What a shitshow A level marking and university admissions are this year

[IheartNiles]

We’re in England. Loads of students at high performing school have missed their grades. The Oxbridge shoe-in students didn’t get a single A star.

The concessions made to students in 3/4 UK countries is not a level playing field.

International clearing is offering competitive courses at BCC at Russell groups.

it’s a mess.

Or that gets the student to panic instead.

students who panic if asked a question in a different way are not top grade material

The two kids I know who did A Levels this year are both very happy with their results this year.

I'm sorry you have had a bad experience, but it is not universal, as your thread title implies.

Our experience here at where I work is that plenty of students have still done very well - DS did better than expected and was only 1 mark off doing even better than that.

I do think it's been hard for them, but equally having earnt these full A levels after being 'given' their GCSEs means they finally can say they've achieved fairly and comparably with previous years.

I think the grades should have gone back to the 2019 distribution last year, leaving the two non exam years as clear anomalies. 2022 has confused the issue, I think.

Don’t be a sore loser, OP. Bad example to set.

I've been dealing with Results Day fallout for nearly 20 years. To be fair, today felt very much like it was before lockdowns. In my unscientific, anecdotal, snapshot view, the individual triumphs and disasters today were certainly within "normal" parameters.

The grade boundaries differ in order to keep the proportion of grades roughly the same between exam boards. No skulduggery there.

High performing school here and all Oxbridge candidates got their places and lots of A*s.
So I don't think everywhere is having the same problem.

surely that is a good thing? Changing the style of questions ensures a clear differentiation between the students that read and understand and apply, and the students that just rote learn the type of question expected, and the standard answer?

No. Students srudy a course and shpuld be able to expect that the information they've been given about the scheme of assessment, the practice papers they've done and the way they have been taught to tackle exam questions are all accurate. The materials and textbooks produced for the exam boards to go with the course will all be gearing them towards the types of questions they will get.

It does sound as if this year's results are pretty brutal. Dd dropped a grade on 2 subjects but still got her 1st choice university, thank goodness. All her friends dropped grades too. What's really stupid is that the actual grade boundaries are too low - often barely more than 50% for an A. What they need to do is make the actual exam papers less hard!

Are the students who are ‘top material’ the only ones worth considering?

An exam is supposed to evaluate learning. Not select the most able. That would be a competitive examination.

Public exams are competitive.

Yes, but that was happening in 2018 and 2019 (and probably before, too). It hasn't happened so much over the last few years because of Covid. I'm not saying it's not more extreme than previous years, but it's not totally unprecedented, either.

There's always shock results, long before covid my dd was predicted 2a* and a, she got bbd! Teachers were shocked, i on the other hand knew she wasn't putting enough effort in, a levels are hard, they are meant to be

Apart from the issue with Wales and NI, I think I agree- the allowances made last year confused the issue a bit, and I do think there is an argument to be made that if students got allowances last year, this cohort have been significantly impacted too.

No what’s competitive is access to university. Not the A levels themselves.

And if the idea is that A levels were competitive, then it would needs to be said. Whatever grades you got would say nothing about your knowledge but only how well you performed against others.

No- fine here thanks, DC got 4 A stars. Others weren’t so lucky and there were obvious problems with some subjects.

Its not a fair playing field for the devolved nations to have different grade boundaries. The whole system is laughable.

It is said, as with GCSEs

That’s fair enough @Postapocalypticcowgirl

My experience of A levels has all been during covid times so it’s hard to judge how it was before that.

Im still at offers at AAA and then students been given their first choice with ABC tbh…. What’s the point?

I would agree with you at GCSE level- GCSEs need to be accessible for everyone, including differentiating Grade 1 from a U, and so on. They really need to be something that's approachable for the vast majority of 16yos taking them, especially in subjects that don't have a foundation tier.

A-levels, on the other hand, are really intended for students who are at the higher end of the cohort- most schools and colleges ask for at least 5 grade 5s, and often higher in the subjects to be studied. Although by mumsnet standards, those are low grades, it does cut out a significant number of students. Schools and colleges can also steer those who are borderline towards more accessible qualifications, like BTECs.

So yes, I do think it is reasonable to say that A-level exams should be challenging, and can throw things in from a different context that students haven't seen before, or similar. Ultimately, part of the aim is to distinguish the most able students from a group of already able students.

That said this year I do think some allowance should be made for the fact it's the first proper external exam most of these students have sat. Because that is an unusual factor for this cohort.

I think that the whole system is falling apart under its own weight. A-levels, UCAS (or UCCA/PCAS) and Clearing were designed to cater for far smaller numbers of students, and grade-based offers are a blunt tool. The sooner we move to applying with grades in hand, the better, from my point of view!

My son did get 3 A* and an A and is off to his chosen Uni. BUT it's disappointing that the disruption this cohort experienced isn't being reflected in either the grade boundaries or the negative media who seem intent on pushing the agenda of lazy teens and inflated GCSE grades, when they were all in year 10 when covid hit 🙄

To be honest, as someone who's taught sixth form for a while now, I think there should be rules around uni "typical offers"- I've held a suspicion for a while that some unis advertise a lot of courses as AAA or AAB, or similar, but are letting in a lot of students with lower grades. I think it's in part a bit of an advertising tactic, to help their course look "better". Arguably, I think unis should be told to make standard offers that reflect the average grades they actually accepted for the course the year before.

Although, actually, really, I think everyone should apply post results- I think that would be a lot less stressful, and fairer!

To be honest, as someone who's taught sixth form for a while now, I think there should be rules around uni "typical offers"- I've held a suspicion for a while that some unis advertise a lot of courses as AAA or AAB, or similar, but are letting in a lot of students with lower grades. I think it's in part a bit of an advertising tactic, to help their course look "better". Arguably, I think unis should be told to make standard offers that reflect the average grades they actually accepted for the course the year before.

Well, yes entry requirements have always just been a guide and a way of positioning a course/university in the market place. There has always been flexibility from a university perspective and this can be on an individual level or a group level.... if it's a particularly popular year for a particular subject then they will be sticking to the offers pretty rigidly. There will be flexibility and movement in years we're there are low numbers.

You need to allow universities and academics some flexibility in who they take on their courses. You can tell them what offers to make!!

Although, actually, really, I think everyone should apply post results- I think that would be a lot less stressful, and fairer!
Unfortunately they just can't find a way to make this work!

@Postapocalypticcowgirl that would be an excellent idea!

dc got a place at Imperial but decided against in part because their offer was quite high for him and he wasn’t sure he’d make it.
Knowing what sort of results students actually gave would have helped the decision process.

Ours were much more typical like pre-covid this year. Some got top grades, some didn't. Generally hard working kids did best compared to less hard working kids when comparing those of similar ability- ''twas ever so!