Should universities ditch the predicted grade system?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-44525719

Based on how your exams have gone this summer how are you feeling about hitting your uni offer? Are you worried?

Last year we saw students still being accepted by their firm - even if they had missed their offer by one or two grades. Despite this though, it can feel massively stressful

Did you/ have you ever considered asking your teacher to inflate your grades (predict higher) to help you get an offer from your dream uni?

Here's what's being discussed in the news today:



Head teachers have backed calls for a change, saying the current approach is "no longer fit for purpose".

But if unis want post results application, there has to be compromise somewhere. Imo August to October is too quick for students. It might work for unis but too many students will feel pressured into making snap, quick decisions and end up in the wrong place.

The push for post results applications isn't coming from universities - and they generally don't want to compromise. Any compromise isn't likely to be a complete rehaul of the academic calendar

If implemented it wouldn't be August to October - it would require earlier exams (April-May), quicker marking* and a late June results day...plus October starts.

The long break is for research - which includes conferences which are usually in the Easter and Summer periods. But it's also for academic staff to take their annual leave - many can't take leave during term time due to teaching commitments and so they have time off in the summer break...pushing that window for annual leave into the winter months isn't ideal. Many academics opt for that career because they have children and need to take time off over the school holidays. A shift to short summer breaks and longer winter breaks would likely mean more women pushed out of academia (either single parents or they're expected to sacrifice their careers because their partner is a higher earner).

And like you say - it's not great for students either.

*The quicker marking isn't likely to happen though - most markers are teachers and so aren't free to mark in May-June as they're still teaching and/or invigilating GCSE exams

I always thought unis were in favour of post results applications but if they're not then fair enough no need to compromise. I always thought unis were the ones sort of pushing for this in the past.

Tbf my understanding from women in academia is that you already can't really have a family and have a brilliant career--unless you have a partner who is willing to step up and pick up a lot of the slack. I'm not convinced that changing the summer holiday would make it worse. However this is probably a topic for another thread.

Moving exams to April is tricky as if there's a late easter there could be clashes between the holidays and exams. It would cost extra to open schools in the holidays obviously.

You mean as they have to do during clearing?

One of the key problems with the UK admissions system is that applicants are able to defer making decisions for far too long.

If you look at Ireland, it has a pre-results application system but you get a single offer based on your preference order when making your application.

http://www.cao.ie/index.php?page=timetableevents&bb=importantdates

Admissions *is* supposed to be fair
https://www.spa.ac.uk/resources/what-fair-admissions

They're not required.

yes we should because it makes students feel like it's impossible to do better

idk if this is just my school but say if i got predicted CCC , my school will do everything in it's power to make sure i don't dream any bigger , not even joking here

It also really demotivates you. And I also feel like if you get predicted really high, you'll underestimate in the real exams.

I think that universities should introduce the basic admissions tests (e.g. the ones that test critical thinking or just skills that are needed for university study in general) and then interview like 80-90% of the candidates (depending on their scores within the admissions tests) and then make the offers on the results day depending on the actual grades as well as performance on interviews. I think that this could be quite effective as: every one gets a chance to demonstrate their personalities to the tutors, it doesn't restrict university options and can make people work harder to increase their chances on results day, it gets candidates to focus on developing skills for university through the tests rather than just focussing on getting the grades. Also, for me, there is nothing worse than getting a conditional offer from your dream university and then finding out that all your efforts from the selection process were a waste, whilst this method is perhaps similar, knowing that they haven't got an offer before the exams (even conditional) can motivate students to try harder to meet the grade boundaries