The positions of pre and post A Level students is different. Those who haven’t taken their A Levels yet receive a conditional offer, whilst those who have their grades receive unconditional offers.
Univerisites never specify exact GCSE requirements beyond the minimums needed to have passed Maths and English. They might give indications of the kind of profile that is more likely to result in offers, but not in down exactly what that is. What this means is that for student who has not taken A Levels yet, GCSE grades are more likely to be considered in making offers for the very popular and over subscribed although this is more informal. The Uni cannot tell from the predictions of A Levels exactly who will and won’t achieve those predictions. Over 80% of UCAS predictions are inaccurate, so many of those with identical UCAS predictions won’t achieve them…but universities cannot tell whom, by simply looking at those predictions. The GCSE results are a way to make a judgment about who is more likely to achieve them.
For those who have their A Level results already….well, off course those are definite knowns. These aren’t applicants at significant risk of not actually achieving their UCAS prediction. The grades are already there and the Uni can make an unconditional offer. GCSEs cease to be such a key piece of evidence and in one sense have been superseded.
Every year some students reapply to UCAS post-results. Some did worse than they hoped and couldn’t get a course they wanted, having failed to meet their offer and having found that Clearing didn’t have alternatives they were happy with. They reapply with their grades in their hand to places they know will take them, and perhaps to others who might take them with a slightly lower grade outcome, because they are a ‘dead cert’ to take the place and turn-up producing a bum on a seat.
Others reapply, because the first time round they didn’t get the offers they wanted. They might have had brilliant UCAS predictions, but for whatever reason they didn’t get the offer they wanted. Every year, kids with 3 or 4 A star predictions don’t get an offer for the course they wanted. There simply are too many people for places. They were sifted out. Sometimes it will have been based on GCSE results, even though there is no formal GCSE requirement. How else would you do it if you were the admissions officer and had 500 applicants all predicted 3 A Star, but only had 300 offers to give? Sometimes these people will reapply with their grades in hand and get the place, being given it because they have the grades now. Sifting in the same way isn’t needed.
So no, they don’t alter their admissions requirement. In fact, of course there isn’t an admissions requirement ever, but a standard offer. There will be people with different grades on the course. A key example is those who were made offers, missed achieving them fully, but still get taken …which happens more often than people realise. The student who had an offer for AAA but who got AAB may well be taken if they had ‘firmed’ that Uni and the Uni would rather have certainty of filling the place with someone who wants to come and who is decent, rather than going to Clearing and possibly getting someone with 3 A there. Is that unfair to the 3A person? In some ways yes, but the uNi can take any applicant they like and that includes those with lower grades if they choose. Why do they do this…because they can’t be sure a 3A person will appear, or if they do if they are committed to their institutions having not previously being a firm or insurance offer. They would rather have certainty of a definite slightly lower calibration student than the potential risks of maybe getting a higher calibration student….a bird in the hand being worth two in the bush.
Rememebr too that not all applicants get the same offer. It does vary. That’s the unis perogative.
So going back to the issue of unis looking at GCSEs, it’s absolutely the case that the GCSE profile influences offers. Top unis state this but never define minimum acceptable grade profiles, just ‘usual’ ones sometimes. You can gauarantee that in very competitive courses, most students have significantly in excess of those and also of the standard A Level offer in terms of their achieved grades. Uni offers remain dynamic and respond to demand and supply. In years when more apply, it is likely that any sift happens at higher GCSE levels…it has to, to whittle downthe massive lists to offer numbers that won’t result in the Uni being crushed by so many too many meeting their offer and turning up. But for those who have their A Levels already, offers can be made purely or lmsot purely based on those. The person who has 4 A Star A Levels in hand is no longer possibly held back slightly by the fact they have 2xL5/6 grades in their GCSE profile. But if they were a pre-Alevel candidate with UCAS predictions of 4 A Star A Levels, those 2xL5/6 might just be the thing that means they don’t get the offer, when their rival who also has 4 A Star predictions, but also no GCSEs below a 7/8 does get the offer.