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.

@Postapocalypticcowgirl 2019 was the first year where all subjects were reformed/linear. That was introduced over three years in waves, which the DfE preferred to call "tranches." (I'm in a subject which was a 2019 start, so only previous year of current-style exams.)

Scotland has an entirely different exam system so what do grade boundaries have to do with anything?

Good lesson for the Oxbridge shoe ins that they maybe aren’t as clever as they think and things in life won’t always go their way maybe?

What a spiteful post. They are young people who hoped to get into the university they wanted to go to, just like any other applicant. Just because they were considered almost certain to get their place (presumably due to their ability, hard work, performance in mocks etc) doesn't remotely mean they were arrogant, complacent or entitled about it.

It’s not spiteful. Certainly no more than the unnecessary jibe about Scottish students being “pampered” when nothing could be further from the truth.

Nothings a shoe in or a certainty and people shouldnt be acting as though it is. There are plenty of other unis they can go to. The world doesn’t revolve around going to Oxbridge.

Although I wonder if a bigger issue is over inflated and unrealistic grade predictions.

Also applying after results would avoid much of the chaos going on across the country today.

that’s how it is up here and I have to say I prefer it. No idea how it could work in England with the volumes though.

given the disruption this year group have had, I feel like some additional support may have been helpful.

In what way would it have been helpful? Did you want the cohort to get better grades than they got? This led to overcrowding in uni applications and an inability to reasonably distinguish between candidates at the higher end, it also doesn't seem to have done them any favours in terms of ability to cope with university level study. The only reasonable argument for this cohort to get higher grades is that Wales and NI awarded higher grades but I'm not sure that their systems exactly match ours anyway, which unis should already account for.

Or did you want them to get the same grades that they got but give them extra support like advanced info? This would have just increased the grade boundaries, and again made them less well prepared for higher study.

Thank you- it feels so long ago, I can't remember what happened when!

Obviously it's difficult, but I'm not convinced that pinning to a year which was the first year the current style of exams were used is necessarily fair.

I do accept, to be clear, there were limited options for this year- but equally in a lot of subjects, it does seem students have improved a bit at the top end- given grade boundaries have gone up, and marginally more Astars were given out, etc.

I don't know what I think, really, except that clearly today has been really stressful for a lot of people, after what has basically been 4 very stressful years!

Grade predictions for UCAS are balls. We always predict as highly as we can justify to get students a foot in the door because if they miss the offer they still might be accepted with grades that wouldn't have got them a look-in when they applied.

Lots of evidence today of students being accepted onto courses even though they significantly missed their offers.

It's stupid.

Obviously it's difficult, but I'm not convinced that pinning to a year which was the first year the current style of exams were used is necessarily fair.

But the first year of the new A-levels was pinned by comparable outcomes to the previous A-levels to protect that cohort from the impact of being the first to sit them (Sawtooth Effect).

Shame on you.

(Teacher, own child not at Oxbridge. The most entitled people I've ever come across in almost 30 years of teaching have tended to be the parents of the middling kids. The kids who we try and prepare to not get in but whose parents push for university application when maybe another path would probably have been more appropriate. They think (the parents) that everybody should go if they want. And rarely factor in the "if they get the grades" bit. Then bitch about "shoo-ins" for years to come.

@Postapocalypticcowgirl what do you mean wales had more support? In what way?

Unfortunately, the teacher shortages and lack of training budgets (different thread!) have meant that in my experience a lot of careers/UCAS advisers within schools haven't got a clue. It's another one of the shocking things about the realities of education today, and one with huge knock-on effects.

Unfortunately due to lack of money and lack of understanding lots of schools employ careers advisers who aren't qualified......they won't pay for someone who has a master degree in career guidance because they expect a decent salary. Too many schools think it's acceptable to to pay careers advisers £17/18K. You're just not going to get someone who is qualified with that salary!

But that's a rant for another day!!!

@LodiDodi England are less pampered? I think you'll find sone of the most deprived areas of the uk are in the Welsh valleys

My daughter teaches two A level subjects at a comprehensive and has reported back on her students's results.

