Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

A levels and university offers

Hi, thanks for answering these questions. I was wondering about two broad areas of the changes due to coronavirus. Sorry that it’s so long.The first relates to the impact of these new A level grades on university offers. You’ve said that you’ve asked universities to be flexible, but you have also told universities to take these grades as if they were normal grades. Does this mean that the normal university procedures for missed offers (which are often quite inflexible) will still be in place? In addition, with regards to the ban on unconditional offers during Easter, will universities who agree to suspend grade requirements for resit candidates (instead of forcing them to take another gap year) be exempt from the ban, given that this would be for all intents and purposes unconditional offer.The second point is about A level grades themselves, which I know don’t fall under your purview. Do you know whether the corrective formula (used by exam boards to adjust centre predicted grades to prevent inflation) will be modified for small subjects, in which only a small number of previous candidates from a school have taken the exams, to prevent a sampling error (so to make sure that, for example, a school in which one candidate has taken a qualification in the past 3 years and who has got a low grade doesn’t have a disproportionate impact on this years candidates)?I know it was difficult to design a system so quickly, but it does seem that candidates are being graded on an inflexible system of rankings and formulae, with a narrow and inflexible appeals process, being viewed by universities using normal, potentially inflexible, missed-offer procedures. Especially at a time like this, there needs to be flexibility somewhere in this system, either at the grading, appeals or admissions levels, but it seems like it risks putting people, with specific circumstances, at the mercy of a rigid, impersonal and unchangeable system. Sorry about the essay (exam withdrawal symptoms).