3 A Levels or 4?

[grinkle]

My year 11 dd was going to start 4 A Levels in Sept but has just been told that due to funding cuts, and a teacher leaving, one of her choices will not be available. She's been offered one of her other options instead but doesn't really want to do it.

Year 11 parents - how many A Levels will your dcs be doing from Sept? Will 3 be enough, in these post-AS level days? Enough in terms of getting into a good uni to do a competitive subject?

I start to lose belief in it when there is a course where the average entry tariff is stated as being higher than 5 x A at A2.*

Of course it isn't stated this way: it is stated as points, and as you point out later the tariff points do include AS which weren't taken to A2 as well as DoE, music, drama etc.

But roguedad nonetheless has a partially valid point: even if you subtracted the DoE, music, drama, etc I would bet you that maths/physics/engineering at the top few universities would correspond to an average of at least 4 A levels at very high grades. I.e. while the published offer for e.g. maths at Cambridge is two A stars and one A (with STEP) the average is four with mostly A stars.

CUG list average points for Cambridge maths as 633. I think that typically 520+ of this comes from A2.

TP which course has an average entry tariff of over 700?

Skimming thru' the main STEM subjects, which tend to have a higher average score than for humanities, can't find anything higher than 662, which tbh is not difficult to get too, or at least to explain fairly easily. Points for an AS not taken to A2, an EPQ, and a 4th A2 subject (in DS1's case this was General Studies, hardly anyone includes that in their offers but an A still counts as 140 pts), high grades in all those, alongside A A* A (400 pts) in the other 3 A2s, can easily take a DC past the 650 mark.

To be fair to CUG the tariff points they quote are identical to those in the Guardian and Sunday Times tables. Presumably because they all use the same HESA source.

Bit harsh to shoot the messenger. Although as the CUG explanation could be more comprehensive in stating what is included maybe a bit of harshness is justified :)

If league tables only included best 3 A2s (or Scottish Highers/IB/BTEC), it would make comparisons much less obscure.

Right now universities which take lots of middle class kids who have extra UCAS points from extracurriculars get an immediate bonus in league tables over universities which take more kids with similar A2s but fewer extracurriculars. This bonus in points is worth quite a bit for universities like Durham, Bristol etc.

boy3
sorry, I was typing too fast. The course I looked up has average entry requirements between 633 and 478 for the top 7 courses
that is the average
so if by fluke there is a non MC kid without music and dance and drama
then there are kids with stack loads of EC stuff
which just distorts the true entry requirements

DD's ability to go on pointe and play a chromatic has diddly squat to do with her ability in the chosen subject.
To include that is just another way to make the "top" Unis more exclusive
in that they exclude kids who might thrive academically
even if they do not arrive with the right stuff

To include that is just another way to make the "top" Unis more exclusive
in that they exclude kids who might thrive academically
even if they do not arrive with the right stuff

But top universities do not include extracurriculars in their offers and they do not use them in their selection procedures. They only report the overall tariff to HESA.

They only report the overall tariff to HESA.

And some universities make more of an effort than others to collect all the stuff that isn't on the UCAS form. One of my children has picked up 145 UCAS points (ie, more than an A*) in the past six weeks, stuff which has never been mentioned on a UCAS form in any way (two Grade VIIIs for someone not doing anything related to music). I guess some universities have a way to find this out, others don't.

Absolutely,
but kids without naice MC parents and heads will look at those published numbers and not even try.
so then the top unis get hammered for not widening access
and the schools without the expertise to see through the charade get hammered for not sending kids to top unis

it comes back to my point of the fact that decent careers advice should be funded in all schools

"DD1's school offers 4 to the top of the top set, not to everyone."

Same at DD's school.

but kids without naice MC parents and heads will look at those published numbers and not even try.

I don't want to depress you, but I'm afraid you are wrong for honourable reasons. The parents and schools you are quite properly worrying about dismiss selective universities out of hand, not through a misguided reading of admission statistics. If only it was as easy as making admission statistics clearer.

"Not for the likes of us" (or, worse, schools doing "not for the likes of you") dies horribly hard. A guy who used to work for me left school at sixteen, as did his wife, but is the classic case of someone who today would have been a shining star. He has two children currently doing PhDs at top places (having got glittering firsts from good departments) and a third in his second year at Oxford. Both his family and the children's school - a bog standard comp - continuously expressed s bafflement as to why they were not at, the local post-92.

I have had contact with lots and lots of young people as part of the widening participation drive, and I have never heard anyone use a misreading if those stats as a reason not to apply.

And I've heard it all , trust me .

I've certainly never read them or had the remotest inclination to do so Carl. Isn't roguedad quite a loner on this one?

Hayita tariff points do include music and drama but NOT D of E. You get nothing for a Duke of Edinburgh"s Gold award with regard to extra points and you never have done.

Not that my DC are in the bracket of young people needing support, they're lucky to be at a very good school. All I mean is that surely normal parents don't read these stats and analyse them in the way roguedad has done?

You get nothing for a Duke of Edinburgh"s Gold award with regard to extra points and you never have done.

I'm sure you're right (I've never checked)... but if so it's amazing how many students include DoE under their qualification list with A levels, music/drama etc. Either they think it gives tariff points or (more likely) they think admissions tutors will be interested in it.

hayita
I looked up the tariff this afternoon - nothing for DofE
but I remember DD saying that there are two sections to the skills list - one is the drop down UCAS points, provide proof list, the other is stuff like DofE

ricardian
The "not for the likes"
point is why decent careers education for all schools is so essential

but the chances of it from a government that gave the whole public sector a stealth 2% pay cut last week is pretty slim.

