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UCAS chief: 'Schools are exaggerating predicted grades'

Poll

Are your predicted A-level grades realistic?

Some interesting comments this week from Mary Curnock Cook, head of UCAS.

Her view is that universities are becoming "more flexible" on their required grades - ie they're becoming less strict on students achieving their predicted grades. And that the result is teachers making predicted grades that are...generous.

Mary Curnock Cook speaking at a conference Wellington College
"I talk to a lot of schools and people who advise students and in the past I would have said 'surely you wouldn't be over-predicting your students on purpose?', and actually just this last summer really, I had teachers coming back to me and saying 'actually, yes we would'.

"I'll show you why, because actually, accepted applicants, the number who are being accepted with quite significant discounts on their offers and their predicted grades has grown quite a lot.

"52 per cent of A-level accepts have missed their grades by two or more grades over the portfolio of three [A-levels].

"Offers are being discounted at confirmation time, and we can see that.

"We can see that because the lifting of the number controls has increased competition, among universities to recruit students, you can see that happening.

"For example, of the proportion accepted to higher tariff universities, about 44 per cent of those with BBB in their A-levels got a place at higher tariff institutions, compared to just 20 per cent in 2011."


If you've applied this year, what's been your experience? Are your predicted grades higher than you expected? Has your teacher told you they're deliberately giving you a higher prediction?

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1
My predicted grades were solely based on my achievement from last year, and a realistic prediction of this year's outcome. Everyone I know, (from different colleges) have said that the teachers have been rather strict with their predicted grades to avoid disappointment so I personally haven't seen any evidence of the matter at hand.
See mine were about right for me BUT

my teacher offered to predict me an A* in a subject I am clearly not an A* candidate in. Although I did turn his offer down, I do think it was wrong of him to do that.

I do think schools are wayyy too generous with their predicted grades: people in my year were getting predicted A*s in subjects they just scraped As in at AS
Reply 3
A* A* A prediction.
Although I still believe I will get the 3rd A*...
I think my predictions are fair in light of what I got last year.

I had to convince my teachers to predict me the 2 A*'s despite getting high A's last year, and the 3rd A* I couldn't really argue because I'd literally just scraped the A.

And I echoe ARoxanne's response in that in my school the teachers have been very strict with predicting a grade higher, especially with the A* even with a high A in as year.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by shooks
x


When I applied to university, my school refused to predict higher than the grade you got at AS for A2, unless you were within three marks of the next grade boundary in which case they would predict a grade higher. If you asked to get your predicted grades changed, they would flat out refuse.
Original post by shooks
Some interesting comments this week from Mary Curnock Cook, head of UCAS.

Her view is that universities are becoming "more flexible" on their required grades - ie they're becoming less strict on students achieving their predicted grades. And that the result is teachers making predicted grades that are...generous.

If you've applied this year, what's been your experience? Are your predicted grades higher than you expected? Has your teacher told you they're deliberately giving you a higher prediction?


Those statistics are very interesting and it really does make you wonder what the point of entry requirements are if they're just going to accept people who miss them by quite a significant margin (I knew this was an issue but I had no idea that it was happening on such a massive scale).
Reply 6
Just wondering, does this then mean that Universities will accept you even if you fall short of the offered conditions?
Original post by ARoxanne
Just wondering, does this then mean that Universities will accept you even if you fall short of the offered conditions?


Yep, in some cases. And according to Curnock Cook, last year that was the experience of more than half of all A-level students who got a place.
Original post by ARoxanne
Just wondering, does this then mean that Universities will accept you even if you fall short of the offered conditions?


That depends completely on the uni and/or course
Reply 9
Original post by shooks
Yep, in some cases. And according to Curnock Cook, last year that was the experience of more than half of all A-level students who got a place.


Initially you'd think that's great as it allows opportunity for those who are academically capable but do bad in their exams. However, this creation of blurred lines is rather worrying as the reputations of such accepting Universities will soon decrease as they are potentially taking on less capable students.
This is very true. My friend got BCDU at AS and has been predicted AAA by our school.
Mine were based on AS performance.
Original post by npstudent
This is very true. My friend got BCDU at AS and has been predicted AAA by our school.


That's ridiculous, and very bad as your friend is more than likely to be disappointed by the end results. My teacher was reluctant on predicting me an A although I received a high B last year.
At the moment overpredictions aren't a huge problem.

Because UCAS applications MUST include AS grades it's usually obvious where predictions are realistic and where they're implausible.

Once the A level reforms kick in and AS grades disappear this could become a big problem. I wouldn't be surprised if PQA was back on the agenda and in place by 2020 https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ucas-ditches-pqa-plan/419470.article

edit: it's no surprise that it's M C-C pushing this into the spotlight....she's been trying to force it through for a long time because it makes UCAS work a LOT simpler (while at the same time isn't going to reduce the fees that UCAS charge universities or applicants....)
(edited 8 years ago)
This was definitely happening back in 2009 when I started uni. Several friends had their grades inflated by teachers (some were aware, some thought their teachers just had so much faith in them, bless their socks). Only one person in my circle of friends didn't meet their offer, several got in despite lower grades.
I've seen people getting B's in AS but being predicted A's overall. To average an A overall from a B in AS they need to go up two grades in A2 or do extremely well in resits and A2 exams.

Personally I think that if you're getting B's at AS then you're most likely to get B's overall. A2 is harder than AS, not easier.
Lol, hardly surprising. It's a pretty crap system, let's be honest.
Original post by ARoxanne
Just wondering, does this then mean that Universities will accept you even if you fall short of the offered conditions?


Potentially, but this is far from guaranteed. The only guaranteed way to get into your choices is to get the grades. If you miss them, then they are quite within their rights to reject you, and this is most likely to happen on the most competitive courses (eg law, medicine, nursing).

Original post by ARoxanne
Initially you'd think that's great as it allows opportunity for those who are academically capable but do bad in their exams. However, this creation of blurred lines is rather worrying as the reputations of such accepting Universities will soon decrease as they are potentially taking on less capable students.


You'd be surprised - many Russell Group universities are struggling to recruit enough students to many of their courses (especially, but not exclusively, the more niche ones), though you will never find them admitting that publicly. This has been the case since 2012, though it's not really getting any better (government policy changes notwithstanding, this will change when the current bulge in the primary school population reaches university age).

Luckily reputations of universities do not change that fast, and good reputations of universities are primarily built on things like research - which has naff all to do with the entry tariff of undergraduates.

Posted from TSR Mobile
It's a big problem in my opinion, universities look at predicted grades as to what an applicant should achieve, so applicants can lose out on offers just because someone in another school was predicted higher grades. Saying "They could be disappointed at the end of the year" means nothing to some pupils, because pupils want offers at unis they want to go to. If someone got BBB at AS and was predicted AAB and got an offer from Loughborough for Economics, say. They don't care that it's two grades higher, they have a chance of getting in, and are better off than if they were predicted BBB and were declined an offer and had no chance of getting in.
I've been predicted 3 A*s, but I got fairly high As in those subjects at AS so I guess it makes sense

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