Applying for Uni 2019 Part 5: UCAS, offers and exam season looming

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

New thread started. Here's the previous one

that's v interesting decorhate - could it be a stem subject so some people are taking 5 including further maths? I would have thought that was quite rare though.

The methodology section explains how they calculate = A + 48 etc, and then they do adjust it to take account of subject mix (how? also why?). It doesn't say whether they take account of other points such as grade 8 piano but that could bump a few above 224 (which is 4 A*s).

Though now you mention it a surprising number are well above 166 in the overall table (3 A*s) which would suggest large numbers of students taking 4 A levels. Not convinced that happens much anymore (am i wrong?), so I am starting not to understand this part of the table either!

www.ucas.com/ucas/tariff-calculator
A Scottish student entering university with 5 A grades at Higher level woukd have 165 points. Substitute an Advanced Higher at A in any of the same subjects would add up to 188 (an A atHigher level is 33 points, A at Advanced Higher, 56). Okay, that is not going to be the situation for all Scottish entrants - only a relatively small number will achieve all A grades - but if you compare the tariff for A levels, AAAAA at Higher level equates to just under 3 x A* (3 × 56 = 168). Highers being accorded a lower points value per subject, but more would normally be taken.

www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/a-levels-and-highers/choosing-scottish-highers/

(The Advanced Higher grades may not actually be necessary for entry to university, but I am assuming that where entrants have them, the points would be included in the average).

200 points is fairly easy to obtain if you take 4 Alevels, as you would not be taking four unless you were A/A* material. As far as I know 4 are still standard for scientists in academic private schools.

Pleased to see that LSE is still bottom for student satisfaction . I understand this is now a matter of pride amongst students completing the survey, so unlikely to change anytime soon. (DS was perfectly happy there and indeed chose LSE over Oxford for his Masters.) They are doing a good job in preventing the Government from putting too much weight on student satisfaction.

The top one I’m looking at is 241 points. That’s a hell of a lot of extra curricular certificates

And given that Oxbridge is full of privately educated students, I’d be surprised if they were taking more than 4 subjects.

mine both took five, plus DS had some Goethe Institut language qualification that whacked his score up even further. It is very common for overseas students to have five if they take double maths, and many of them will also have a specialist English qualification to quite a high level.

Rest assured. Neither of mine got offers till late March, so I assume loads of points did little to help their applications. However greater breadth did help when DS took the Grad Student aptitude test, and it should help DD when she applies for intercalation. Education Is rarely wasted.

I think I did 8 subjects for my equivalent end-of-school exams. My kids get no sympathy when they moan about homework!

I think the number of A Levels taken has reduced since the new system was introduced & AS is no more. 3 is standard now here. Plus Further Maths or EPQ for some.

I would have thought tariff points from extra curricular would be more needed/useful for students struggling to meet their basic entry grade requirements to push up their overall tariff. The type of person doing 4A’levels would hardly be the type.

Also, don’t the top universities Oxbridge et al say they only accept grades? Many of the RG lot state on their websites they don’t accept tariff points.

Just looked up DCs school. They all start with four, which they are expected to continue through to A2. And some still take five. They had a long school day and Saturday morning school, but most still managed plenty of extra curricular. However I only know of two boys who also had jobs/start up businesses.

Getting used to being busy makes the step up to University easier. DS decided early on that the best way to cope was to really listen in class. That way you did not have to do as much outside. Ditto with University, where he would prepare for a lecture, so that he had at least a fighting chance of following the technical detail through the 90 minutes or whatever.

Those doing 4 a levels especially including fm may well have grade 6+ music awards, for example, which attract ucas points.

Shiny, yes. However the CUG table shows tariff points, and others noted that the average Oxbridge student has more than 200. I doubt the students even bothered to add up how many they had, as extra points make little or no difference to an application.

Need - Yes, I think we’re saying the same thing. The high Oxbridge tariffs are unlikely to be from the aggregated extra curriculars etc, so the question still is where are these extra points from .

Ah, so maybe part of the answer is that still doing 4 A levels is much more common than I thought, at least at the v academically selective schools. 4 A*s takes you to 224 (the average for Cambridge overall), and then a number doing 5 would take the average up higher for some of the subjects (ie 240 for Chemistry at Cambridge!!)

I thought that a lot of schools had reduced number of A levels down fairly soon after the latest changes (AS not counting towards A level), to 3, or perhaps more commonly, 'start with 4 and then drop one at the end of Yr 12 if you want'.

This is all fascinating! Just checked like another pp against one of Birmingham's courses and the average tariff points are also quite significantly above the standard offer.

Though interestingly, Nottingham have now pulled out of uifs - perhaps they have had a different experience, for whatever reason.

