School refusing to predict grade required for son's preferred course

[buffbuff2020]

My son found out today that his History teacher is refusing to predict him the A he needs to secure an offer to study History and Arabic at Manchester. He's devastated and has asked him teacher to reconsider. We understnd why she won't, but this doesnt help!

As it stands, he is being predicted :
Businesss Studies - A
Ensglish Lit - B
History - B
Welsh Bacc - A

He is meeting the rquirements for all other courses on his list but the one he really wants is HIstory and Arabic. He's contact Manchester Univrsity and they have said they are happy to receive a seprate personal statement from him that covers th arabic aspect.

Should he throw in the towel no and not bother applying? They want ABB with the A being in History. is he wasting a choice if he puts them down as a choice without the required predicted grade?

Ah. I did wonder about that. I would go for it and see what happens. It’s only one choice.

Does your son think he will get an A (ie does he already pass all coursework in history with flying colours) if yes then apply.

If no, then see if you can get a private tutor to help pick up where he is lacking in the subject to appoint he is confident he will get an A on the exams.

Then apply in a couple of months.

Has his teacher given a reason why she won't predict an A, has she said it's because he's not on track to get an A. If so what does she/he suggest your son does to improve the grade.

Is the teacher able to say off the record what she thinks he might get based on how he is currently performing.

Failing all that could you not ask the head of history what grade he might get, explaining you need it for the application

@GoWalkabout

I don't understand why schools now let student choose their predictions really (well our school does). It seems to rather undermine the system which I suppose is a racket and unfair anyway and due for an overhaul.

I do not think this is common though? DDs sixth form college have put forward her mock exam results combined with other assessments on her UCAS application. DD did not get to choose them. Same with her previous school sixth form

We had it the other way round. The twins had AAAA in AS levels in lower sixth, school predicted three A stars at A level on UCAS (however we thought AAAs more likely and were worried they would be given too high an offer). Anyway in our case it was okay as they got AAA (and the other AAB - the B being the highest grade in the school for that subject)) and those were exactly their offers from Bristol so it was okay in the end.

I went to Manchester with AAB in 1979 but that is a long time ago and before A stars existed. That was my requirement (AAB) and that was what I got.

I’m surprised they are asking for such strict requirements, when I was at uni the offers were quite low for Arabic because it’s not that popular of a course (although some would say challenging, so they basically took on almost whoever wanted to apply with basic grades and then had a very high drop out rate in the first year 😅). I think he should still put manchester down as a choice, even without the required predicted because his actual grade could exceed that and tbh there is not a lot of choice out there for the course he wants. Aren’t there only around 6 or 7 unis who do Arabic in the first place?

I don’t know if this is a helpful comment but has he looked at Soas as well? Because the Arabic / History combination screams SOAS to me. It would be a good school for him to consider, obviously cost of going to uni in London is higher so that’s a consideration

@GoWalkabout

I don't understand why schools now let student choose their predictions really (well our school does). It seems to rather undermine the system which I suppose is a racket and unfair anyway and due for an overhaul.

I don't know anywhere this happens. My DP (sixth form teacher) is hugely proud of his reputation as an accurate predictor and would never let anyone persuade him to change his predictions (he's also always delighted if they exceed them so it's not pigheadedness). At my children's school too, they would not change their predictions on the request of a student/parent.

It’s not the Arabic that’s requiring the A. It will be the History. He’s not studying A level Arabic or a MFL so that bit is relatively easy! It will be History that is the competitive element. Arabic is taught at many higher ranking universities than Soas. It’s not necessarily the best. Just very obvious!

SOAS wants AAB for history and arabic, i have reservations about london. I think he might keep one choice back, apply later if he has no luck with manchteser in the hope that SOAS may drop grade requirements if not enough interest

They won’t tell you they are dropping requirements for A levels until after applications close. They won’t know. The prospectus will remain the same. The only time you really know they might be flexible is if the course ends up in clearing way after applications have closed. You might be able to check if this course at Soas has been in clearing most years, but if not I wouldn’t see how you could find out if they accept lower grades routinely. And if they do, why are they still asking for AAB? Soas isn’t a particularly high ranking university so I would check others out so he has choices that are a stretch and ones he could reasonably expect to get into.

I can’t tell you anything about that specific course but I can tell you about Manchester offers last year (my dc was accepted by them - not starting till next year as applied deferred).

Anecdotally they would have appeared to have made less offers (as did most places) after cancellation of A Levels. All tge offers I know of (quite a lot on a broad range of courses) were tge standard published offers (I don’t know any students who were eligible for contextual).

I know a couple of students who missed their offers by a grade (Manchester was their firm choice) and were rejected- everyone accepted met (or in most cases exceeded) their offer. Manchester had nothing in clearing (neither home or international).

Who’s to say what next year will be like but whilst a Uni may well make the standard offer to a student predicted lower I would assume they would reject the student if they don’t get the grades.

This year very much split into Uni’s with places in clearing and those who didn’t. Off the top of my head the following didn’t have anything in clearing:

Manchester, Bristol, Exeter, Bath, UCL, LSE, Imperial, Birmingham, Leeds and I’m sure many others.

Students picked things up in clearing from Notts, QMUL, Cardiff, Reading, Manchester Met, NTU, Liverpool amongst others (Notts in particular had a lot in clearing).

Good luck to your ds - Manchester is a great Uni and great city.