law school and RG universities tend to be bigger and thus produce more graduates.

If all you mean is that Oxbridge graduates are disproportionately represented in the profession then fair enough. But when you say that new entrants are 'overwhelmingly' Oxbridge you paint a picture that simply isn't true.

I would argue it's not disproportionate but is what we need to ensure clients are safe - that we have the brightest graduates and more of them are at Oxbridge than London Met - so it's a very good thing. the fact law firms trawl a bit wider to get exceptional people is good news too.

if you look at the most junior barristers on the website of somewhere like Brick Court (i.e. recent hires) people can see what kind of people get those jobs - basically the very very very best of the best as it should be.

www.barstandardsboard.org.uk/media/1835435/bptc_key_statistics_report_2017_-_all_parts.pdf

July 2017 report - proportion from top ten Unis fairly static. Seems not to provide an Oxbridge / other RG etc split.

Gannet I completely don't need to check any data. If you check my post, I said top echelons or some such and then qualify it further by specifying the London Bar. I do not include in that the less academic areas of the Bar, nor the Provincial Bar. I am absolutely completely correct in saying that that part of the Bar about which I'm talking - and MC firms - are overwhelmingly the province of Oxbridge students. Worse than that (at the bit of the Bar I'm referring to), preferably those with a First at undergrad or an LLM/ BCL to compensate for the lack of one. I think you may be the one who needs to scratch the stats a bit further!

Yes quite Oldie.

I wonder how the very very very best of the best would have managed in the large classes of a bog standard comp -with a string of supply teachers and an a level class of 28 - and you don't get to finish the syllabus
Perhaps some of these firms are beginning to realise not all the bright kids are at oxbridge- some may have had to teach themselves and get a job through sixth form - not quite so easy to get the grades needed in these circumstances but an equally able candidate

The other boy got one of those lower contextual offers. He lives very near us (posh area, expensive houses) so I am not sure it is particularly fair that because of the school he gets the lower offer but there we are.

The other boy got one of those lower contextual offers. He lives very near us (posh area, expensive houses) so I am not sure it is particularly fair that because of the school he gets the lower offer but there we are.

Oops - pressed too soon! Are you suggesting that contextual offers should be based on the value of a student's house and not the quality of the school they were educated at?

user877 this attitude that all Oxbridge students have been born with silver spoons and privilege is excessively tedious. Plenty have worked in paid jobs through their Sixth Form years (and before that too), plenty went to state school where funding has hit class sizes and where the teacher shortages have also had a direct and serious impact on the quality of education across the subject spectrum.

user, the best of the best come from comprehensives actually some of the time... I have worked with some, top of the London bar, doing really well. I am not suggesting that disadvantage of all its kinds in life does not make it harder to do well and I am not particularly against the Bristol contextual offers (although it's a bit unfair that the state smooths out differences in schools when single mothers like I am are working full time to pay school fees or where parents have moved to an area with state grammar schools - someone else my sons went to school with originally went to Watford Grammar (a state only partially selective school I think it is despite the grammar name) and he also would not have had a contextual offer as the parents picked the "better" state school.

I can understand applying the system in somewhere like wher eI am from the NE where since 1970 we have really just had not particuarly good comprehensives and a tiny number of fee paying schools but here in this relatively well off bit of London where parents choose from a range of schools from some extremely high performing religious ones, Muslim and others (we even hav a hindu primary) in the state sector to fee paying ones, comps and grammars it all gets a bit mixed up and perhaps slightly unfair.

Nor am I against the top law firms and chambers recruiting widely. I want the very brightest doing my brain surgery.

I agree that there is a difference between the top of the tree as it were and the lower levels both of law firms and chambers ni terms of recruitment. My sons had a sauna at the gym the other night and a boy in there with them who had just done A levels was bemoaning his lack of A*s and wondering if a career at the bar was out. No, I said (to my boys later not that I was in the sauna with them) just harder to get into the very best chambers (as long as he's not messed up so badly it's CCC or something like that).

This is I think the 3 youngest juniors who did not qualify abroad on the Brick Court website:

"BA in Jurisprudence (Law), University of Oxford (Hertford College) (First Class, All Souls Prize for Best Performance in Public International Law, Final Honour Schools)"

"MA, Philosophy, Politics and Economics, University of Oxford (Balliol College) (First Class, Gibbs Prize for Best Thesis in Politics)"

" BCL, Trinity College, University of Oxford (Distinction)

2011: BA Law, Robinson College, University of Cambridge (Double First)

Prizes

2013: Stephen Chapman scholarship, Inner Temple

2012: Prize for highest mark in BCL Philosophical Foundations of the Common Law paper

2012: Trinity College, Oxford Prize for BCL results

2009-11: Cambridge Law Faculty Rebecca Flower Squire Scholarship (placed 4th in year), Robinson College Scholarship, Robinson College Prize for Tripos results, Nicola Blakeman Memorial Prize".

3 good people.

I was talking about disadvantage not advantage plus the contextual comment implying the comprehensive student doesn't deserve his place is deeply insulting.
The sweeping statement that pupils are the best of the best because they went to an elite University without knowing the context of their achievements is also tedious.