The Student Room Group

A-level results day 2020- Guide to appeals, retakes and remote results day

As I’m sure you’re all aware, results day this year is likely to be very different compared to previous years.

Some of the options that are usually available to people on results day won’t be in place, and there’s also new things to think about, like the autumn exam series.

The purpose of this thread is to try and put as much information as possible about results day 2020 in one place, so that everyone’s ready for the big day!

This thread will hopefully give you some more information about how results day will work this year, and what your options are if things haven't quite gone to plan.

Please feel free to ask any questions you might have in the thread!

If you haven't done as well as you would have hoped, you may also be interested in clearing. You can find our clearing FAQ here:
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6552572

There's also a guide to clearing plus here:
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6552678

Remote Results Days

Most schools and colleges won’t be running results day as usual. They’ll instead be running things remotely- so that all students get their results emailed or via online portal in the morning, and then students that need it can access extra support.

Before results day, make sure you know how your school is running results day this year! Also, make sure you have any log ins you may need, as well as any important email addresses or phone numbers for your school.

If you don’t know what’s going on, find out before results day! Don’t assume everything will be as normal. However, a significant minority of schools are doing results in person, so don't assume it's online either!

Some schools are also offering appointments on the day for students who feel like they might need some extra support. If you’re worried about meeting your offer, or are planning on using clearing, then it might be a good idea to sign up for an appointment like this. Talk to your school and find out what support will be available on the day, and how to access it!

You can let us know what your school is doing in the TSR poll here: https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6612418 Currently, about 2/3 of students won't be picking their results up in person.


Appeals

There has been lots of talk about appeals if your results don’t go to plan. However, Ofqual are only going to allow appeals in very limited circumstances, and all appeals must go via your school. Appeals aren't like reviews of marking, so they aren't considered on a case by case basis. You can only appeal if there is evidence a mistake has been made. You can't appeal your CAG (center assessed grade) or your rank order.

If you/your school believe a mistake has been made, either by the school or the exam board, your school can appeal your result. This must go via your exams officer at school. It’s very likely that if you’re in this situation, your school will contact you. However, if you’re really surprised by a result, it is worth speaking to your school about this.

If you are in this situation, and you have been rejected from your firm or insurance university, you should contact them ASAP. The aim is for appeals of this kind to be processed by 7th September, and most unis will hopefully hold your place until this time.

There’s guidance on how to do this for:

AQA: https://www.aqa.org.uk/exams-administration/after-results/post-results/appeals

OCR: https://www.ocr.org.uk/administration/other-vocational-qualifications/post-results/appeals/

Pearson-Edexcel: https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/support/support-topics/results-certification/post-results-services.html

UPDATE 19/08/20:

A lot of people are now asking about how to appeal their CAGs. There isn't really an official system for this in place, and the announcement about moving to CAGs was quite sudden.

It is possible to complain to an exam board about bias and discrimination, or malpractice on the part of your school. If you end up appealing on the grounds of malpractice, do be aware this is a long and expensive process and it's unlikely to get a resolution in time for uni entry this year.

The first step is to discuss your grades with your school. If they can provide a reasonable explanation for your CAG (and they can't discuss the grades of others) then it's unlikely an appeal would get very far.

The next step is likely to be to do an SAR (Subject Access Request) to get all the information from your school about your CAG and how it was decided. There's information about how to do this here: https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/your-right-to-get-copies-of-your-data/

Your school then has a month to respond.

If you look through this, and find clear evidence of bias or discrimination, you should then contact your exam board and they can advise you on next steps.

Retakes

There’s going to be an extra-ordinary series of exams in the autumn to allow students an additional chance to retake. The current expected date for these is October, and it’s likely exams will take a different format to usual with shorter papers or less papers in each subject. For most subjects NEAs won’t be involved in the retakes.

The deadline to enter for retakes is 4th September, so if you want to retake, you must be registered before this date.

Results for these won’t come out until December, which will be too late for most unis next year. However, if you plan to retake, it’s worth speaking to your firm/insurance uni about the possibility of a deferred place for 2021. Lots of unis do seem to be offering these, so definitely ask!

If you retake in October and improve your grade, it will be possible to have new exam certificates printed with just your Autumn grade, and your grade won’t be treated as a retake.

If you want to retake in October, you should discuss this with your school. Fees will be charged for these exams, and your school may pass this fee on to you.

One advantage of autumn retakes is that results will come out before Jan 15th 2021, so you can apply to uni with known grades.