I admit it, I don't think the case against ucs is proven - it's the 'if firm' part which is perhaps more of an issue as it puts pressure on the student to accept that univ. rather than another 'higher ranking' one. But on the other hand it wouldn't make sense as a strategy for Birmingham to drop the 'if' because they would then get a much higher proportion of students who missed their predicted grades (broadly speaking - obviously more complicated than that!)

If 4 is standard, that gives you the 200. At DCs school they were expected to do something extra in Y12 like DoE, an EPQ, or something like sign language, which often gave additional points (though no one was really counting). Add in the fact that a surprising number were strong musicians, and loads were bilingual, perhaps taking a higher level qualification in their mother tongue earlier in their school career. Points then start mounting up.

Yes, and perhaps the most highly selective schools - therefore most likely to do 4/5 A levels? (still not sure about that) may (I stress may - I don't know this year's figures!) make up a significant proportion of (and therefore skew the average of) the students at the universities with the highest average entry tariff points. Particularly the universities with averages of over 200 - which is, for the overall average, Oxbridge, St A (different because of highers/advanced highers), Imperial.

A whole other discussion/thread I know! But then this is the wide ranging thread.

It's interesting that the points tarrifs are so high while just about all DD and DSs peers in state schools took/are taking 3 Alevels and got offers based on those - highest being A*AA which does not add up to what is being quoted.
Maybe they have a tarrif for those coming from private schools which is higher, given that those coming through the private system should (from what others have posted) be coming out with more qualifications?

Yes Tilly I thought 3 was pretty standard these days (except for the further mathsers). With perhaps an EPQ (up to 28 points)

So the explanation may simply (!) be that there is/are a very high number of people from the schools that do 4/5 A levels, at the universities with over 200 as their average. For various reasons!

I think 3 A’levels is still pretty standard even in the independent sector. Although they usually encourage students to start with four but it’s with a view to dropping one (at least at Dc schools) by End of Jan of L6.The ones I’ve known doing more were either at super academic schools (of those only a handful come to mind) or just exceptional students. Then again only exceptional students go to Oxbridge so 🤷🏻‍♀️.

Just done the Student Finance form. Wasn't expecting to be asked how much he wanted to borrow for maintenance ... had to pluck a figure out of the air there!

The discussion above rather reveals how St Andrews is so high up he league tables. Many of its students will have Advanced Highers, presumably with high grades. UCAS tariff for this is very high. Same would apply to any Scottish uni of a generally high calibre and they are all quite elevated in the tables.

So are we thinking the tables include highers and advanced highers when a student has both (equivalent to including A Ss and A2s in the old days)? That would certainly mean that the figures are not directly comparable between universities - it will vary according to the proportion of students from the Scottish education system.

At DD's school the only students who took 4 A levels were ones who were doing further maths. The school didn't offer EPQs, so I think the highest total the 4 A level students would have been 224. I don't think the couple who achieved 4 A* did any extra curricular activities.

DD took AS levels in 2017 and banked her A in psychology as she didn't want to continue with it, but her UCAS points still only add up to 164, which look pretty measly in comparison to the high scores on the COG (AAA at A2 and A at AS, which I though was an excellent achievement for DD, and I am very proud of her).

It doesn't seem to make any difference what the subject is so an A is 48 points regardless of the subject.

Interestingly, Glasgow Caledonian has a high tariff point average and is at no 77 in the table, and Strathclyde at no 39 has an even higher tariff.

There are clearly an awful lot of very clever, high achieving students out there

I had a quick look at the tables as DD1 is in her 2nd year at Cambridge and DD2 has just accepted an UiF offer to go elsewhere.

If you read the supplementary information, I think it says something about it being completed by students in their final year of study. That would mean they started in 2014/5 or earlier and so would have done the previous incarnation of A levels, hence possibly gaining more points.

DD1 did a mixture of old and new exams. She has a grand total of 6 A levels (4 A*, 2A) plus an AS grade A and a distinction in her EPQ. Cambridge was not remotely interested in her grade 8 exams on 2 instruments and ballet and asked her one question about the EP at interview.

I do feel that @Decorhate's comment that Oxbridge is full of privately educated students to be wide of the mark. DD1's college has 74% of its students coming from state schools, and I think the average for Cambridge is 71%.

Malbecfan the entry standards were from 2017 - 2018

^Entry Standards (maximum score n/a)
What is it?
The average UCAS tariff score of new undergraduate students.
Where does it come from?
HESA data for 2017–18.^

Strathclyde (my DF's workplace!) has high entry requirements. It is a far superior uni to, say, Glasgow Caledonian in people's eyes. But they will both have high entry 'standards' , again, because of the higher tariff scores for AHs.

That's interesting Piggy. I'm a bit of an anorak when it comes to looking at tables and comparisons, and like to understand them. I need to get out more

Do they do lower offers to applicants from England and Wales then?