University 2020 :8: Use the CAGs, don’t use the CAGs...

[MillicentMartha]

...if you can use the mocks, then use the mocks but not if they're higher than the CAGs.

And hopefully on to university!

Old thread
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/3993327-University-2020-7-Results-tombola-roll-up-roll-up-pick-a-prize?pg=39

@Peaseblossom22 there are so many big things happening and changing at the moment that it hard for everybody, but particularly for these only-just-adults. A couple of months ago the rumour was that lots of people were asking to defer and the universities were saying no. Now it is the other way round.

DS1 is starting university from an unplanned gap year and very keen and ready to go. His gap year was very good for him even though he did not do much on the list. He earned some money before lock down, did not manage to learn to drive and did not do the singing diploma but he did learn to cook and grew up a lot and seems to think now that he is glad he had the gap year although it is not what he planned.

My opinion is that if a DC has not taken a gap year it would be worth seriously considering taking one now as university is going to be odd and there may be further lock downs. We don't know what halls will feel like, we know that lectures will be on line as will many tutorials. There are jobs available in shops and there will be plenty of tutoring opportunities.

The students will make the best of it, but it is difficult to see how it can be as good as it would be in a normal year.

Sorry, that is not what you wanted to hear!

Peaseblossom, if it helps at all, I have one on the other side of the fence! She didn’t apply to uni this year as she wanted to see how her A-levels panned out, and is now very much adrift while her friends plan their moving dates etc.

I don’t think she’d quite taken on board that practically everyone she knew would be moving on, while she hasn’t even visited universities yet. Specifically, she won’t have either new or old friends around on her birthday this coming term.

She very much needs a plan - and teenage company!

DS is certain that he wants to start this year, for academic reasons.

Since March he has had no educational input from school, and has studied independently every day over the last five months, working hard to keep his maths and further maths at the same level so he can hit the ground running when he starts a very demanding course. The last thing he wants to do is have to go it alone for another year without educational support.

He has realistic expectations about the blended learning (each week he'll have 12 online lectures, 4 face-to-face supervisions and several hours of lab work).

He was looking forward to joining an orchestra and a choir, but realises that won't happen this year.

Even before the pandemic, much of his socialising was done online, and he has never been interested in parties, drinking or clubbing.

@Ironoaks orchestras and choirs are not hopeless. Church of England has now approved choirs as long as appropriate distancing is in place and our local music hub is planning for orchestras to start in September. Easier for strings than wind or brass. What does your DS play?

DD is about to start a second gap year. It’s been very much her choice, and it’s complicated by the fact she wants be an actor.
A history degree was the back up plan, but with the combination of covid restrictions and a subject with few teaching hours, limited access to libraries, social spaces, freshers events/societies etc, she feels she would prefer to wait another year, keep plugging away at auditions, and reapply for History in the autumn.

It was difficult at first last year as her local friends pretty much all went to uni, and her school friends from her performing arts school were spread across the country.

However, she joined some musical theatre classes, got a part time job, and reached out to people that she kind of knew but not very well, and within a couple of months she had developed a whole new friendship group to add to her other friends.

I think there can be a real fear of missing out or somehow falling behind if you choose not to go to uni straight away, but a year of mixing with friends who are taking apprenticeships and college courses rather than going down the university route has broadened DDs perspective and given her much more confidence about her choices.

So at the end of this very long post, I think all I really wanted to say is, don’t stress about an unplanned, non- ‘gap-yah’ year or two out of academia. It all just sort of falls into place

@Monkey2001 He plays the clarinet...
He suggested a quartet, playing outdoors in the court, one person in each corner. 😂

Ha, Ironoaks, DS is an army musician in his spare time and they did pretty much that, round the outer edges of the barracks — but the neighbours complained!

Just an update. We thought there was chance that York might reconsider but the CAG were the same as the grades given last week. They've come back today and said they can only actually consider if he"d got his offer or exceeded it. That's after over a week of constant communication and not bothering to say something, I still maintain if school had got of their backsides last Thursday they would have taken him in clearing. Lazy bas*ds.
No right of appeal though I may launch a bias case just for the hell of it , because their grades were based on what they supposedly knew about him and how much class time he had missed.
He's got his insurance on his own merit through a scholarship exam, the school threw him under a bus

I hope he enjoys his insurance. Knowing that he is going somewhere that wants him on the strength of a scholarship exam will be such a confidence boost.