There’s also the option to retake next summer, like there would be in a normal year. However, it's worth bearing in mind that we don't know exactly what Summer 2021 exams will look like yet, or when they will take place. Theoretically, these retakes will be treated like normal for the purposes of uni entry, and both results will be listed on exam certificates. However, a lot of unis including some med schools are saying they will treat this as a first sit, provided you take ALL exams in Summer 2021.
(edited 3 years ago)

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This is going to be **** ☹️
Original post by SarcAndSpark
As I’m sure you’re all aware, results day this year is likely to be very different compared to previous years.

Some of the options that are usually available to people on results day won’t be in place, and there’s also new things to think about, like the autumn exam series.

The purpose of this thread is to try and put as much information as possible about results day 2020 in one place, so that everyone’s ready for the big day!

This thread will hopefully give you some more information about how results day will work this year, and what your options are if things haven't quite gone to plan.

Please feel free to ask any questions you might have in the thread!

If you haven't done as well as you would have hoped, you may also be interested in clearing. You can find our clearing FAQ here:
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6552572

There's also a guide to clearing plus here:
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6552678

Remote Results Days

Most schools and colleges won’t be running results day as usual. They’ll instead be running things remotely- so that all students get their results emailed or via online portal in the morning, and then students that need it can access extra support.

Before results day, make sure you know how your school is running results day this year! Also, make sure you have any log ins you may need, as well as any important email addresses or phone numbers for your school.

If you don’t know what’s going on, find out before results day! Don’t assume everything will be as normal. However, a significant minority of schools are doing results in person, so don't assume it's online either!

Some schools are also offering appointments on the day for students who feel like they might need some extra support. If you’re worried about meeting your offer, or are planning on using clearing, then it might be a good idea to sign up for an appointment like this. Talk to your school and find out what support will be available on the day, and how to access it!

You can let us know what your school is doing in the TSR poll here: https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6612418 Currently, about 2/3 of students won't be picking their results up in person.


Appeals

There has been lots of talk about appeals if your results don’t go to plan. However, Ofqual are only going to allow appeals in very limited circumstances, and all appeals must go via your school. Appeals aren't like reviews of marking, so they aren't considered on a case by case basis. You can only appeal if there is evidence a mistake has been made. You can't appeal your CAG (center assessed grade) or your rank order.

If you/your school believe a mistake has been made, either by the school or the exam board, your school can appeal your result. This must go via your exams officer at school. It’s very likely that if you’re in this situation, your school will contact you. However, if you’re really surprised by a result, it is worth speaking to your school about this.

If you are in this situation, and you have been rejected from your firm or insurance university, you should contact them ASAP. They should hold your offer until at least 31st August so that you can get the situation rectified.

If you think you've been treated unfairly by your school, your only option is a malpractice appeal to the exam board. Unless you are a private candidate, this must go via your school.

There’s guidance on how to do this for:

AQA: https://www.aqa.org.uk/exams-administration/after-results/post-results/appeals

OCR: https://www.ocr.org.uk/administration/other-vocational-qualifications/post-results/appeals/

Pearson-Edexcel: https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/support/support-topics/results-certification/post-results-services.html

The fees for this are pretty high (over £100 for the initial investigation, with an additional fee for any subsequent hearings) and it’s likely to be a long and involved process. You will get your money back if the appeal is upheld, though.

Realistically, for an appeal of this kind to be successful, you will need to have evidence of malpractice of some kind. You won't get anywhere just doing it on the off chance that there has been some malpractice!

If you’re appealing in this way, and you’ve not got into university, you should let your firm/insurance know, and ask how long they would be willing to hold your place for. It’s unlikely an appeal would be processed before the 31st August cut off, but some unis may be willing to be flexible on this.

Retakes

There’s going to be an extra-ordinary series of exams in the autumn to allow students an additional chance to retake. The current expected date for these is October, and it’s likely exams will take a different format to usual with shorter papers or less papers in each subject. For most subjects NEAs won’t be involved in the retakes.

Results for these won’t come out until December, which will be too late for most unis next year. However, if you plan to retake, it’s worth speaking to your firm/insurance uni about the possibility of a deferred place for 2021.

If you retake in October and improve your grade, it will be possible to have new exam certificates printed with just your Autumn grade, and your grade won’t be treated as a retake.

If you want to retake in October, you should discuss this with your school. Fees will be charged for these exams, and your school may pass this fee on to you.

One advantage of autumn retakes is that results will come out before Jan 15th 2021, so you can apply to uni with known grades.

There’s also the option to retake next summer, like there would be in a normal year. However, it's worth bearing in mind that we don't know exactly what Summer 2021 exams will look like yet, or when they will take place. These retakes will be treated like normal for the purposes of uni entry, and both results will be listed on exam certificates.


Thank you for a clear explanation. Fingers crossed
So if we take October exams and score higher, we only have to declare that grade when we apply to uni? Not both?
Reply 4
Original post by SarcAndSpark
As I’m sure you’re all aware, results day this year is likely to be very different compared to previous years.