She was disappointed with one student's A, as they capable of getting an A*, but on the whole she said the students did as well as, or better than, expected.

I suspect the 'only a top Russell Group uni will do' attitude also had a bearing on this - somebody only applying to those could then have found they don't have anywhere when a lower conditional on their second choice would have meant they had a place.

There's flexibility, in that they can decide how many offers to make, and who.

But the government wanted a marketized system and that's what they've got! Universities need students and if that means accepting students with lower grades or those who missed their offer then the current system means that's what they will do to ensure they still have courses to run.

@IheartNiles thé boundaries may be different but the exams are u der a different exam board and so it's not like the students in wales and the students in England are being given the same exams but then get different grades if their scores are the same

To be honest, I think what I really want is for unis to be honest about what sort of grades are actually needed to get in, and then stop feeling such pressure (form parents and SLT) to predict towards the high end, and then feel- to an extent- a backlash from that from parents of "oh but you predicted him an A"- yes, after you and he sent me emails begging for it!

Given the number of unis who seem to have massively dropped their grades, I'm not sure uni overcrowding would have been such an issue. Or perhaps it was an issue with unis under offering?

I do also think the disparity between Wales and England is higher than usual- and I do think that's disadvantaged some of my students who were holding offers at Welsh unis.

I will say, I don't think, as a department, we predicted A and A star grade boundaries would go up at all- but that's obviously our mistake.

Haven't RTFT but isn't part of the problem that this A level cohort had Covid GCSE grades which we know were massively over inflated. These grades are used to inform A level predictions and now it seems in normal conditions, cannot be achieved. Some teachers, looking at a list of 8s and 9s at GCSE are bound to think As were achievable.

We have read that last year's A level cohort who had inflated A level grades have struggled at university and have a much higher drop out rate than usual. The very fact that last year's A/A* level was 44% and is now back to normal (26%) does indicate how bad the inflation was at both levels. And the grade inflation was (statistically) much worse at independent schools (as you'd expect where there is such a lot of pressure around results) so that may be why many of the disappointed students are from such schools.

Obviously this is not the students' fault! But it does seem like the universities are taking this into account and accepting lower grades - in the end they will take the same number of students as they would have done yesterday - they're not suddenly reducing student numbers.

Better to have realistic grades and be on a course you can realistically stick with.

And don't we have this upset and drama every year usually? Lots of anecdotal stories about students who unexpectedly don't get their predicted grades. Hard when it's you, but in the end the same number of students usually end up going to uni.

Hands up for post qualification applications which has been mooted for years and years and yet never seems to happen.

Eh? I am totally confused now. Shame on me for what? My own son got 5As in his Scottish highers by the way so certainly not “middling” if you think you’re having a pop at me (even under the “pampered” Scottish regime. Still no idea what that meant).

it won’t cause any harm to someone not to get their Oxbridge place and have to go somewhere else. I thought the message we were meant to be sending is that there’s no wrong path and more than one route to get where you want even if things don’t always go your way?

‘In my day’ (just) you applied to universities and polytechnics separately. Whilst some may have only applied for one or the other, many applied to both and held a ‘firm’ and ‘insurance’ under both systems. So if they failed to get into university they would have the polytechnic offers too - and by the time they finished those courses those were universities too.

Mind you, you also had to worry about the order you placed your choices on the form. Some universities (Durham) said ‘no’ unless you listed them first.

I agree. students might not apply for some courses as they would seem out of reach if predicted grades were realistic rather than optimistic whereas in reality plenty of universities accept even when the offer grades are missed.

Yes same. I didn’t apply to any polys but I think that was the last year the applications were separate

Silly and ridiculous post and especially on a day like this. What makes you think things in life have always gone their way? you know nothing about these young people except for the huge chip you've got on your shoulder. Please also remember it's 'shoo-in', nothing to do with 'shoes'.

I'm getting confused by all the diverging conversations on this thread now! Maybe due to lack of sleep last nigh, combined with liberal application of G&Ts this evening. My subject has a 4.4% A* rate this year, and so I have some disappointed students. Only one whose place is hanging on a review-of-marking, though.