University 2020 :7: Results tombola, roll up, roll up, pick a prize!

[MillicentMartha]

Well, it’s been a crazy few days.

Old thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/3962422-University-2020-6-The-one-with-the-results-at-the-end?watched=1&msgid=99082625#99082625

We do need to treat the small cohort thing with a pinch of salt. Music is a dwindling subject, with small cohorts,and, sadly, being axed in a lot of state schools. It is finding itself restricted to the very talented. To assume all smallish cohorts benefited isn't correct. My subject had 8 and 50 per cent of the grades changed! However, it is true that a largish percentage of schools offer my subject with cohorts of 5 or less. These are likely to be private schools because a state school won't run most subjects at A Level on less than about 6. But... DH's private school has just been handed its worst results ever, so it has happened! Lots of schools were hammered. I know they exist but I haven't heard yet of a school that is really pleased!

In my school ( year 13 of 300) , if you take out vocational subjects, 7 A Level grades went up. The bigger subjects were no more affected than the small ones. German , with a group of 5 and the alleged government uplift for MFL had two students downgraded, one from an A to a C.

It's all very unsettling for lots of students in lots of schools. There are some really sad individual results. It's a bit of a shitshow. I have seen some excellent letters to MPs.

DS seems to be outside all the thinking, small cohort in 2 subjects, yet still heavily moderated down, small independent so that didn't save him either!

Piggy those German results seem strange, I thought cohorts of 5 or less just got their CAGs.

I was not saying that it is a private v state thing. The local school which got their best music results for years was a state school with 7 entrants. It would be interesting to see the percentage downgraded by number of entrants and how many of the top grades went to small centres.

I saw that your grades had taken a big hit. What is your subject/board? Have you checked what happened to grade distributions in the board statistics?

No, I haven't done that. Don't know how to! I teach film, and often stats lump it in with Media.

My subject had a higher prior attainment This Year than last on average. I have the same CAGs as last year. The group size was identical! We had no group in 2018 but a huge cohort (32) in 2017. This underperforming year group skewed outcomes massively.

I think the class has to be 4 to be completely untouched.

Someone who has been through stuff with a fine tooth comb reckoned classes of about 8 to 12 were often the most affected. In a class of 8, one student is 12.5 % , so the exam board couldn't award my A and A * because their computer saw that as 25 % of the cohort. So , I got one A. And, yes statistically that us still 12.5% top grades, so on paper it sounds fine. But last year, we were on 25 % . It also has gone from 12.5 % D to E last year to 25 % this year. Never had that!! In theory, if they messed at the top end, they shouldn't by the same reasoning have allowed the percentage of Ds to go up so much.

I haven't read the A* to E pass rate anywhere?

Really cross with everything, even though the results weren't even dreadful.

Law took an absolute hammering in my school.

@sunglasses123

I honestly think some schools have seen it as an opportunity to big themselves up, potentially give their students a leg up and perhaps go to a university they wouldnt normally consider. That has spolit it for the rest of the schools that are trying to do the best they can.

The fantasy grading has resulted in all of this. If they really have some A* student in an Inadequate school (and I think there are very few students with these circumstances) then prove it, bring out the mocks, the reports, and evidence and then you have a much stronger case. However if you have no evidence and excuses for everything you are asked for surely you cannot blame the boards for letting the grade lie.

However if you really really think its not fair, do a gap year and then take the exams either next year or in Oct.

You just aren't getting it are you sunglasses123 ?

I have noticed that all your posts on this thread are negative and sneery. If you've nothing helpful to add, perhaps you could just go away ?

@TawnyPippit

I would be interested in how the “universities advised to be lenient/flexible” is working out in practice.

My DS missed his firm offer by 1 grade (offer AAB, assessed ABB). It’s a well known RG university. Place not awarded on track, which showed insurance. Firm would not take calls yesterday morning so he emailed them as advised by school (using their proper channels). Heard precisely nothing as of now. He’s good with his insurance, but its a bit crap if a university in difficult times cannot even engage with an offer holder

One of my son's friends firm was AAB. He was awarded BBB and his Uni have confirmed his acceptance. (This is a RG). So some Unis are being flexible.

@sunglasses123

If DDD has been given instead of AAA there is clearly something wrong. But in the nicest possible way that might be because the teachers overpredicted massively!

Otherwise appeal

Or maybe it's because they have been shafted by this algorithm?

My ds got BBD. The clearing grades asked for his firm choice are BBC. He is definitely one who has always done well but does lots in the last 3 months. College have submitted a mitigating circumstances form to the uni due to myriad health problems including ME. Uni are going to review his application. He is holding his insurance place and I am painting a pessimistic picture to him of his chances in this review. Places are still showing for this course through clearing so they must have capacity (uni has 20% international students usually).
Am I right to be pessimistic do you think? He has had so much hardship over the past 3 years I would give anything for a positive outcome, but the insurance place will be fine. To his credit, after some serious sobbing on Thursday morning (friends who he always did as well as or better than, outperformed him significantly) he is managing to be positive and seeing uni as another chance to prove his ability.

Piggy
I think the 'more D/Es than last year, less A/A*s than last year' question is to do with how the rounding works, best explanation I've found is here: twitter.com/A_Weatherall/status/1294012623776817158

Interestingly that thread also has an alternative explanation to the Whitley Bay type issue; suggesting (I think!) that the 'Prior Attainment' adjustment uses average (National) 'value added' and not the better 'value added' that places like WB have delivered. Which is another way that could happen (as opposed to the large cohort being adjusted down) but equally iniquitous.

