University 2020 :5: Results day approaching and beyond

[MillicentMartha]

Old thread
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/3855474-University-2020-4-The-wait-for-grades-and-better-days-ahead?pg=40

Less than 3 months to go until we have a better idea what the future has in store for our DC. Let’s hope that even if most lectures are online that accommodation is open and they can move up, across or down to their university towns and start their student life.

We should have been in the middle of exams, instead we have this strange limbo of lockdown. It could have been worse, though.

That is a very interesting option.

Yes - and as you say, @Monkey2001, an odd and unique thing. So yes, a jolly good idea, perhaps, to start getting back to one's revision notes, should one genuinely feel that the Centre Assessed Grade will unfairly not reflect the fact that one was going to pull a stellar one out of the bag with the work one was going to do between the end of formal teaching and the exam, because we've still got way longer than that time period between now and the 'second chance' in the autumn, so an upgrade should be a foregone conclusion..?

Oh dear, school just sent out a montage film of memories of ds year group. Sitting here sobbing and wondering if it’s too soon to open the gin. They are such a lovely bunch and he’s my youngest so it really does feel like the end of an era.

Had a slightly depressing conversation with a teacher at a different school yesterday about grades. Those last two months really do make all the difference it’s like comparing base camp with the summit. Some just never do as well in the practice rounds as they do in the real thing, that final adrenaline rush that ability to keep your head when all around are losing theirs, is going to be so difficult to reflect.

Equally there will be others whose efforts will be more fairly rejected by this system , the problem is that this system was not what they have spent years preparing for .

We had a Leavers video from our Headteacher to Y13 and my take on it is that there is a huge push to DISCOURAGE students from wanting/ planning to take autumn exams if at all possible. Lots of talk about 'facilitating progression' - into higher education, training (or jobs), 'Looking Forward, not Backwards' etc etc

I can understand that schools won't want the hassle of autumn exams, but for students who feel let down my their CAGs and have been denied any right to appeal, this was always touted as their alternative.

I think for a lot of Yr13s it feels as if their whole school careers have been building up towards A levels and it they still feel bitter that their actual A level grades can be influenced more by what pupils in the 3 years before them achieved.

I hoping that DS will get whatever he needs and have to good sense to forget this whole terrible year!

But don't forget the overall grades will be at least as good as usual, for GCSEs they are going to be a bit better than usual, don't know whether anything has been said about whether A levels will be up but, but I would be surprised if they were not. On results day there are always disappointments, some DCs will be winners from all this as well as the losers. And maybe some of those winners deserved a system which worked better for their strengths. I am still expecting girls to do better than boys compared to a normal year.

DS is keen to start an undergraduate course this autumn. If he narrowly misses the grades for his firm choice, I think he would go to his insurance choice rather than take exams this autumn and have to wait a year.

Any IB people out there or is everybody A level?

Good luck if any of you are IB.

Not IB but DD saying the IB people on her Edinburgh chat are saying the got much less than expected. I wonder if they will publish details of the algorithm used.

Gosh, yes! Good luck to any IBers.

Waiting nervously here for IB results. They can log in to get results in 2 minutes. As the whole world will be doing the same, I’ve no idea how the IBO’s systems don’t fall over!

Hope all IBers got the results they were hoping for.

Can I just check if I've understood something please? DS just got an email from his school re results day. They are saying they will have a time slot to go into school and pick them up. It also says you can log on to UCAS from 8am to see your Uni offers. Does that mean you will know if you've achieved enough to get your Uni place before you find out your actually grades?

That's right Ducky. Track updates at 8, so they know straight away of they have their firm or insurance place or need to start using clearing. i think their actual results may feel a little irrelevant if they've got what they need, but Track doesn't give them their actual grades, only a decision.

Yes, collecting results becomes secondary if you know you have got in to your firm or insurance. More of a confirmation, but you do get the fine detail of ‘actually did better than offer’ or ‘got in despite a dropped grade’ etc. No so much of a nice experience if you missed your offers, though.

Thanks - seems a very stressful odd way of doing it. I guess at least if you haven't done as well as expected, you find out at home rather than in front of your friends.

Roll on 13th August, just want it over and done with now!

UCAS warning - some universities do not decide straight away if you were close but did not quite get the grade, so Track can be in limbo.

In a normal year a lot of people get the university e-mail confirming their place before they get their results.

Just to add, in previous years Track has updated way before 8am, more like 6 or 7am. Also some universities send out "Well done and welcome" emails during the night before.

DS doesn’t want to look before he goes in to school to get his results. Not sure I’m going to be able to resist a peek (although I know I shouldn’t!!)

So apart from @truelove whose DS did really well , there are some worrying results coming out for IB students. Hope the other exam boards learn from this and A level results are more in line with teacher predictions

I assume you mean centre assessed grades rather than predictions though Monkey2001. They should be as long as the schools have done their own moderation exercises to reflect the standardisation expected. I have heard of quite a few schools happy with their IB results. The ones that seem to be less happy seem to be schools not based in the UK. Perhaps they had not appreciated the importance of standardisation in the process.

In UK at least teachers weren’t allowed to tell students what grades had been submitted so the drop from ‘predicted’ grades may have been similar to the usual drop from UCAS predictions to actual grades. In the UK, IB results are very slightly higher than in the last 2 years.

www.tes.com/news/ib-results-day-2020-coronavirus-rise-average-score-worldwide

That is nice and positive Millicent. I hope you don't mind. I went over and put it on the IB thread where there was a bit of moaning going on so they could see they were exceptions rather than the rule.

@Monkey2001 - the school DS1 attends has received very good IB results (they offer both IB and A Level) better than last year and their points average is 41+ . Maybe those who are disappointed are more inclined to post on TSR etc?

Or more worryingly those who’s individual expected grade was out of line with schools historic results. I really hope that’s not the case but some of the drops seem excessive.

Hopefully there will be some analysis coming out. It would be interesting to know how much impact the historical context has had - have there been many schools with results which were significantly different from the last couple of years? Consistently high performing schools were always likely to be OK and most schools offering IB in the UK are private, so maybe the UK students were protected by that a bit.

@SeasonFinale people on other sites referred to teacher predictions, so I don't know whether they meant CAGs as they may not have been given them.

Exeter DD got her "welcome to Exeter " email well before she knew her results last year.

Dd1 knew before picking up her results that she was in. Hoping for same with Dd2.