New UCAS Entry Grade Tool

[titchy]

Are people aware of this? It's a new tool (in beta version) that shows the range of historical offers for a subject at each university. Obviously historic offers may not predict future offer likelihood, but looks like a useful tool.

You need to login in with a UCAS account:
https://www.ucas.com/advisers/guides-and-resources/adviser-news/news/our-historic-entry-grades-tool

I had a play around with it yesterday after seeing it mentioned on another thread. Interesting/ surprising how low some of the accepted grades are. DD is considering History next year and it seems encouraging if she drops any grades, although I'm not sure how much effect contextual offers have on the figures? I found the following examples -
Durham standard offer AstarAA - 27% accepted with AAB
Exeter standard offer AAA - 90% accepted with ABB
York standard offer AAA - 90% accepted with AAB, 70% with BBB, 70% with ABC
Do these seem realistic to those in the know?

If that was last year it could be to do with movements in grade boundaries post covid.

Only on the Advisor Portal?

It's from 2019 to 2023 for the courses I've looked at and I can't see a way to filter it any differently.

It can be accessed by going directly to the relevant course pages. I'm not an advisor and don't have a UCAS login.

It will include mature/older students, presumably, who may have good reasons for a lower offer. DS was accepted on a 'usual offer AAA' course with grades ABC in hand, after several years in the workplace, and I imagine he's not the only one.

Thanks, found it now!

Thanks - there's this guidance on it:

https://www.ucas.com/undergraduate/applying-university/entry-requirements/understanding-entry-grades-data

Entry grades look right but the how do you compare only would be right for DDs course if you had an offer then got those grades. Its saying 100% on 3 A stars accepted, whereas we know many rejected pre-interview. And it also excludes the bottom and top 5%.

I can give an actual example of my own child, predicted 3 A stars and one A, Durham entry for Computer Science A star AA,
contextual AAA or A star AB

but then if you put us as your first choice AAB

He got 4 A stars but could have come in on a much lower offer. Statistically the vast majority of successful applicants for his course were 3 A stars or higher with fewer coming in on lower grades above entry. Pretty much everyone had further maths as a fourth A level.

I think it reminds everyone that entry grades of AAA are aspirational for some and insurance grades for others. Some unis openly admit to tiering applicants with offers going out to 3 A stars or higher first. I do think the tool is useful though.

I think it is more useful when you HAVE offers, rather than when applying. Helps you decide which uni to insure as you can see grade flex…

The range will include all sorts of reasons - it doesn't separate out contextual offers or international.
And be warned, it's not just about grades: I looked up a course my DD did not receive an offer from. They had highest entry A star A star A, lowest A BB. My DD has 3 x A stars in hand and did not get an offer (no interviews or entry exams required).

Which made her wonder what more could she do? She also got A star on her EPQ. One could normally have though 'then so many applicants must have three A stars (or four - it was LSE so could be), but then looking it up to see that most that got in had grades below your achieved grades? Hmmmm.

LSE is one that I believe places a lot of weight in the PS, and it needs to be exactly what they're looking for, so that would more likely be the reason rather than the grades - note pretty much everyone who applies to LSE has top grade predictions.

I wish I hadn't looked at that. DD missed her offer two years ago, but that shows that most people with her grades got in at her preferred option. She's happy where she is now mind you, so it's all worked out.

Yea @BeaumisterandLeary I'm not going to mention it to my DD. I think it can just raise more questions if they see they had at or above but were still not offered a place.
@titchy they said it was 'quality of other applicants' rather than her PS, though she did write it long before she decided to apply there, but looking at their guidelines it seemed to fit the bill extremely well. I think, like Oxbridge, if you asked these very competitive unis specifically why candidate A was offered a place but equally qualified B was not they wouldn't be able to say exactly why either. She thinks she should have applied to UCL but looking at this thing the successful applicants had higher A level grades than LSE for the course!

I don't see how this can be in any way helpful if contextual and standard candidates aren't separated. So many places offer 2, sometimes even more, grade differences.

As a former admissions tutor in a selecting School I have mixed feelings about this tool.

I agree with PP who say it is most useful when you have offers and are considering which to firm. Even then, as has also been said, contextual and overseas offers are not segregated. Even very good Schools will sometimes flex a lot for these and they may distort the results even with the bottom 5% of offers suppressed in these results.

The more interesting thing is that these data don’t tell you who are getting the offers in the first place. For either 2024 or 2025 (I forget which) LSE say the standard offer for L100, BSc Econ, Is A star A either order in Maths and FM and a third A. If you take 4 A Levels, you just need to pass the 4th. Yet I wonder how many with these PGs are getting offers? As @titchy says they place a great deal of weight on the PS but I still suspect most offer holders have higher PGs.

@mondaytosunday I am sorry about your DD. This kind of thing does happen all the time. No one but the admissions tutors who made the decision knows why. @BeaumisterandLeary , I am glad things worked out for your DD. When we had to take students who didn’t meet our offer we created a profile we could use objectively. I suspect there was a background concerning A level subjects or a deeper dive into data behind the choices the admissions tutors made, not necessarily apparent on the UCAS tool.

No it doesn’t include mature students -
“It currently shows the data for 18 year old students (or younger) who were holding three UK A levels or three BTEC Extended Diplomas in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. “

as per @Penguinsa link above

And further to this it therefore does include international students either.

so the only group that would skew the data is contextual. I’m guessing that where eg is shows 85% get in with ABB etc it’s highly unlikely that all 85% are contextual.

In other words the way I’m reading it is it’s pretty accurate. And very useful when deciding between offers.

A number of international applicants do their A levels in the UK, particularly in certain English and Welsh boarding schools. They are counted

Ah ok. I wonder what percentage that is on average. I wonder how much it would skew the figures?

If they do A levels in the UK, are they on a par with UK students in terms of the offers they receive and grades they'd be accepted with?

If they do A levels in the UK, are they on a par with UK students in terms of the offers they receive and grades they'd be accepted with?

From my limited experience, just 2 international students, studying for Alevels in UK boarding schools and applying to London Unis, their offers are very different/much lower than UK fee paying students. I was really surprised. I'm not sure if this was always the case or if the lack of funding for UK students has forced Universities to recruit higher paying applicants, through more attractive offers.

If you come to the UK specifically for educational purposes you do not acquire settlement rights, so the international pupils who come to the UK for A levels and stay on for university do the latter on Overseas fees.

I am not prepared to say they are subject to exactly the same offers as students on Home fees, although I fully agree that they should be. And it must be emphasised that the best Overseas students, certainly in STEM and Economics, are superb - easily the equal of the best Home students. The disparities creep in below this level.

The Times had a recent story on overseas students being offered much lower entry requirements due to the much higher international fees they pay. Are they included in these figures? Another poster noted that her daughter achieved the grades necessary to gain admission however was not offered a place, so I'm wondering if these lowered accepted grades are in danger of leading home residents into a false sense of expectation.