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Original poster

Are Firsts the new 2:1?

272 replies

Cranmer · 20/07/2020 17:15

Over the last 2 years we have had 6 nieces/nephews/God children and family friends graduating. Without exception, everyone of them has received a first. The courses range from nursing, graphic design to engineering and geography. The highest A level grade any of them achieved was a B and they all went to ex-poly type universities.

When I went to university back in 1994, there was 200 on my course and not a single First awarded. Are students just more able? Are 2:1s seen as good degrees still? Why are so many Firsts awarded now?

OP posts:
katy1213 · 20/07/2020 19:53

Does anyone still get a third? It was almost impossible even back in my day (the 70s) but those who were likely to under-achieve to that extent were usually thrown out at the end of the first year.
Nobody on my course got a first. I don't think you could swot to a first, you had to have something original to say. I didn't, hence the 2(i).

MarchingFrogs · 20/07/2020 19:57

Both Oxford and Cambridge gave more than a third of their students 1sts

Yes - and Oxford even has the Norrinton Table to celebrate how many Firsts each college awards...

Bluntness100 · 20/07/2020 19:58

When I was at university, 20+ years ago, this was definitely the case. Friends regularly got 90+% in maths assignments. Top marks in essay based assignments in other subjects were 75% max

That’s interesting , I was thinking maybe that’s why maths statistically has the highest amount of firsts and law statistically the lowest, one is either factually right or not, and the other is highly subjective and about building arguments etc. Possibly the least and most subjective degrees out there.

Piggywaspushed · 20/07/2020 19:59

My DH did to be fair and DS could. Both due to doing bugger all work and , in DH's case, the wrong course....

My housemate got a first. Stayed up all night working and is now a very highly paid lawyer.

My tutorial partner also got one and is now a film director! Another tutorial partner who got one writes for The Times and is a author, too.

These people were the truly brilliant.

I still think it stands that students work harder , assessment methods have changed so it's not all crammable exams, and criteria are clearer. I had a tutor who simple would not tell us what he expected us to do. In the end, anyone he favoured got a first for that module.. I do think those days have gone.

ElizabethinherGermanGarden · 20/07/2020 20:01

I proofread a friend's daughter's final dissertation and I really worried about it - I thought she might be in for a third or a 2:2 at best. She got a first for the dissertation and for the degree as a whole. She's a bright, sparky girl with a huge amount to offer the world and she seems like a 'first' kind of girl, so if I hadn't read the work closely I would not have been surprised, only impressed. As it is, I'm astonished at the standard set. It wasn't any better than a normal-ish extended project qualification essay.

Piggywaspushed · 20/07/2020 20:05

Oh yes and, also, league tables. Universities are judged on how many 2:1s and 1sts they award.

goodbyestranger · 20/07/2020 20:13

Bluntness if all law was highly subjective it would render it useless, in the main. I think you're overstating the case. You need to be able to see the various sides of an argument in law, which is not the same thing at all as it being subjective.

polkadotpjs · 20/07/2020 20:13

A 1st was a mythical achievement in my degree (languages) and few got them in subjects with right/ wrong answers like maths. 2:1 felt like a great achievement and 2:2 was good solid degree too. Now all our interns seem to get a 1st...I'm not bitter as I was a student during the fabulous 90s. Can't better that!

Hardbackwriter · 20/07/2020 20:22

I had a tutor who simple would not tell us what he expected us to do. In the end, anyone he favoured got a first for that module.. I do think those days have gone.

I think this is true, too. I did get a first, and from Cambridge but I always felt that it wasn't that I was particularly brilliant but that what I did have - and this was a huge advantage - was an innate sense of what we were supposed to be doing and what they were looking for. Other people seemed to really struggle to see what they should be doing in exams in particular (which was how almost the whole degree was marked) and just start reeling off facts, which I could see wasn't right. But we were essentially never explicitly told what to do or how to do well. I was there in the mid-2000s and I think outside of Oxbridge that was unusual then, and I agree that it's totally gone now. Even Oxbridge students expect to be given some guidance and not just to be expected to get on with it on the grounds that people have been muddling through for the past 1000 years so why start being helpful now?

Piggywaspushed · 20/07/2020 21:07

Mine was simpler that that, tbh. This was an essay writing subject and he wouldn't tell us what to write it about. So we all guessed. I wasn't even after how to write it!

