Employers sift applications by university ranking

[Ironoaks]

[[BBC News - Job applications 'filtered by university ranking'
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-49728941]]

This contradicts the advice I sometimes see on Mumsnet stating that employers are blind to the institution and only sift on degree classification.

The number of A and A* grades fell last year and BBC to BCC are still the most common grades.

I am a teacher so don't think I am the right audience for your untested assertions. Been teaching for 28 years. Students have not got dimmer. Standards are high. On the whole, students work harder and smarter and achieve a bit better,

Language exams are notoriously difficult!

The simple answer is to do your research about admission criteria, work hard at school to get high grades and put yourself in the cohort who are sought after. Then work at university and get a first or 2:1.
If you’re not able to do that, then why would a company not select a better qualified candidate? It is harder for some youngsters to move away and run with the more privileged but it’s a long way off impossible.

State schools need to be pushing children into achievement to reach their potential and parents need to maintain an informed and guiding position encouraging their children to understand that academic results do matter for most young people.

But, genuinely, not everyone has the potential to achieve As! Otherwise ,t that really could be the situation described above. Not everyone wants to join the ratrace either, to be fair.

I teach plenty of extremely hard working students who get Bs and Cs. We are definitely supporting students to reach their potential.

Obviously, some employers want the cream of the crop. That doesn't render the rest hopeless cases.

Piggy: it wasn’t really an assertion, just an opinion. I don’t know if I’m factually correct, but a quick google suggests that I’m not alone. I know the link is from 10 years ago so maybe exams have got more difficult again since then?

www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7817602/English-Examinations-Have-they-got-easier.html

I wonder if experienced teaching staff such as yourself maybe would not notice a very gradual change of difficulty level over a long period of 30 years or more, if you’re teaching a new cohort each year for years on end? Syllabuses change so mock exams aren’t usually made up of questions from 30 year old exam papers, I don’t think?

I do remember when I did GCSE maths when it first came out our teacher bringing in some old O-level papers for us to try out and we all really struggled, even though we were top set. Maybe she had similar thoughts, that the new exam wasn’t as rigorous?

The school I work in has an archive of old library books including textbooks from the 50s etc. What was in the old O-level books shocked me, our current A-level students would struggle with it.

anyway.....like I say, it’s just a feeling I have, a theory. I’m no expert, clearly. I just wondered if employers filtering by university has become more necessary these days.

No of course some can’t reach high grades and are still very valuable members of society but they are unlikely to be happy in a job requiring higher thinking skills and rapid assimilate information. If thowho are capable want to be in the running, they need to get a good degree from a respected university.

find me a university with a typical offer of DD at A Level!
Quite a few of our regional lower regarded ones will give those offers.
One told one of my y13 students that they'd accept 2 A levels of C/D and then that came through on their UCAS.
Another got an unconditional offer from a different lower ranked university when their predicted grades were DDE (due to poor work ethic, if they worked harder they could have got Cs to get a better course).

Every year we see our middling 6th timers be given lower offer from less well regarded universities.

72 tarrif points as an offer is 3Ds (and that's not for a foundation year, that's for BA entry for a 3 year course).

The bottom line is since the cap on student numbers was lifted, less competitive courses need bums on seats so take anyone regardless of academic aptitude.

Of course, RG isn't the be all and end all, but everyone knows which universities are well regarded and academic Vs those who'll take anyone.

I would want the super academic along side the less book smart but ferociously street smart and the insightful and innovative and creative problem solvers and those with phenomenal social skills

But you're missing the point. You can be academically smart and street smart, and have the social problem solving skills. It's not one or the other.

It's not if you ace school and uni you don't have street smarts or can't be innovative or problem solves. Oh if life was so easy. That everyone at the top ranked unis were academically smart and everyone else was fab in other ways. There is no such division.

And companies have to start somewhere. So why not with the ons who are academically at the top. And then filter through them to find the ones who are also street smart ( what does that even mean in the job market) and creative and problem solvers.

These skills are not mutually exclusive.

Bath, St Andrews, Lancaster, Loughborough - none of them are Russell group but feature highly in different league tables.

I do remember when I did GCSE maths when it first came out our teacher bringing in some old O-level papers for us to try out and we all really struggled, even though we were top set.

Do you not think that might have been because you'd been taught a different syllabus?! Students in 'not knowing things they haven't been taught' shocker

lola genuinely my DS applied this year and not one uni typical offer (which is what you initially said) was below 96 points.reduced offers are another matter. Unconditional offers normally go to students predicted the typical offer.
I have a local uni which is rock bottom of league tables. BCC to do English.