Clearly lack of funding in the state sector is an issue.

The lack of careers provision, the decision to offer only 3 A levels from L6, to not offer decoupled AS etc are driven in part by funding issues.

However, I would say that some of the culture surrounding university applications comes not from finance ( or lack of it) but ideology.

There are some sectors of the teaching profession that stands squarely against elitism ( as they see it) and will argue for parity amongst subjects, destinations etc.

Some schools simply offer a bad deal for the most able.

There are some sectors of the teaching profession that stands squarely against elitism

Except for their own children, of course. My experience is that the louder they shout about "elitism" for the kids they teach, the more likely they are to be sending their children private. It's like Corbyn and Abbott: non-elitist comps for the proles, selective academic schools for their own children. They think that children should be educated together, except for their own. See also Emily Thornberry, Seamus Milne, Harriet Harman, Tony Blair, Ruth Kelly...Labour politicians who send their own children to state comps are very rare. I realise she isn't a Labour MP yet, but gob on legs Salma Yaqoob made a lot of noise about her support for Birmingham's local schools during the Trojan Horse affair, but she wouldn't touch them with a barge-pole: she went to one of the most selective schools in the country, and her own children have followed in her footsteps. My MP doesn't have school-age children, but the Labour MP in the neighbouring constituency again bangs on about comprehensive education, but his own children are again at the most selective schools.

Carl I should imagine that the thinking behind not doing decoupled ASs in the same subject as an A2 is driven by sound professional judgement rather than either finance or ideological beliefs.

I reckon you'd be quite impressed actually at the opportunities I can see working in action at the local failing unleafy comp which I'm sure you'd assume would be riven by anti elitist beliefs - one very able youngster there that I know has had opportunities heaped on him without him soliciting them: Cambridge courses, the Sutton Trust US programme, an internship at JP Morgan in the summer. Neither parent university educated and a dad dead set against education generally but the school at least seems to be getting it right.

goodbye you are extremely naive if you do not realise how much funding plays a part in decision making. Especially at sixth form stage where cuts are biting very hard.

As for a school doing what it should do, I don't doubt it. Of course some do.

However, if that were a consistent we would no longer be having conversations about widening participation at the most selective universities ( which would please me and save me a lot of time ).

Carl I'm not in the least naive about the finance issues generally. I was making a specific point to counter your own about the decoupled A2s.

Well you may not be surprised but I've been surprised about just how much this particular comp, given its circumstances and location, have done for this student. You'd think from reading MN that not a single comp like that would be equal to the task of providing opportunities and enthusing this boy with the idea of applying to Oxbridge or the Ivy league, but it has. It's amazed me to be honest - I'm just hoping he'll get a place at whichever institution he'd most like a place.

Thanks all for the feedback, really interesting.

In answer to those arguing that high UCAS tarriffs wouldn't put students off top courses - you're simply wrong there. I'm highly educated and the dcs are bright but I had looked at some of those figures and thought 'how does any normal child get a place on these courses?' And if I've thought that, then how much more must people who've never been to university. That sort of points score must seem insurmountable.

About getting extra points, someone mentioned General Studies. Not sure if this is still offered at dd's school, but if it isn't, I'm contemplating even putting her in privately to get the extra 'free' UCAS points, as dd would (probably) walk it. Can you do this? Does it matter - are there some courses that ask for total point score?

And if I've thought that, then how much more must people who've never been to university.

You're missing the point. Mos families (in general) wouldn't know an average points attained figure, or what it means, or how it relates to their own child, if it fell on them. For what it's worth, I don't know that figure either for (a) the courses I teach on or (b) the courses my children are on, and I've never heard them mentioned at open days, applicant days or anywhere else. I move in largely HE-working circles and no-one has mentioned them in regard to either their own courses or their children's courses, and they aren't mentioned in (for example) college education committees when we discuss applications. Outside MN obsessives, no-one looks at those. This is the only place I've seen them discussed.

About getting extra points, someone mentioned General Studies. Not sure if this is still offered at dd's school, but if it isn't, I'm contemplating even putting her in privately to get the extra 'free' UCAS points,

Why the hell would you do that? It's discounted by almost all selective universities. It might be accepted as part of a 240 point tariff by some recruiting universities, but even they are wise to it. I took it way back by walking into the exam room and answering the questions (and got an A, too) but these days it's close to worthless.

Why do you care what the achieved points score of other applicants is? Offers at selective universities are made in terms of three (exceptionally four, but it's extremely unusual, and usually relates to M/FM) A2 grades. The end. Only on MN would people obsess about UCAS points that no-one, outside the wonks in the very plush offices HESA occupy in Cheltenham, and a handful of obsessives who pore over the broadsheet league tables as though they mean something, cares about?

grinkle then you are highly unusual for raising the tarrif as an issue.

Most young people and their families look up courses on line. They go to the web site of a university and check out entry requirements for courses.

It's all there. Easily accessed. Anyone with any queries can call admissions.

But as has been pointed out above, entry requirements are the minimum grades required not what those who get places will actually typically have.

Am I really that unusual for looking at the typical points score for a particular, popular course that my dd is interested in? I would have thought that was not particularly unusual or symptomatic of obsession!

grinkle yes I'd say it was unusual and symptomatic of obsession :) Most ordinary people just consider grades - the points score thing gives a wholly misleading picture which it's best to ignore.