Teachers or those in the know - predicted grades??

[followtheyellowbrick]

So, new to this and DC is getting nearer to the stage of having to think about uni applications.

I was somewhat surprised to learn that uni applications are not always based on mock exams in Y13 but on 'predicted' grades but that how these are produced seem to vary from school to school.

Looked online and found an interesting study on teachers' predictions of their students' A-levels, and it seemed that the factors taken into account, in order of most to least were: Mocks, Commitment, Quality of Work, Student Interest and Other Assessments. Intriguing that the fairly 'subjective' Student Interest and Commitment were that high!

In your experience, what do you use to make predicted grades?

With modern IT systems, I wonder why we cannot compress the process so that offers are made against actual grades

Because the marking of the exams is the time consuming part, and you can't make humans faster.

@Jaxx yes that is a system that sounds fair and straightforward to me. Realise it is what it is, but surely that would cut down on so much process/admin and heart ache for both admissions, unis and students?

@missinglalaland Yes, I also think with tech/IT/AI available, there must be a way around it. And not to mention the time it must take for unis to try to provide contextualised offers to balance things out when perhaps basing on actual rather than predicted would be the best way to help those from disadvantaged backgrounds?

Over 80% of predicted grades are incorrect. In most cases they are too generous.
This is because whilst a school can often be roughly sure about what % across the year group will get different grades, it’s not possible to be entirely accurate about which individuals will get them. Therefore, it’s right that if someone has a decent chance of getting a higher grade, they should be predicted it. This always means some students won’t achieve it and is why more students don’t achieve as high as predicted.

At the upper levels, someone predicted 3 A stars is unlikely to come unstuck if they then achieve one Astar and 2 As because few if any courses ask for 3 A Star as part of their offer. For a student predicted 3As, it is important to have an offer which is lower or to know that their top offer is from a place that often takes students with less than their offer, when it comes to results day.

At the Exeter Open Day, they talked about ranking student applications. Those with 3 A star are the top tier, and then they work down. They will make offers until they have no more places to offer….of course they over-offer as everyone they offer to won’t accept the offer. The individual year and number and quality of applicants will determine how low they can go with their offers. This is a reminder that having predicted grades of the standard offer, is the absolute minimum required for the popular courses. There will be lots applying who have higher predicted grades. However, lots of them might prefer a more difficult place to get into anyway. Sometimes when figures start emerging for how many firm acceptances, insurance acceptances and rejections the uni receives, they will make further offers.

There are times when schools get it totally wrong and seriously under estimate a student, but these are not hugely common…far more likely the school will be overly optimistic. But of course, every student and their parent is sure that they are that student who will do loads better than people think, and that the evidence from the previous years doesn’t reflect what will happen in the final exams.

It is a shitty system, without a doubt. Yes, students can apply post results, reapply, resit etc etc, but it would be nice to have a system where they got their exam results and applied with concrete grades. But Infully understand the practical and political reasons why making the change hasn’t happened and won’t be happening anytime soon. We just have to get on with it as it is.

In terms of the accuracy of predicted grades, I doubt there’d be any significant change between basing them on the end of year 12 exams or on mocks held a term later.

@OhBeAFineGuyKissMe my daughter would laugh at that 'one hour outside for every hour inside the classroom'! More like ten! No way would she be getting the grades she is doing that little.
As to what would kids do if they took exams earlier, got results and therefore firm offers? I went to school in America. As there was no build up to one final exam, once we got FIRM offers to university in early Spring school just continued as normal. Many students don't go to university anyway, and you can't graduate with a high school diploma without finishing the year, so everyone does.
As for predictions, my daughter is likely to do better than predicted in two of her subjects. But she doesn't understand how she is predicted a B in History, in line with her past exams and essays, yet a classmate is predicted an A, despite having had very similar scores in previous exams and essays.
As it happens her uni acceptance is not dependent on getting particularly high grades (creative field where the portfolio carries far more weight). So less pressure on that score, and no angst about missing out due to not getting more accurate predictions. And she knows she's had every advantage - private school where Covid provision was excellent. She says she has no excuse not to do as well as possible, other than her own intellectual capacity.

@mmondaytosunday the difference between your DD and the other student may be GCSE scores.

GCSE scores often give a good idea of how candidates perform in stressful public exams.

Thanks @Phineyj but she got 8s snd 9s at GCSE. 8 in the subject in question. My daughter was new to the school at sixth form, the others all had the same teacher for GCSE, though I'd think that after almost two years they'd have the measure of her! Anyway, it irked her rather than really bothered her, iyswim!

@mondaytosunday Yes, I can see why that would be frustrating but glad to here your DD is not reliant on those top grades for predictions (even though it sounds as if she's well on the way to getting them).

@Phineyj but many schools do not seem to base A-level predictions on GCSEs. I've found out that at DC's school, GCSEs help you get into Sixth Form but after that they don't play a part in predictions. But given that there doesn't seem to be a standardised way of arriving at predictions, there may well be variation to this.

@mondaytosunday or could it be that as the teachers know she doesn't need those super high predictions, they 'allocate' them to those that do? I read somewhere on here that teachers can't give a whole class A/A predictions so if they know that some students, even though they're on for these top grades, don't need them, it would make sense to ensure the other students (equally able) get to bag those A/A predictions?

@WombatChocolate Thank you, very useful info!
@BiancaBlank I suppose that depends on when the mocks are taken; some, I believe, are in January of Y13, some earlier?