Is the game being upped?

Are A*s at A-level advantageous over A's for medicine, or is AAA just a box to tick for the admissions tutors?

Seen birmingham's website? looks like they're going to start A* offers

http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/students/courses/undergraduate/med/medicine.aspx

I wouldn't be surprised if they started using one of the aptitude tests too, they seem to like having really tough entry requirements. There's pretty much a 9A* at GCSE requirement before interview for undergrads, and they're the only medical school that require a 1st class undergrad degree minimum for their graduate entry programme.

What's so great about Birmingham, eh?

Are A*s at A-level advantageous over A's for medicine, or is AAA just a box to tick for the admissions tutors?

Yes they are. When I applied not so much, but more and more unis are changing there entrance requirement for medicine E.g. PMS now want A*AA. In the near future it may hold more value, so its better to try and get them obviously.

I didn't know PMS now want A*AA. I thought their standard offer had risen only last year from AABa to AAAa?

Its gone up again. It's on their website.

not really, the A* is the equivalent of the A from a few years ago in terms of academic effort.

not really, the A* is the equivalent of the A from a few years ago in terms of academic effort.

Not really as you can only lost 30 ums out of 300 in the second year, so no one can be really confident they will get one unless they are getting 100% consistently, so until results day you really dont know, whereas I'm pretty sure even a few years ago you could be fairly confident you would get an A if you had done at least reasonably well on the exams.

Not at all. The A* is very very much down to luck. The distance between a B and an A is absolutely massive comparatively compared to the distance between an A and an A* - at least in my year of sitting A-Levels (2008 - 2010). I was obviously the first year to sit the new papers, so perhaps it's less flukey now they've honed it?

Not really as you can only lost 30 ums out of 300 in the second year, so no one can be really confident they will get one unless they are getting 100% consistently, so until results day you really dont know, whereas I'm pretty sure even a few years ago you could be fairly confident you would get an A if you had done at least reasonably well on the exams.

you can dictate almost exactly the amount of marks you will get in todays papers, in my experience.

Do you mean it's possible to tell in an exam if you're gonna get an A*? Am I getting the wrong end of the stick?

If that's what you're saying: no it's nothing like that at all tbqh! It gets exponentially harder to get those last few (1-2) marks needed for an A*, a tiny little mistake and you've dropped the grade, or just not giving the answer that's on the mark scheme (but is still correct), etc. Not sure how the B -> A boundary was like in respects to this back in the day but right now the A* is a very flukey grade.

I would absolutely hate getting offered an A* - there's no way for anybody to know if you're gonna get it or not.