Black Mark on UCAS File Before Clearing?

[CowTown]

Someone mentioned to me that DC shouldn’t put courses they are at risk of not getting an offer for. Their reasoning is that if DC is rejected at this stage, they will have a black mark from that particular uni department on their UCAS file, and will have problems getting through clearing there. Their advice is that if DC is under the required grades, they shouldn’t put the course on their application, because if the course goes into clearing with lower grades (which it historically does), they’ll be able to get in through clearing on results day if they don’t have this black mark on their record. That if they were initially rejected, the uni will say no at the clearing stage.

Is there any truth to this?

The government isn't going to do anything which will increase the number of NEETS.

I would also think that having a longer break and starting in Jan would be most disadvantageous to lower income kids who can't rely on the bank of mum and dad for support during the 6 month delay.

In Ireland (and presumably some of the other 30 countries that @poetryandwine mentions), they seem to manage to finish exams in June, get results in August and offer post results. I guess the numbers are far smaller.

You may an important point about the economics of a long break. As PP said, we don’t want this group on UC!

Ireland is small, but France and Germany also manage post qualification offers.

How do they do post-qualification offers? So the kids would send off their UCAS applications as normal but not hear back till their results are uploaded?

Perhaps. Maybe only do one application, similar to secondary school applications. And maybe have 6 spaces, like many secondary applications do. 6 universities in order of preference. Students get offered the highest one they qualify for, and the rest drop off (a bit like the current system where insurance drops off if firm is achieved).

Or students get up to 6 offers on the table on results day, and choose their preferred option. There is a deadline for accepting your choice (eg, 48 hours, 3 days, 5 days, or 7 days), and everything that isn’t filled gets put into clearing.

I think (but happy to be corrected) that in France everyone who wants to do say, physics at Manchester, will enroll on that course in September. But the end of year 1 exams are really difficult so lots drop out at that point.

But like I said there may be more nuance than that!

Is university free in France? This sounds like £20k+ of wasted money if lots fail Y1.

@noblegiraffe They won’t be neets will they. Not unless they don’t get in. But that applies now.

@CowTown No but it’s not expensive unless you attend a grand Ecole. The French have a distinct 2 tier system. The grand Écoles are more than our fees, I believe.

For the most part @postitnot is correct; the elite universities have entrance examinations. She is also correct that the Year 1 exams are brutal and, furthermore, pastoral care is almost nonexistent. The attrition rate is very high.

But yes, French university is nearly free (for EU/EEA citizens).

The Irish system would be most compatible with UCAS. Applicants submit ranked choices. Roughly, after results come out their exam results are converted to points. and they get an offer from the choice they have ranked most highly that is accepting the number of points they have. (The UK would need to adjust for subject specialisms).

Degree programmes can change their points requirements during the admissions period to manage intake numbers. If eg you were initially made an offer by your third choice (meaning your first two choices rejected you, because you only get one offer), but your top choice lowers its points requirement so that you become eligible, you are offered the option of trading up.

Teachers would have strong incentive to share honest predicted grades informally with their pupils.

They’ll be NEETS for four or five months. Claiming benefit.

Currently as CB runs till September they’re not entitled to benefits so not classed as NEETS.

I’m not against January starts, or post-qual applications (or post-qual offers though I prefer this solution the least) by the way - the difference in sticker price and clearing grade is often too large which does applicants no favours. Alternatively Gov could fund HE properly then there’d be no need for the desperate scrabble for students…

We could do it all, wouldn’t that be lovely?

I agree PQ applications, with published entry standards that could be adjusted during the process and the Irish option of trading up, would be best. It could be done.

That's the system I was told applies in Italy too (though this was in the context of an anecdote at a party so mo idea how reliable the info is)

@titchy… but the only way the government could subsidise, is if we went back in time and reduced the number of school leavers going to university and for there to be a viable and respected alternative path for 18 year olds
I’ve spoken with many in that age group and they’re very much divided between “academic” kids who REALLY want to go to university and need to go for their future careers and others who are bright but academically middling and with no great love of any particular subject, for whom the university option is merely because there’s nothing else easily accessible ( apprenticeships other than for accountancy and tech are few and far between and competitive) and they are afraid of “missing out”.

