How were your DC's year 12 mocks?

[lifeturnsonadime]

What grades did they get and what will their predicted A Levels be? Do those match their planned universities?

Nope - and neither are the others I know of. State.

Well that’s your experience but that’s the system they use at my DC’s sixth form college.

Cool. Mocks v important here. Tbh I’d be a bit horrified if their chances of getting uni offers were mainly based on Y11 GCSE results.

It’s probably more than simply one aspect but as I understand things GCSEs are an important part of the way it’s calculated. I can see why some people wouldn’t like that but it acts in favour of my dc.

ALPs used to be used to calculate predicted grades for internal monitoring. It really really should not be used for UCAS grades. Honestly, this is most irregular!!

To give an example, with our ALPs like system, my entire A level class has predicted grades (we call them indicative grades) of A or A.... In reality their most likely grades go from A to D. Equally, people can outperform ALPs type grades.

Exeter are showing their courses on uni guide for 2024 - here's history for example, https://www.theuniguide.co.uk/university-of-exeter-e84/courses/history-ba-hons-2024-2ed2a418fbb7 - but their default view - 2023/Clearing - isn't showing anything. Its the same with a UCAS Clearing search - Exeter is returning 0 results.

As someone else whose DS is sitting on an AAA offer for Exeter and who was told by the Department Head that A*ABs for his course were rejected last year, I'm a little suspicious about the large number of clearing vacancies and grades on their website. Will be interested to see if they're still being advertised on 16th August.

Ahhh thank you ! I hadn’t realised it had defaulted to 2023 clearing.

if you go on the exeter uni website you can see all the clearing courses and clearing grades

Yes @Delphigirl - as I said below:

I'm a little suspicious about the large number of clearing vacancies and grades on their website

oh sorry I misunderstood.
what are your suspicions? that they aren't really available places? Why would they do that?

Agree a lot of kids underperform compared to GCSEs because A Levels are so much harder.

My DC has poor GCSEs for reasons that are too lengthy to go into on here but he has worked his butt off in year 12 and got 3 A*s in his year 12 exams.

Our school uses GCSEs to work out target grades but these can both be exceeded or unmet, the UCAS grade is not based on the target grade (the GCSE algorithm) but is based on what the child is actually working at at the point in time / and or the year 12 mock.

So a child with 9 A*s could be predicted 3 C's if that is all they achieve in year 12 even if the target grade based on GCSEs is higher.

I can't imagine why any school would base on GCSEs without any evidence of attainment either in the class or year 12 mocks. It would be setting the child up to fail.

It's done that funny formatting thing. DC got 3 A *'s in his mocks.

It should say a child with 9 A stars on the GCSE bit but you get my drift!

@lifeturnsonadime from what I can gather predicting grades is an art not a science. As I’ve said GCSEs being used for my dc has been good for them as they got mainly AA at GCSE. I was a bit worried about my older DC because they have a SpLD so had a patchier GCSE profile with 9/8/7 in some subjects but 5s in subjects impacted by their SpLD. It turned out Ok because he got into his first choice RG so he was happy as were we. Obviously there are different factors to also consider. I suppose in a small sixth form where the teachers know the students well it may be easier but in a huge sixth form college with over 2000 students they have to adopt a system where some hard evidence of past attainment needs to be looked at. Ultimately predicted grades are not usually accurate anyway. All that matters is the final grades. I must admit that I would be slightly nervous if my DC had three A in mocks. They would think it was in the bag. Well done to you dc and it’s good to hear they are progressing well.

Not sure how I’ve managed to make some of the text bold 😂 I meant to say DC has mainly A* A grades at GCSE.

The formatting on the site does that with the * character, very annoying.

i know what you mean about being nervous but my DC is very motivated, he broke up on Wednesday last week and has been working on getting his notes up to scratch and his PS ever since! I’m more worried about burn out than anything else.

He was a school refuser due to undiagnosed Sen and self taught GCSEs at home and just scraped the grades to get into our local 6th form, he is motivated because he’s experienced failure (in his eyes) before. The fact he even got through year 12 is a miracle. We couldn’t be prouder no matter the eventual outcome .

@LaDeeDa123 glad your DC did well and went to their chosen uni !

It’s really not the case that predicted grades don’t matter and all that matters is what you get.

Its all fine if you are going for an undersubscribed subject at a not popular uni or having a gap year and applying with grades in hand. Many aren’t.

Many in my DSs cohort last year had one or no offers out of 5 because the courses they went for were so competitive. No point in getting the grades if you don’t get an offer! These courses are never available in clearing either.

100% @Sycamorethanever and something my DS school failed to grasp - for popular courses, you need to have higher grades than the typical offer to 'enter the competition'

I just find it odd that:

1. The entry grades are so much lower than the typical offers in the main admissions cycles

1. None of these vacancies are showing up in an UCAS search of Clearing vacancies, not even for international applicants

Oh that’s super wierd. Maybe it is all a glitch. We need a kid to try and snaffle one in clearing. Who will volunteer?! 🤣

If you get higher grades than the ones you were predicted, you always have the option of applying the following year.

And competitive courses are always going to be - um - competitive. If students are only applying for competitive courses, they have been very badly advised.

Yes I deliberately covered that:
”Its all fine if you are going for an undersubscribed subject at a not popular uni or having a gap year and applying with grades in hand. Many aren’t. “

That’s wonderful @lifeturnsonadime The very best of luck to your DS.

There is a wide range between "undersubscribed" and "so competitive".

I think you're talking about scenarios where a course (say) typically makes offers of AAA but you need predictions of A star A star A star to actually get an offer. Then students at schools that make high predictions are advantaged over ones that don't.

There's still nothing to stop a student taking an (previously unplanned) gap year if they have their heart set on a very competitive course. Or simply settling for a less competitive but still very good university (one that takes students with say A star A A). Unfortunately the nature of very competitive courses is that some very able children don't get places there.

I did think universities had got wise to schools overpredicting and some of the "state school children are prioritised over private school children" rhetoric is fall out from private schools typically being more open to making those higher offers and an attempt to balance the books.

@Sycamorethanever schools give predicted grades in good faith and it’s not a precise art. I’m not sure what else they could do except advise a student to take a year out and reapply the following year.