High grade students being rejected. Is this fair?

[mids2019]

www.theguardian.com/education/2022/jun/11/first-post-covid-school-leavers-face-fight-for-fewer-university-places

Is.this situation going to continue if we don't have grade deflation. Are more universities going to be forced to interview or to require supplementary exams?

I see CVs from people who get 3 A's in their A levels state (no A star available at this time or before A*s) It must really bug the shit out of them that their A's now look a bit average.

Interviews and assessments are a much better indicator of passion and talent for a subject than school subject grades

Agree or has the issue of grade inflation arisen since ASs were stopped? Previously candidates had to submit AS results, this included the actual marks rather than just the grade so Unis could see who scored the highest exam result.

However I think this article may be misleading, as already mentioned those Unis require MAT and a low result will bar any applicant from an offer. You can get an A star in A level maths but 20% in the MAT. Students won't know their result unless they request the mark.

This is a very MN discussion not to focus on the WP angle. This boy sounds remarkable. A FSM pupil with a year 12 A star already in the bag and more predicted? That's a feat.

More unis don't interview because, no matter how Oxbridge may try to control it, interviewing tends to advantage the already advantaged group.

DS's friend applied to similar unis with all A star predictions and all 8s and 9s at GCSE. Again only got an offer for his last choice until, at the 11th hour, an offer from Warwick came in. Prior to that, he was planning on reapplying.

It sounds a bit unfortunately Katherine Birbalsingh to suggest working class pupils should put up with lower levels of aspiration. Nothing wrong with reapplying with grades in hand.

For Bath at least the MAT is part of a potential reduced offer, not part of entry requirements.

Yes it's fair. You have to beat the other candidates. Or you go to a different university.

That's always been the case.

A FSM pupil with a year 12 A star already in the bag and more predicted? That's a feat.

Is it really that remarkable? Lots of students, whether FSM or not, have an innate ability for Maths. They find Maths and FM relatively easy.

It didn’t feel easy at all when I took A levels a few years back. It was a lot of effort to get even 70% due to the amount of content that needed memorising. In the US getting 90-100 percent is necessary for top marks (at least at the uni level, but I think it’s the same at schools) but that’s because it is easier to get those marks on their exams.

I don’t think the answer is to break marks down into percentages- the most neurotic students will start aiming for 100%. Clearly grade inflation does not benefit anyone, though.

I had a series of breakdowns during my A levels so that may colour my understanding of this!

Dc1 is doing his A levels atm.

i think this year has been particularly hard. People been rejected when they had the grades (and over !) expected for that University.

One who was rejected from all the Uni they applied for bar Oxford. I mean some of those were AAA type of Universities and the predicted grades were AAAA (perfect for Oxford) so why rejecting that candidate?

There is something else going on this year but students are left in the dark both because a lot if the answers were VERY late. But also because there was rarely a reason been given as the WHY they were rejected.

A FSM pupil with a year 12 A star already in the bag and more predicted? That's a feat.

It doesn't say when he got the A*. He could have been competing with students who got better grades sitting 4 exams in one sitting. I always thought competitive courses and unis valued one sitting more.

@TheMarzipanDildo - I think the choice is between harder/additional exam (eg MAT, STEP, UKCAT etc), percentile marking (for top grades) or interview.

percentile marking is probably the easiest to do and may reduce the additional testing being required by more and more unis

The young man in the article might have the grades but may have simply not had a strong enough personal statement, school reference or interview compared to other candidates.

The problem is that all those massively favour children coming from a better off background rather than the FSM student in a deprived area.

Eg it will be harder for them to get some work experience. Teachers might have no idea how to word things for Oxford etc… because so few students ever apply there etc…. They won’t be guided as well as students from better iff areas and so on.

Not applying to any of those particular universities but I know two students who had better predicted grades than the minimum required for their courses and didn't get offers. I think as unis had to take in more than expected students in 2020 that has had a knock on effect in the spaces they have now.

They are top universities and popular courses - there's not enough places for every applicant with high predicted grades. They also look at GCSEs and also at mitigating factors. I'm guessing he's just unlucky. My dd needed a*aa for her course which is similar to computer science, she got it

I don't understand why he doesn't go to the University of Liverpool it is still A RG University. I also feel he's not been advised great in his choices, due to the Russell Group offering scholarships for more deprived students who are extremely bright like himself. He could have done that year12 and got his name in first before year 13 completed the courses and shows on ucas like others will have in the same situation. If Oxford is his dream school I hope he gets it next year, but Liverpool is still under RG.

Oxbridge don't care the PS.

Well, that is definitely not true.

DS currently doing his A levels ( fm, maths and physics.). Predicted grades A A, A. Did not have a full compliment of 8/9's for GCSE ( 6, 7, 8's and 3 x 9's) but got 5 offers including Warwick and Cambridge. He has done non stem GCSE and A Level under exam conditions which they seem to rate ( interview Cam)as it showed he can work under pressure apparently ...

It feels a v unfair year as his GF who always consistent got the highest grades, done all the right work experience, written pappers and only got one offer.

I think it's obviously impossible to get a perfectly fair system but as the proportion of A and A stars increase then the 'lottery' element for oversubscribed courses increases......surely this is not a good thing?

Reliance on personal statements is risky as there is no way to absolutely determine the applicant is the author and there is a debate to be had about interviews and unconscious bias.

Forcing RG unis to become Oxbridge 'lite' in selection has its issues in my opinion as it takes a great deal of resource to interview and to scrutinise work if the applicant in parallel to A level results.

If university entrance is competitive then ultimately A levels need to reflect relative ability and not an absolute (though there are strong arguments for an absolute standard)

It would be interesting to know the ramifications of basically fitting A levels results to a normal distribution and in such a way remove any increase in average as ability due to I successive cohorts becoming more intelligent in as n objective sense .

Blimey sounds brutal these days!

My dc is going to get 3Bs predicted I think, maybe BBC (deservedly, he's not put much effort in until now). However he's unexpectedly got into his A level subjects and now does want to go to Uni. Is there any point even applying with those predictions? Obviously he's not bothering oxbridge or Durham etc and wants to do a fairly generic subject that you can do everywhere but will the mid/lower ranked tier unis even look at him with 3Bs?

We just had a system whereby there was a cut off number, say 156, and everyone above got in

If many more tried to enter then number would likely go up

@mids2019 - if we did that then we should only do relative marking for the top tail. We want a minimum absolute standard - so that the largest number of able candidates to be deemed suitable for courses or jobs. But we want a relative mark to identify the highest performing candidates.

Otherwise - if you do relative for everyone, then you will be consigning some people to failureneach year.

I wonder whether the chaos that surrounded the grading of GCSE’S in 2020 is having a knock on effect for this years A level students and will probably effect next year as well. So far they have yet to sit an exam. Maybe many places will open up through clearly when universities will have solid evidence of a candidates ability. Fortunately DS takes his A levels next year when we will have more information regarding the universities intentions.

Sadly this young man is a victim of the ridiculous grade inflation....and so many students now have 3 A or 3 As so of course they cannot all do the courses they want at uni.

How do you know he's a victim of grade inflation? He might be a beneficiary of grade inflation. He might be a student who would have got As and Bs by pre-2019 standards.

Don’t think grade inflation started in 2019!