Oxbridge 2020 (thread number 9)

[DadDadDad]

What a year! Just as we've all become experts (at least in our own minds ) about how to write Personal Statements, Oxford admission tests and Cambridge STEP, the complicated dance of the interview process, and how to simultaneously boost our DSs' and DDs' confidence while preparing them for the possibility of disappointment, we have a new topic to learn: statistical modelling of expected grades.

Of course, like all those previous topics, we're not in control of teacher projection and OfQual rejection, but we have this thread to support each other through the coming months.

All welcome. For the record, I have a DS with an Oxford offer for a humanities subject.

Well done justaweebit, now you can all relax (sort of). My dd's in a Whatsapp group for her Cambridge college offer holders and one of the Scottish MFL students in the group has made her offer too, so there's another happy bunny .

Tick tock tick tock....

Thank you everyone! I sympathise with your wait. 😬
UCAS track still not updated......

Hopefully Track has now caught up. @BrasenoseAdmissions posted last year that Track gets frozen in the run up to the 8am embargo on results day, so there's no point in our DC starting press refresh for the next few days. I once managed to strike it lucky and get tickets for an Exeter Chiefs game in a 5 minute slot mid-website upgrade. Shame Track won't do the same!

@Hoghgyni you are right, track will now be suspended until Thursday. As UCAS get the results today & Unis will start making decisions. DD was surprised on results day that her offer had been sitting there for 6 days as the Uni had obviously just said yes when saw her results. It's horrible knowing they know and we don't ! 6 more sleeps ....

Still not updated....DD eventually checked with her college and they said it won't update til after A level results....was a bit disappointed at that, as she has no official confirmation and her insurance offer (for a Scottish Uni) is sitting there still 'live'.
There is considerable disquiet up here with how the algorithm has affected students at the top end, which has impacted lots of the S6 students waiting to go to uni. Awful for them....

This just in: www.tes.com/news/GCSE-results-2020-teacher-grades-ignored

Quote from that article: "However, in smaller entry subjects, for example, classical Greek, less than 10 per cent of the grades would have been calculated using the statistical model, with most awarded based on teacher assessment." Let's just say that my DS was very pleased to see that specific example.

Good news for your DS!

DD takes a related subject where the centre cohort is 9. So sounds like about 50/50 weight on algorithm and CAG. Unfortunately though in prior years the subject wasn't popular or well taught (this year group got an excellent new teacher at GCSE who enthused them for it and v high results in it at that stage). So the data, if they've indeed used it, will be based on the entries of 2-4 in previous three years. Doesn't sound like nearly enough data, and I hope these kind of situations have been allowed for.

The news coming out of Scotland is unsettling. The high achievers at poor performing schools have been the ones I have worried about most (well, in addition to worrying about my own DS) and there are some horrible stories about DC who achieved straight As in prelims being awarded Bs and Cs in the final reckoning. Ouch.

I wonder though whether the headlines about bias are maybe a little misleading. It seems that some schools were more adversely impacted by moderation than others but surely that's also a reflection of how much each school strayed from their historical average? Some schools may have obeyed the letter of the law more closely than others. I can't help wondering (again) whether it would have been better to have worked which each school to agree on their grade distribution and then asked them to choose which candidates got what. Might have saved some of this upset.

Funny, I find myself agreeing with Nicola Sturgeon for the first time ever. I think she's right that it wouldn't have been credible to have let teacher assessments stand and thereby have the highest pass rate in history.

Guardian piece on A level results:
Nearly 40% of A-level result predictions to be downgraded in England

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/aug/07/a-level-result-predictions-to-be-downgraded-england?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

Translation of the Guardian article: a significant number of teachers torn between assessing their students at a B or a C gave them the benefit of the doubt with a B, knowing they were unlikely to be upgraded further, but could be fairly downgraded. The students would probably have got a C in the exam, so OFQUAL has downgraded the CAG, but still given them a fair grade.

DD tells me she got a message from C to say they have her results, dont get in touch!! End game now.

Elsewhere rather sad to see the awful but enormously entertaining how much to give your DC a week thread pulled.

Oh shame @hobbema I was rather enjoying that thread!

Hobbema Gulp.

Not sure if this is helpful but there’s a thread just started today on TSR “Ask the Admissions Teams - Results Day 2020”

Apologies- wasn’t sure how to link to it.

Good luck to everyone - hoping it’s good news for all on here!

hobbema - what did you think that means - “we have your results, don’t get in touch?” Why would anyone be getting in touch with unis before results day anyway?

Is this the page @PortusCale ?

www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6627062

@Capr1 - it does seem a bit of an odd non-message. But if there are pushy parents who have tried to sit in on their child's admissions interview* there are probably some who would take it on themselves to phone the college and ask if he/she has got in. So the college may have learnt to pre-empt that!

*may be slight exaggeration, but I'm sure we heard stories on an earlier thread of parents who came close to doing that.

Yes, that’s the one *JulesJules” - thanks for linking it.

Dont think there’s hidden meaning guys. It was from the Uni not the college , I think and I assume Dad 3 as ever is on the money; please done pester us , we’re on it.

I understand that Durham has done the same for firm offer holders.

Morning everyone...four sleeps to go...

I have a couple of questions which I hope someone can answer. First, does UCAS send EPQ results direct to the university? DS is vague about this. He did his EPQ in the November 2019 session. I assume Oxford have his result but am not sure.

Second, does the A level standardising system use two years of school data or three? I thought it was three but a thread on Student Room suggests that it is two.

Thank you in advance.

I'm fairly sure that it's 3. DD's EPQ was only completed in January and I'm embarrassed to say that I had totally forgotten about it until earlier this week. The results must also go to the universities as so many offers are dependent upon the grade received (several were willing to let you slip an A level grade if you got an A or A*).

Thank you Hoghgyni. I thought three as well.

I didn’t know that some offers include EPQ - I guess that means that results do indeed go through UCAS to the universities. Because DS did his in 2019 he already has the grade so I expect that Oxford have it too. Thank you.

Flyonawalk Do Oxford look at EPQ? I didn't think they did, but maybe I am wrong??