Entry levels into univ are total bollocks. A snapshot of an individual in an exam setting determining their futures does not represent intellectual ability. Also doesn't prepare for univ which is about thinking and self directed learning and genuine interest in subject matter which again cannot be captured in set of exams.

The whole system is wrong!

I work in an RG univ by the way.

Peonyrose
To turn this on it’s head slightly, I work for large multinational, and in my specific area, we automatically exclude most private schooled oxbridge graduates........

When you advertise for employees do you tell privately educated Oxbridge graduates not to bother applying so that they don’t waste their time trying to get an interview?
Do you exclude all Oxbridge graduates or just privately educated ones?

Of course, RG isn't the be all and end all, but everyone knows which universities are well regarded and academic Vs those who'll take anyone.

Care to provide a list for those that don’t know?

Piggywaspushed
Whereas one of our local unis claims their entry is 96 for a number of courses, they are happy to accept 2 A levels at level 3 (so students who've not passed full time level 3 study). I've not known a single student be made that offer. I'm sure they must offer it, but almost everyone gets lower offers or unconditional offers regardless of the quality of the applicant.

Them claiming 96 as a typical offer is like when shops mark up their RRP For 3 months in 12 stores and then claim the sale is a 20% discount.

One of the courses is one that produces a significant number of trainee teachers with firsts and 2:1s who know substantially less about the subject than our KS3/4 students and have academic writing so poor that our students have to correct them.

I can't accept that course doesn't accept and pass anyone with a pulse as long as they get £9,000.

Shock horror employees rate students from top Unis
Would you believe it

Depends on the company. Sure if you’re a big company with people queuing up and so many applications to filter, you might get do this.

If you are a smaller company with hard-to-fill vacancies you might want to invest in training people. Maybe you’ll be willing to take a punt on those who under-performed at uni but can be good workers. Grads with ‘typical’ high achieving grades will also be more mobile and perhaps more likely to switch company (losing the investment in training).

I think few jobs need degree knowledge/skills. Much stuff can be taught on the job or with additional study while working - like professional qualifications from industry bodies.

I find this heartbreaking. Friend’s dcs both went to a local university, purely because it was local and her dogged belief that all degrees are equal, and no maintenance grants meant they had to live at home. Fortunately Russel group but they both got straight A’s/A* at A level and did solid traditional degrees (think maths and history)
Both got firsts, neither got a graduate training scheme
They’re lovely kids, a little ‘young’ and both could have done so much better at a stronger university and with a bit more life experience.

@CurlyhairedAssassin

I totally agree about A grades being “easier” to achieve today, as in the proportion of A grades given is so very much greater than back in the day.

I got into my Oxbridge College with ABB in 1988. This was fairly typical of my colleagues. Out of my cohort of reasonably bright privately educated classmates the number of A grades achieved was minimal. It really was something special and rare to get any A’s let alone a full set

When you advertise for employees do you tell privately educated Oxbridge graduates not to bother applying so that they don’t waste their time trying to get an interview?

I'm sure they do - just like the rest of them actually specify in their ads that only those who gained their degrees at this extremely narrow selection of universities will even get their application read, even by the lowest level (though Oxbridge / Durham / LSE / Imperial educated, of course) office junior in the HR department?

vancleef , you still will have had a rigorous interview and passed through that, though, which has not changed.

I failed to get into Oxford, yet have 3As in my A levels from the same era. Who does that make better ? You, I assume

It’s common in law firms to filter by universities for traineeships. The firm will have a list of preferred universities that they will only consider. They get 1000s of applicants per place, they need to filter at a high level first.

Out of interest as DS thinking of Oxbridge, are they “put off” by any particular A-levels. (I know they’re looking for specific subjects for some courses)

@Piggywaspushed honestly I still can’t believe my luck!

Pretty sure there are lists on their websites curly.

Out of interest as DS thinking of Oxbridge, are they “put off” by any particular A-levels. (I know they’re looking for specific subjects for some courses)

I've never read anything to suggest that they'd be put off by an unusual subject providing the course/college requirements were met by the other subjects taken. Some which might not have specific subject requirements do mention wanting at least two 'facilitating subjects (yes, I've seen that disputed term still in use recently, but iirc with details of which they meant). There's a lot of information on the university and college websites - so if you check the former and the latter for a few specific colleges you can get a more accurate idea.

If the applicant has a good reason why they did something 'different' as their 3rd or 4th subject it might even be a positive differentiator, I'd have thought (though I have no evidence either way on that)

If your DC is really unsure if their subjects are ok - and this applies to any course anywhere - then they should email the admission tutor than ask rather than risk wasting any of their 5 choices. MN can be a useful source of anecdata but there is absolutely no substitute for getting the answer from the horse's mouth, and there is no downside whatever to sending a sensible question if the answer isn't clear from the website, which it usually is.