I don't think many students would put up now with the very blatant reasons why some students got firsts!

burnoutbabe · 20/07/2020 21:18

I don't know, I do law and it's really not clear how to improve a 2.1 to a first. Maybe due to strikes etc, we haven't had feedback on coursework until same time as exams and exams get no feedback bar a mark so you really don't know what it is you missed to get a first (I got lots of 68ish)

most of our grade is for exams but no feedback on our exam answers (which had horrendously tight word limits due to being 24 hour open book ones.

Peaseblossom22 · 20/07/2020 21:20

@goodbyestranger the same glass box I imagine. (Palace Green?) I have a vivid memory of waiting to look at the first year results with someone who was demoted to a pass degree , he was easily the hardest working of our friendship group but was clearly doing something wrong. He was devastated but no one helped or guided you just muddled through 🙁

Northernsoullover · 20/07/2020 21:26

I go to a 'lesser' University. My course doesn't exist in RG universities and despite being only a second year (going into final in Sept) I've managed to get a temp job in the industry I'm studying for. So for a lesser university I'm not doing too badly.
I think more people are getting firsts because we have to work harder. Graduate positions are not entertaining anyone with a 2.2 so we have all had to pull our finger out aiming for a 2.1 has left me with the side effect of finishing my year on a first. Hopefully I can carry it on into my next year.

goodbyestranger · 20/07/2020 21:43

Haha yes that same glass box Peaseblossom, exactly! No notice of when which subject would come out either

burnoutbabe · 20/07/2020 21:54

Ah yes I remover the glass noticeboard back in 1994 when I did my first degree. Think only 3 people got a first out of my 200 or so doing accounting.

bottleofbeer · 21/07/2020 00:01

Yeah, stick your name on the paper. First guaranteed.

ErrolTheDragon · 21/07/2020 00:01

Both Oxford and Cambridge gave more than a third of their students 1sts.

Cambridge engineering has a policy of no more than 30% firsts.

caringcarer · 21/07/2020 00:42

I graduated from Warwick in 1993 and on my course there were 176 students and two got first. I got a 2:1 and I think there were only 27 others with that grade. Most got 2:2 and 3 got 3rds or without Hons.

Now most seem to get 1sts.

The Trent started with GCSE though. I got 100 per cent on my English Language. I got an A grade, that was highest grade. A few years later you had to get 95 per cent to get an A . Yes it still pissed me off. I also got an A at A Level before the A came in. Just how it is now. Grade inflation.

caringcarer · 21/07/2020 00:48

A star, asterisk did not work.

Pippilangstrumpfie · 21/07/2020 08:14

Grade inflation has been happening with GCSEs, A levels and Uni degrees for years!

Employers know this and a therefore a 2:1 today has less value than one from 1995 for example.

coronabeer23 · 21/07/2020 08:33

In 1995 at my RG uni firsts were rare and unique. On my course there was one first -and the rest split evenly between 2:1 and 2:2

burnoutbabe · 21/07/2020 09:16

@caringcarer

I graduated from Warwick in 1993 and on my course there were 176 students and two got first. I got a 2:1 and I think there were only 27 others with that grade. Most got 2:2 and 3 got 3rds or without Hons.

Now most seem to get 1sts.

The Trent started with GCSE though. I got 100 per cent on my English Language. I got an A grade, that was highest grade. A few years later you had to get 95 per cent to get an A . Yes it still pissed me off. I also got an A at A Level before the A came in. Just how it is now. Grade inflation.

I was annoyed about that regarding GCSE's

I would have got an A STAR i said if they had been around when i was a lass i said when asked what i got.

So i had to put money where mouth is and sit one at 45 (last year of A-G) . Luckily i got an A STAR. unfortunately i enjoyed it (was law GCSE) and decided to go back to University to carry on studying law. that will teach me to do daft things!

Hardbackwriter · 21/07/2020 09:38

All the people saying that one person in 100 or whatever got a first on their course in the mid-90s: either you've misremembered or your course was unusual, because 7% of students got firsts then, around 1 in 12, so it was a smaller number than now but really not vanishingly rare.

Pippilangstrumpfie · 21/07/2020 10:34

7% is more like 1 in 15, so not very many!