Monkey Yes! The algorithm has replicated the inequality that already exists in the system. It would have been much fairer if the large cohort grades had been allocated and moderated to be in line with previous years. Then the remaining grades applied to small cohort ranks.

It appears as if the small cohort CAGs were awarded and the left over grades given to the remaining students. In effect putting a downward pressure on the large cohort grades because they applied the curve to the whole population.

Go Andy Burnham!

North, I hope your DS gets into his first choice, it really depends on where he has applied and if the course was over subscribed, my DS got his results last year and just missed his offer by one grade (BCC) needed BBC but was still offered the place at his first choice.

Fingers crossed for you both.

Monkey Yes!! My thoughts exactly, it is the only sensible conclusion to come to. I am so angry that the good fortune of those in small cohorts seems to have been to the detriment of others in larger cohorts whose grades have been kept down so as not to overinflated the averages. It's an absolute disgrace. His DSis holds a 1st class masters degree in DS's C result subject and DS had extra coaching from her so a C is incomprehensible. DS FM mark was the only one which matched CAG - very small cohort for that subject!

My DS is beginning to realise that he is very lucky, his AAB offer from RG uni has been upheld despite BBC results in the subjects that matter. He also has a B in FM but not sure how much weight that carries.

But are there enough small cohorts to swing it? Surely we’re talking a very small number of students.

Edinburgh uni wasn’t willing to reconsider dd2s. The person she spoke to was quite blunt and ‘tough luck’. She was one grade out and CAG was above what was needed.

@user1497207191 My DS had same experience. Offer AAA, actual result AAB. Russell Group uni. The B was not in the subjects he is hoping to study.

On phone for several hours on Thursday to Uni but couldn't get through. Emailed, also eventually managed to get them on the phone - was told no flexibility as the course is already full.

We had been advised by school that most Unis were likely to be flexible, but not in this case.

DS is gutted. He never got the chance to visit his insurance choice. Not sure he wants to go there. Still considering his options.

Oops my message should have been addressed to @TawnyPippit

This article is also very interesting and shows how the algorithm was biased to mark students down. sunglasses123 might want to read it?

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/aug/14/do-the-maths-why-englands-a-level-grading-system-is-unfair?CMP=share_btn_tw

@UntamedWisteria is there any chance he could head down/up to his insurance town today or tomorrow? Just seeing the layout of the halls/facilities/city centre might give him a bit more to go on?

I am shocked by how inflexible some unis are being we have heard of people With AAA offer being turned down with AAB with the A in the subject to be studied . And AAA with AAB and a relevant EPQ at A* also declined. Scotland for obvious reasons seem to have been especially inflexible.

However people praising some of the Oxford colleges; whilst I think it’s brilliant for the dc and absolutely right I don’t think we should be under any illusion that Oxford were entirely driven by moral issues. They were facing financial penalties if they didn’t improve their socio economic scores, they probably looked at the mix evolving and realised it was going to be bad both financially and from an access point of view and this has gone some way to dealing with the issue . Remember they didn’t make contextual offers to start with.

Durham in contrast could have been in a similar situation but made a lot of low contextual to High achievers and hopefully most will have made them despite the drop And they will still meet their access target .

It’s all a game with 18year olds at the centre . If this debacle has shown nothing else it illustrates why the university admissions system needs to change urgently.

Talking to other parents of DS’s friendship group, Bristol are coming up as absolute stars - in 3 or 4 cases boys phoned with a missing grade and were signposted to alternative courses - so a French + Politics course has changed to Straight French, a Zoology has changed to Biology etc. Parents v. impressed.

Peasebottom 22 not to dispute that financial decisions played some part, remember also that Oxford hold a lot of data on their offer holders from the admissions tests and multiple interviews that candidates undertake. I guess they can feel confident that their internal processes are robust.

Thanks for the link untamed. The irony of the treatment of F Maths students made me choke on my weetabix. When you think how many of the people who wrote the algorithm would have had F Maths you’d have thought the inaccuracy in ‘their’ subject would have been enough to show them things weren’t right. Here’s what it said:
Ofqual instead chose to focus on its own measure of accuracy – whether it was right “within a grade”. There, it performed better: 98.7% of English language marks were within a grade of the truth, though other courses including, ironically, further maths, were still wrong more than 10% of the time.

@Railingsohno

But are there enough small cohorts to swing it? Surely we’re talking a very small number of students.

That's something that I've been wondering about. On the face of it, that explanation does make sense.

But dd1's 6th form, for example, had 600 students doing maths. I believe they are disappointed with their grades.
If you take assumptions that the smaller schools had on average 10 pupils doing maths, then you need 60 schools to offset it. That seems unlikely to me that, especially in maths where even a small school might well have a large enough set to not count as small.

I think with the large schools, the asking to rank will have some odd discrepancies. How do you rank 600 pupils accurately? They were taught by about 10 different teachers and had 2 different teachers each.
I would be surprised if there weren't some mix up where Steven Green was mixed up with Stephen Brown.
However that doesn't explain the drop in overall results, which is where the answers need to be given.

I don't think this is a private/state thing. In our area the private seems to on average been hit harder than state.
If it is to do with small cohorts swinging it, then GCSEs should be much more fair because there will be a far smaller proportion of small cohorts. Has anything been said about percentage change of GCSEs yet?

@Gatekeeper

Dd downgraded 1 grade but still good enough for firm offer , so is off to Newcastle

My nerves are shredded..if I was at home I'd have bunged a tot of brandy in me coffee

She will have a grand time. DD is there and loves it. She has now moved into her second year house in Jesmond and enjoying herself with her housemates.