..

Hahahaha that clarification was not really necessary.

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.“

“ The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there“

These daft threads that try to compare apples to pears and pick a “winner” are generally a waste of time.

I too think that unis have become harder to get into, but nowhere near as much as your (often misquoted) views.

Maths went from 36.6% getting A's to 17.5% getting A* and 24.3% getting A from 2003 to 2018. 36.6% A goes to 41.8% A*/A. That means grades have gotten inflated, and no doubt even more inflated form 1999 to 2003 as shown earlier in the thread. AAB-ABB is pretty equal to A*AA-AAA nowadays, especially if you look at how much more people take the subject just because the recession made people reconsider prospects.

But yes, it has become harder to do certain STEM degrees and easier to do certain humanities courses. There has been an increase in overall university applications, and sure the recession made more people do solid degrees, but really it was the tuition fees price hike that made a huge dent in applications to humanities and a huge increase in STEM degree applicants. Due to this, I concluded that the easiest time to get into most STEM courses was around 2009, just before the A* was released. Sure there was the AEA and other papers for the very top univeristies, but it was still a bit easier, and this was before the price hike. I think the price hike was a good thing too, why should we damage our economy just to make unis easier to get into?

Also bear in mind uni prestige has changed a lot since then. Nottingham/Leeds/Bristol have dropped a bit, Warwick skyrocketed in the last twenty years and so have London unis.

If you're having a Google of politicians' Wikis, people who attended Oxbridge in the 80s, you will see people got in with ABB or AAB and be wholly shocked. David Miliband got BBBD (approx. 1985). He then took a first in PPE, and an MSc in PolSci from MIT as a Kennedy Scholar. BBBD must have been at least respectable and furthermore a challenge if that is what a great mind could best achieve.

I think your retrospective approach overlooks the socio-economic reality that further education simply was not as common back in the 80s and 90s as it is today. If further education were the domain of the wealthy/academically able, there seems good reason to think that a higher percentage of further ed students in the 90s were academically able than the percentage today. That higher percentage of A attainment, even though A-Level was harder back then, could be explained by the fact the proportion of good students was higher.

Honestly grade inflation isn't an issue for the process of getting into university. Despite all the memes by the newspapers each year about 5,000 people get A*A*A* (forgot where exactly I saw this but it was on the gov website), for reference oxbridge has about 7,000 places I think.

Personally I think they should scrap the current grading system, make coursework pass or fail but not actually count towards the final result (cause everyone cheats on it and it's massively affected by your school) and split them into "0-9", where 9 means top 10 percent (same as A*), 8 top 20, 7 top 30 etc.

Then make sure theses boundaries stay identical every year.

Oxbridge in the 1980s had entrance exams and interviews, if you passed both, you get an offer of two E's at A level, as for easy to get into Oxbridge, a friend on my course in Manchester Uni had 3 A's at A level and did not get into Cambridge for Nat Sci. He did his D Phil at Oxford.

So the A level grades for applicants that got into Oxbridge in the 1980s is a bit misleading.

Agreed. however people argue that will assume the cohort is identical, and that means people will get A grades when they wouldn't have the year prior.

Oxbridge in the 1980s had entrance exams and interviews, if you passed both, you get an offer of two E's at A level, as for easy to get into Oxbridge, a friend on my course in Manchester Uni had 3 A's at A level and did not get into Cambridge for Nat Sci. He did his D Phil at Oxford.

So the A level grades for applicants that got into Oxbridge in the 1980s is a bit misleading.

Yeah I'm sure they would, but something has to be done to stop the grades becoming meaningless over time.

Also I'd only really agree with this sort of competitive system with set percentages for uni applications, gcses which are just downright required for anything should have adjusting boundaries.

To be fair, that shows there was a degree of selectivity. It does not say it was comparable to today. Further, at least for Oxford, AAA is only a notional entry, similar to EE. Most people exceed it! I agree with the loose thesis but I don't think your example is proof.

Lastly, I am sure there are people at Manchester this day who were kicked back from Cambridge for NatSci yet will finish a DPhil at Oxford. It shows the criteria that underpins Oxbridge's selectivity is somewhat flawed.

The head of the chemistry department at Cambridge studied his undergrad at Durham....

If you're thinking what I'm thinking, that's a lot of irony.

You should look into the story of the philologist Joseph Wright's backstory, how he managed to grab an Oxford chair after working at a wool mill while simultaneously attending night school. He got a degree from the Yorkshire College of Science and eventually took a PhD at Heidelberg.

No doubt he would have been trusted to make admission decisions while holding the professorship, though it would have been far below him to do so.

Heidelberg is the best university in Germany, isn't it?

Leeds Uni is also pretty good.

But hot damn..

Yeah, Heidelberg is one of the best unis in Europe. Personal statement musta been on point!

It is fascinating to see people's stories, especially of the Victorian era. But to quote Heath Ledger, a man can change his stars. If nulli responds, he will probably have a few rags-to-riches stories which are similar. Probably from the 1200s!

What were admissions like back then? German unis let anyone in, as long as you pass high school. Only problem is that 80% drop out...

The most famous one is probably Thomas Wolsey - probably never be topped.

Honestly grade inflation isn't an issue for the process of getting into university. Despite all the memes by the newspapers each year about 5,000 people get A*A*A* (forgot where exactly I saw this but it was on the gov website), for reference oxbridge has about 7,000 places I think.

Personally I think they should scrap the current grading system, make coursework pass or fail but not actually count towards the final result (cause everyone cheats on it and it's massively affected by your school) and split them into "0-9", where 9 means top 10 percent (same as A*), 8 top 20, 7 top 30 etc.

Then make sure theses boundaries stay identical every year.

admission is still significantly easier - keyword being significantly.

Oxford's acceptance rate has decreased by roughly 100%. So please, do tell why the deviation isn't significant?

How is ABB in 2003 = to A*AA now where did you come up with a 3 grade increase? a roughly 24% A*/A in 2017 vs 21.6% in 2003? Jesus.


Also, ICL and UCL were winning Nobel Prizes and being famed well before the new millennia. I imagine LSE is similar.