How on Earth do a level lower achievers get to uni with the grades that are being asked?

[NCTDN]

If I wanted to go to uni now, I'd have no chance. In my day, I needed three E grades to get into teaching, from which I've had a fabulous career.
DD is very lucky and looking at places asking for 3As (Not teaching) but I'm so shocked at how high everywhere asks for. I went to what was primarily a teacher training college and even that is asking for 3 alleged at grade b.
So my question is, what do teenagers do these days if they get grades C D or E? It must be so disheartening.

Can do a foundation degree . You will get posters now talking about grade inflation and how students with those grades shouldn't be at uni. You are right though. In many areas there aren't now 18 year old school leaver jobs. DS1 has grades only a bit better than what you cite and is at uni studying politics.The grades in the prospectus aren't always what students have.

I am trying to persuade a boy I teach to look at foundation degrees as he is determined to go to uni. He is worried about tge extra year of fees.

I was wondering the same. My degree asked for 2 Cs or 3 Ds.

Same degree now asks for BBC. Doubt it's massively more intellectually challenging

In c.1990, when I was applying, A* grades didn't exist - and to get AAA was really quite something out of the ordinary.
Back then you could go pretty much anywhere apart from Oxbridge on BBB-BBC. I had a host of offers from what we now call Russell Group universities at those grades. They were pretty decent grades back then.
Nowadays you would need AAA-AAB to get into those same universities.
I think that A* have created grade inflation.

Back in 1994 you only needed 3B to get into medicine

Prince Charles went to Cambridge on BCN I believe, so it was possible .

I think A is the new B.

DD got poor grades due to poor mental health & just not really "getting it". She did a degree at a"lesser" uni, by the time she got to the 3rd year she was flying & then did a masters. She was a late developer but she got there in the end.

I failed my A levels spectacularly. Did an access course a few years later and now I'm in my second year of a degree. I think the access course only needed English and maths GCSE at C or above. Funded if you're under 21.

It was also much easier than my A levels and also better for being used to the style of my degree course.

Basically what we're grade Bs back in the day are now grade As.

Foundation degrees exist as do foundation years.

Being blunt though if you get 3 x Es uni isn't for you - at least not yet. Many do mature a lot in their early 20s and do well with Access courses though, so no kid should write themselves off aged 18 with 3 x Es.

What universities put as their “typical offer” and what they actually accept on results day are often two very different things. I’ve seen places make offers of AAB and then take CCD. I’ve even heard of students with UUU offered a place with a foundation year. It’s a buyers market and universities are mostly desperate for bums on seats. Apart from medicine/dentistry etc. and a few really competitive units and courses the grades accepted are nowhere near as high as universities want you to believe. As UCAS advisers we now have access to data on what grade universities actually took students with last year. It’s quite an eye-opener.

I still have my original prospectus from the mid 1990s and was shocked to read the grades allowed for decent courses including radiotherapy and Prosthetics etc.

I agree with A being the new B, but even so, I doubt that teaching degrees are much different to when I was there. Lots of my teacher friends got into college with 2 Es. So even a lower offer of 3 Cs is ridiculous. Poor kids- the pressure is phenomenal.

@MadameMinimes you're a ucas advisor?

To be honest if they can't get the required grades then they will struggle in uni. Best to save the money or try for a course they can get on. There are other routes than ALevel. BTechs are excellent for some students and will open up many, many uni courses.

If a uni is asking for three As and the student is only capable of getting 3Cs then they are very unlikely to last the distance on the course. And, dare I say it - it really isn't beyond most sixth form students to get an A or B f they work hard enough.

In addition, far more teenagers go on to uni than they did 20 or more years ago so it isn't really more difficult to get on courses. There are far more unis and far more courses. There are lots of courses out there willing to accept students with a couple of E grades. In fact there are a growing number of uni throwing out unconditional offers, so students can get in regardless of how they actually perform at A Level.

I’m a head of sixth form. I have a UCAS adviser login though.

Any university that makes offers of CCC will accept students with a lot less than that in reality.

Bomb a levels, then do an access course, get straight distinctions.

With a good 40% of school leavers going to university, it’s clearly easier to get in now. Far more universities for a start with the addition of the 1992 group.

A level grades have varied a great deal and teaching has improved by a huge amount so DC do get better grades.

Teaching is now a degree level job. It wasn’t earlier and neither was nursing. Times change. EE grades at A level now clearly shows dc was on the wrong course and badly advised. Hopefully not teaching at a secondary school in this day and age. How could you teach A levels with EE?

My friend went to med school with CCD back in the day! Husband did a degree with BCD which posters now say you need further maths and A*AA! The exams have been restructured and people back then rarely got AAA (my dsis did). Just a tiny handful at a grammar school. Lots at DHs grammar did 2 A levels. He has the school magazine with results to prove it. This allows pupils to do accounting, be employed as civil servants, be employed at a bank and train to be a teacher so it was fine. It also got you into a polytechnic for a degree with good employment prospects.

There has been such a huge grade inflation that E grades in the 1980's will be more like B grades today - the numbers sitting A levels have increased in addition to this. The percentage going to university has increased massively - I'm not convinced A level grades reflect ability or suitability for courses at all

@Zandathepanda they didn't have N in those days.

My DD did a Btec in health and social care, qualified as an OT two years ago and has just been promoted. She is living her best life. Many of her friends who did A'levels struggled at uni, changed courses and/or left or finished but are now struggling to get work in their desired area.

I went to Oxbridge with ABB in late 1980’s. 3 A’s was really boffin territory in those days. One or two A grades was (she says modestly) really very unusual. It’s a different universe now, far more universities exist, much more expectation that most kids will go to some kind of higher education (it was a much smaller percentage back in the day - far more normal to go into an entry level
Job which would now be dressed up as a graduate position)

My dsis wasnt a boffin. School never suggested she tried for Oxbridge! I think she took A levels in 1982!