Sorry to hear that, Lightuptheroom. At least he’s got a good insurance who seem to have been quite proactive in recruiting him and for whom he’s been able to shine. Onwards and upwards.

Oh dear Lightuptheroom . On the bright side though it sounds like his insurance really wants him .

@Lightuptheroom I’m sorry that your ds didn’t get any joy from York. I have heard of two students getting offers from York after being rejected from Durham, after the Original A level results day so I think York was picking up extra students early on. I’m glad that he got his insurance. You must feel so let down by the school. What is his insurance uni? Hopefully he will be happy there.

And if it is any comfort in my day I was rejected by Durham and Bristol as my school under predicted by grades by a long way and I ended up with the best results in the school in the NE of England. I won a scholarship and then prizes at university on my degree and was just about top of year in law at Manchester and it was all fine in the end. I suspect Durham (I do choral singing etc of which i did loads in Manchester and Durham would have been more my vibe really) probably would have suited me more but it hasn't mattered a jot in the end. it all comes out in the wash although it seems really important at the time.

Omg. I’m gobsmacked.
Daughter was given Ofqual grade of BBB, then told CAGs were ABB. She then received an email with her final grades from school and it’s gone back to BBB. We queried this as we thought it was a mistake only to be told that the A on the CAGs was a typo error on the part of the exams officer!
I actually don’t know what to say....

What a nightmare.

Has she accepted a Uni place based on the A grade? Surely you must have some comeback if so

Ducky
Luckily she had an unconditional but it’s not the point. That’s a very serious administrative error.

He's going to Aberystwyth. Yes, we have been let down terribly by a school that claims so many things about their pastoral care, the same pastoral care they used to justify the low CAG, have learnt a huge lesson.

We too, feel deeply let down by DS's school. Their CAG cost DS a place at university. His CAG was not in line with his predicted grade in March or the predicted grade they have given him for his October exam. How does that work?

He now has to take a year out and reapply.

Ofqual chief Sally Collier steps down after exams chaos www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53909487

@Skerryberry exactly, I've asked school how can they predict one thing and then just a few weeks later provide something completely different, then because the government do a u turn and they get found out, claim it's all due to insufficient evidence. Classwork and homework are not part of the assessment of A levels. A levels are a linear exam. They didn't look at D's GCSE results, his predicted grades, mock exam marks or at any of his NEA, cost him his dream place and then bleat about non attendance (,which was documented on his records as due to bullying and resulting illness) but suddenly gives them 'insufficient evidence' for his grades which had actually been assessed in an external A level standard exam just 3 weeks prior to covid. Sorry, I know I sound bitter, the system absolutely stinks

A levels are a linear exam.

Coursework and NEA do form part of some A levels and should have been included. Unfortunately for DD they weren't at her school.

Her predictions given just a few weeks before CAGs were much higher than her CAGs. Her CAGs appeared to be based purely on the last set of mocks, which were nothing like the real thing. They didn't take not account any other evidence from what it appears - GCSEs, Year 12 mocks, homework, coursework so far, etc. They didn't include her NEA stuff - 60% of the grade in one subject. School were harsh - the school moderated the teacher grades before submitting them and the algorithm made these worse. But after the U turn we could also acknowledge that school were overly harsh in certain subjects.

DS also had 60% NEA in one subject, they didn't even look at it.

Its awful isn't it. It has had a big impact of grades.

If people have the energy for it, non-inclusion of NEAs may be grounds for appeal. The guidance appears to have been ambiguous, but quite a few exam centres did not use the NEAs in calculating CAGs, which is wrong. Some teachers on mumsnet have posted saying the NEAs should have formed part of the evidence for CAGs.

It is absolutely dreadful. From day 1 I said keep school open for GCSE and A level pupils and keep the exams going. they could easily have been run in huge halls well distanced. Let us hope this is the only year with this debacle ever and that those who got the wrong grade can sit their exams later this year (which is allowed) and prove their true worth.