Can anyone explain this to me? Ucas Tariff Points.

[Scabbersley]

Dd was looking at a uni on Unistats. There is a part which says:

"These are the actual tariff scores for students who started this course in 2014-16 expressed in terms of the new UCAS tariff."

10% of the students who started the course had 192-207 ucas points.

So 3 x A and an A EPQ is 'only' 196 tariff points

That seems huge for Sports Science and what would the other points be? A typical offer for this uni is ABB.

Sorry, I didn't quite take that bit in. I was a bit thrown by students having 196-207 UCAS points when starting a course that required 128.

Yes me too second!! Hence the thread

DD's school still did AS levels last year, so would the A grade she achieved, but dropped for A2 count as anything?

Yes, the better universities ignore the UCAS points and instead just go for the grades in your A levels but still like the others tuff put on ... eg I have 4 grade 8s and 4 grades 6 - 7 in those instruments and a lot of my children are similar but we have never really used one. I did remember one post grade daughter applying for law jobs asking me to find her grade 8 cello cert as that particular on line form wanted all your UCAS points but that is very rare.

I think you get UCAS points for an AS that you don't take to A2 but again it's irrelevant at the better universities as they are just making offers based on your 3 A2 subjects in the traditional way.

This was from Leeds so a decent uni, they weren't asking for a tariff amount - unistats has the typical tariff of the entrants, they have it for all unis.

The points system changed.

According to the calculator my Dd has 317 points from her 5 Scottish Highers and 3 Advanced Highers. A few children from most Scottish schools will achieve this or close to.

Does music grades count if you apply to study medicine?

Does music grades count if you apply to study medicine?

No of course not!

Chocolate Advanced Highers trump Highers so say she has Advanced Higher plus Higher in Biology, you can only count the points for Biology, Same for AS and A levels, if you have AS and A level Biology you only count the A level points. Basically, you can only count a subject once at the highest grade. Same for practical music grades, say you had Grade 6, 7 and 8 in violin, you can only count the Grade 8 in violin.

DD2 has included her grade 8 music (and also grade 5 theory I think) on her UCAS application and she's going to study chemistry.

She's accepted an unconditional offer from Birmingham as her firm choice and will hopefully get a music scholarship where they pay towards music tuition. :)

Sorry, long week ... first sentence in previous post should have read "you can only count the points for the Advanced Higher". Each subject can only be counted once.

30 points for a music Grade 8 distinction? That's practically an extra A-level.

Do you have any idea how many hours work are needed to attain Grade 8 in performance? Far more than I put in to any of my a levels, probably more hours than I put into my a levels in total!

The better universities ignore anything other than your 3 academic A levels however (writing as someone with 4 grade 8s!)

Yes, as DS has a grade 8 distinction. I was surprised, that’s all.

Chocolate Advanced Highers trump Highers so say she has Advanced Higher plus Higher in Biology, you can only count the points for Biology

Fair enough, but even with only the 3 AHs and 2 extra Highers, it still give a total of 218. Not an unusual set for a bright Scottish pupil.

The new tariff does weight Scottish qualifications higher than English ones watch the Scottish universities move up the league tables

The Scottish exams have always been rated higher in the UCAS system - even a few years ago an A at AH was worth an A star at A level and a B at AH was the equivalent of a A at A Level.

And Highers were worth more that AS Levels.

Not sure why - although many many moons ago, I was told that it was because AHs involve more independent study, so are a better preparation for Uni. But both the English and Scottish exams have gone through massive changes since then.