They don’t need to subsidise (though I think they should more than they do - they keep removing the already small grants that we get for certain types of courses).

They could tweak the regulatory framework we have to operate within to make life easier: enable more collaboration by removing VAT on shared services;
limit how much the bloody CMA can interfere
increase tuition fees to a decent amount - an increase of £750 a year for the next few years, then inflationary increases would be affordable, palatable and make a difference;
stop forcing post-92s to offer TPS membership - or fund the contributory increases the same as they do for schools;
allow overseas students to have a two or three year post-study visa the same as other countries - we are now down a paltry 18 months;
don’t implement the overseas student levy.

None is super-costly for the Gov. There will be plenty of other things as well.

This is my bugbear and poor @titchy and probably others have heard it before. Blair’s goal of sending 50% of young people to university had the side effect of turning lots of jobs into ‘graduate jobs’, meaning that requiring a degree became a useful filter. A university education came to be identified as the main pathway to the middle class.

We’ve got to support aspirational young people and the families who want good things for their DC. But IMO this narrow focus was wrong. I much prefer a society where the plumber and the electrician have the social respect commensurate with the vital roles they play in our lives. (And with their pay, which can be very good!)

One of Andy Burnham’s better plans, I think, is his idea to increase the availability of high quality vocational training for young people. If it’s going to work, society’s respect needs to follow. As it should.

I agree academic routes and vocational routes should be regarded as having the same value - variousbGovs have been saying that for years though. It’s still other people’s kids that are the one who should become plumbers!

(There should be parity between teaching only lecturers, and research active ones too - has that ever happened - will it ever happen?!!!)

I agree with you about parity!

Also about the fact that right now, the MC and some LMC think it’s other people’s DC who should become plumbers and electricians. I hope that if the vocations are accorded more genuine respect from government, attitudes will evolve. It often works that way.

I heard back from another top 10 uni today, say they are happy to take an application with lower PGs. They were in clearing for said course.

I’m not sure if it’s dishonest or not.

my course has a ucas tariff of 126 I think or 125 🤷🏻‍♀️

some years we’ve been in clearing and others we haven’t. At clearing the ucas tariff drops to 112. Which I believe is not uncommon. So anyone who had firmed with us and gets between 112-126 as long as we have spaces will get an offer still. This potentially may keep us out of clearing.

However it’s not that simple. We make double the amount of offers to places. So if we have 80 conditional accepts and 50 places we need some people to not make their grades. If 50 people get 126 and the other 30 don’t then 30 people won’t get an offer. Another year if 20 people make the 126 tariff, and 60 don’t we will take the top 30 between 112-126. If all those 60 got below 112 they wouldn’t get a place and we’d go to clearing.

we can’t just have a tariff of 112 because then we’d lose the flexibility to drop people if we need to due to numbers.

I do agree moving to a grades in hand system would make this so much easier. It’s a dark art for sure. I need my spaces to be full so we have to over offer (remember not everyone will even accept as they will go elsewhere). I have no idea how many will bomb their A levels. Or how many will do much better and then try and trade up to a better university. I also can’t be over my places.

‘Dark art’ is a great phrase!

We do occasionally go over, as we are obliged to do if too many who have Firmed us make their offers. Do you not?

By a few places yes. More than that and I won’t have clinical placement for them and they spend half of the program on placement. So I have to be very careful.

Thankfully never had the issue but I know other universities have had to withdraw firmed places where the students have made their grades!

universities are supposed to take them but if you don’t have a clinical placement what can you do. 🤷🏻‍♀️

this is why we keep the tariff higher. If the tariff was 112 I’d lose that wriggle room.

In terms of alternatives to university, I’m talking about 18 year olds who have no interest in eg plumbing, and just want to work in an office where there are other 18 year olds to socialise with after work. In other words, where they’re not on their own in an environment where the closest to them in age is 22 (who is still talking about university) and 30 year olds who are married/with kids.
If there were more of these kinds of jobs/the jobs were not described as “graduate” , then I truly believe we’d see a decline in university applications.