Predicted Grades for UCAS

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Just trying to understand how different teachers/schools arrive at predicted UCAS grades for A2, to put on the UCAS form?

I'd be grateful for any explanations.

My DD was at a top 10 girls academic independent school, her AS grades were AABB (later -post predictions- one of the Bs was remarked and changed to an A)
She was predicted AAC, got 5 russell group offers for courses which had entry requirements of AAB. So the schools (at the time realistic) prediction of a C did not seem to harm her. She came out with AAB in the end.
When on the course she has found her and her friend's offers varied greatly. Some being offered BBB, others offered AAA or AAA.

DD asked her tutor at uni out of curiosity and was told the tutors adjust considering what school you go to (e.g. if it is a poor state school in a deprived area your offer will be lower), how much they want you, other circumstances (DD had personal family circumstances which impacted her AS exams causing the predicted C grade). Her uni and course is great on accessibility and recognising the importance of a varied set of students. Other unis may do things a lot more systematically and 'to the book' e.g. all AAA offers.

Yes we can make contextual offers..to individuals who seem to have potential beyond what they are currently achieving. But that is a one off thing and something to be considered when the school is really bad or there are other mitigating circs.

The real problem is looking at all the people being predicted AAA versus those being predicted AAA etc. We can't assume that a triple A prediction from and indy school is worth the same as an AAA from a state school even though they may well be in reality.

It is a known and accepted fact that teachers under predict more for women than men in physics. So not really interested in any reasons why that wouldn't be true. It IS true as found by comparing predicted grades with achieved grades.

Similarly I saw several predictions from indy schools that were algebraically impossible given the AS grades....not any from state schools. So not everyone is predicting directly from AS grades....

bollocks the bold system screwed up my message!

What I mean is that people predicted triple A star from an indy school actually get the same number of points as people predicted A star, A, A from a state school...

Interesting, although you presumably that observation is only based on the very top applicants given your standard offer. Do you know if it's true of lower grades?

Would you say state predictions are more accurate than indi ones?

My personal experience is that indy seem over optimistic and state are pessimistic...

I saw people with UMS grades above 95% that hadn't been predicted A star (90%)...again only from state...I don't know why that happens...

Institutes of physics (IOP) know perfectly well that equally achieving women get lower average predictions than their male counterparts....but again there is no way we can do anything in admissions....we certainly can't start positively discriminating.

This is a good argument for Y13 sitting exams in April, getting results in June then applying to uni. In the days of internet and computers why does the same system still hold that we had with UCCA years ago?

Without AS exams there would be 5 terms of teaching, which is probably more than they have now.

This is a good argument for Y13 sitting exams in April, getting results in June then applying to uni.

Or later; another proposal was to delay Freshers by a couple of weeks, take advantage of more IT (as you say, the process is now all online so should be quicker) and do it from exams in May, results in July. I did read the universities' response the last time it was proposed, but I can't now recall all their objections. Running a full admission process over the summer would be difficult for universities that interview, of course.