University 2020 :6: The one with the results at the end

[MillicentMartha]

Hopefully as the title suggests we will actually get up to results on this thread! Only 5 weeks to go.

Old thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/3918392-University-2020-5-Results-day-approaching-and-beyond?pg=40

@MillicentMartha thank you she is delighted and it is what she got in her prelims ( mocks) so would have been disappointed otherwise. Will pop back on A level results day to wish you all well.

@Alittlewornout Fantastic result for your DD!

@Alittlewornout great news! I might look at Scotsnet but I get too homesick...

I'm quite twitchy about next week's results. DD's school hadn't even done mocks so it will have been based only on assessments... no idea how she'll have done, although they'd finished all of pre-U so that should be ok (expecting an M2 or M1, D would be amazing but not likely). Luckily she has an exam on Saturday that she is madly revising for (dance teaching exam) so she's barely thinking about it.

Hmm . . . we've had an email confirming how A level results will be delivered by email and it says that students will not be able to ask for their centre-assessed grades until early September?

Surely that can't be right? If you were wanting to 'appeal' to check in case a mistake had been made you'd need to know what the CAG was first, surely?

What have other schools said?

Just caught up on the thread, it is all getting real now. Feeling more and more anxious by the day.

Appeals can only be made in cases of bias or error in process. The school's will knkw if there is an error in process anyway. You cannot appeal merely because you disagree with a centre assessed grade.

However I would suggest asking them for it if unhappy on results day. However if your DC is 18 they have to do this. I would suggest that you are asking them to voluntarily provide this information as you are sure they won't want to go to the effort of providing info under a formal SAR. However they do have 40 days to respond to a SAR.

The date for entering Autumn A Levels is 4 September I believe. Therefore you can also frame it as what was the CAG? Ie. is it worth taking the October exam?

Thanks @SeasonFinale. Yes - that was my thought about Autumn Exams - surely you'd want to know what the school had submitted before deciding to take an exam?

Everything I'm seeing seems to be about dissuading students from even considering autumn exams - is this the case? Very hard for students who feel they have been unfairly disadvantaged by the system though. And how on earth would they ever be able to prove there had been bias with no information about ranking available.

What is a SAR?

A subject access request ie..the legal framework under which they have to give you the information. It is time consuming for them so much better for them to just give the grades. They can however only give rankings if it does not specifically identify other pupils so for small cohorts it won't be available.

Appeal deadline is 17 September
Exam entry (A level) is 4 September but we are saying end of August about school for internal deadline. We still don't know what the fees will be.

I think just start off with a friendly approach along the lines of so we can consider worth sitting can you let us know did the final grade match what was submitted or has it been subject to moderation. If moderated you may think this is an easier decision as to whether to resit. If it matched maybe a conversation about whether realistically sitting would bring it up. Remember they keep the better of the two grades. Remember also that unis are supposed to be looking at results leniently when deciding places.

You/your DC may be happy to just move on if they miss what they wanted (ignore grade levels required) but still have their uni place.

I think we are anticipating more requests to take gcses than A levels.

I would suggest that you are asking them to voluntarily provide this information as you are sure they won't want to go to the effort of providing info under a formal SAR

Hopefully they will be keen to help if the CAGs were moderated downwards leaving a university offer in limbo. It's far better for the 6th form to speak to the uni to help secure a place than to have the hassle of tests in October.

Am I understanding the news correctly just now that in Scotland, 25% of students have seen their CAGs lowered? But how did they know what the CAGs were (because weren’t these supposed to be different to predicted grades)? Despite this, overall grades and pass levels are higher than average - so this suggests CAGs must have been very over-optimistic?

All getting real now!

DD wants to know how likely she is to hear the night before about her uni place? Do most know before they get their results?

C1arity I don't think the students know if theirs have been lowered from the CAG - isn't it just the board saying that 25% have had their grades lowered from what was submitted to realign 'optimistic' predictions from across the board?

I'm hoping this will be similar for A levels - a slight rise in overall grades.

Scotsnet is full of analysis. Does seem like certain schools were moderated in dif ways although overall grades were up. It has made dd nervous.

Presumably they have the chance to “retake” in Scotland too if they’re not happy with the grades?

Yes, I’m sure the statistics in the rest if the UK will follow this pattern.

Last year DD had her "welcome to Exeter " email well before UCAS was live. It probably came through round 7am

Newgirls - well if it is the case that students from low achieving schools have found their grades disproportionately moderated down, this would seem very unfair.

Are there any instances of grades being moderated up, I wonder?

There is no autumn exams for Scottish students to ‘retake’ they have to wait until the next exam diet which doesn’t help those in 6th year who will have left school. Also Scottish universities often ask for highers sat in one sitting, so if your grades are achieved over two years (i.e you use 6th year to retake) the better universities probably won’t offer you a place, or will ask for something v difficult to achieve if your 5th year results are not close to a clean sweep of As.

Of the grades that were moderated only 6% were moderated upwards.

7am for Exeter - I think she was hoping day before 😬

Does anyone have a sense if uni offers were ok in spite of being moderated down? I do hope so.

Sorry - don't know if it was here, or on another thread, but someone said their DS's offer had been changed to 'unconditional' on UCAS a couple of days before results were announced - presumably once the unis receive them?

Getting UCAS messages before actual results can be a mixed bag - DS1 had a message from his first choice about 7am offering him a DIFFERENT course, which meant we knew he hadn't met his offer .

DH, who hadn't been involved at all, was getting all pompous and saying "oh, there must have been some mistake, we'll sort it out" and I had to elbow him and give him a 'look' to shut up, as I realised what had happened!

Divoc insteresting intel.

Did that mean he hadn’t got his second choice either? Did he get to choose between them?

Do we know if the uni get the a level and higher results at same time?

@Newgirls - I'm pretty sure the first choice uni has an opportunity to accept the candidate with grades lower than the offer, or to make a 'counter offer' of a different (but perhaps related) course. If the student doesn't accept the counter offer, but meets the criteria for their insurance offer I think it defaults to that.

For my DS1 (this was two years ago), his first choice uni offered him a very different course (e.g. wanted Maths, was offered Physics) so he rejected it as he REALLY didn't want to do that course. He didn't have a lower insurance offer so went into clearing and got a good Russell Group uni place thankfully.

Ah that makes sense thank you

The Unis already have the Scottish Higher results and get the A level results on Friday.
UCAS will close again on Friday until 13 August whilst they deal with A level results so updates on UCAS will between now and Friday and then nothing until 8am on 13/8.