Some of the options that are usually available to people on results day won’t be in place, and there’s also new things to think about, like the autumn exam series.

The purpose of this thread is to try and put as much information as possible about results day 2020 in one place, so that everyone’s ready for the big day!

This thread will hopefully give you some more information about how results day will work this year, and what your options are if things haven't quite gone to plan.

Please feel free to ask any questions you might have in the thread!

If you haven't done as well as you would have hoped, you may also be interested in clearing. You can find our clearing FAQ here:
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6552572

There's also a guide to clearing plus here:
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6552678

Remote Results Days

Most schools and colleges won’t be running results day as usual. They’ll instead be running things remotely- so that all students get their results emailed or via online portal in the morning, and then students that need it can access extra support.

Before results day, make sure you know how your school is running results day this year! Also, make sure you have any log ins you may need, as well as any important email addresses or phone numbers for your school.

If you don’t know what’s going on, find out before results day! Don’t assume everything will be as normal. However, a significant minority of schools are doing results in person, so don't assume it's online either!

Some schools are also offering appointments on the day for students who feel like they might need some extra support. If you’re worried about meeting your offer, or are planning on using clearing, then it might be a good idea to sign up for an appointment like this. Talk to your school and find out what support will be available on the day, and how to access it!

You can let us know what your school is doing in the TSR poll here: https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6612418 Currently, about 2/3 of students won't be picking their results up in person.


Appeals

There has been lots of talk about appeals if your results don’t go to plan. However, Ofqual are only going to allow appeals in very limited circumstances, and all appeals must go via your school. Appeals aren't like reviews of marking, so they aren't considered on a case by case basis. You can only appeal if there is evidence a mistake has been made. You can't appeal your CAG (center assessed grade) or your rank order.

If you/your school believe a mistake has been made, either by the school or the exam board, your school can appeal your result. This must go via your exams officer at school. It’s very likely that if you’re in this situation, your school will contact you. However, if you’re really surprised by a result, it is worth speaking to your school about this.

If you are in this situation, and you have been rejected from your firm or insurance university, you should contact them ASAP. They should hold your offer until at least 31st August so that you can get the situation rectified.

If you think you've been treated unfairly by your school, your only option is a malpractice appeal to the exam board. Unless you are a private candidate, this must go via your school.

There’s guidance on how to do this for:

AQA: https://www.aqa.org.uk/exams-administration/after-results/post-results/appeals

OCR: https://www.ocr.org.uk/administration/other-vocational-qualifications/post-results/appeals/

Pearson-Edexcel: https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/support/support-topics/results-certification/post-results-services.html

The fees for this are pretty high (over £100 for the initial investigation, with an additional fee for any subsequent hearings) and it’s likely to be a long and involved process. You will get your money back if the appeal is upheld, though.

Realistically, for an appeal of this kind to be successful, you will need to have evidence of malpractice of some kind. You won't get anywhere just doing it on the off chance that there has been some malpractice!

If you’re appealing in this way, and you’ve not got into university, you should let your firm/insurance know, and ask how long they would be willing to hold your place for. It’s unlikely an appeal would be processed before the 31st August cut off, but some unis may be willing to be flexible on this.

Retakes

There’s going to be an extra-ordinary series of exams in the autumn to allow students an additional chance to retake. The current expected date for these is October, and it’s likely exams will take a different format to usual with shorter papers or less papers in each subject. For most subjects NEAs won’t be involved in the retakes.

Results for these won’t come out until December, which will be too late for most unis next year. However, if you plan to retake, it’s worth speaking to your firm/insurance uni about the possibility of a deferred place for 2021.

If you retake in October and improve your grade, it will be possible to have new exam certificates printed with just your Autumn grade, and your grade won’t be treated as a retake.

If you want to retake in October, you should discuss this with your school. Fees will be charged for these exams, and your school may pass this fee on to you.

One advantage of autumn retakes is that results will come out before Jan 15th 2021, so you can apply to uni with known grades.

There’s also the option to retake next summer, like there would be in a normal year. However, it's worth bearing in mind that we don't know exactly what Summer 2021 exams will look like yet, or when they will take place. These retakes will be treated like normal for the purposes of uni entry, and both results will be listed on exam certificates.

except for med/dent/vet applicants, their application deadline is 15th oct...
Original post by Anonymous17!
So if we take October exams and score higher, we only have to declare that grade when we apply to uni? Not both?

Yes
Original post by Southcoaster747
Yes

Ok, cool
Original post by Anonymous17!
So if we take October exams and score higher, we only have to declare that grade when we apply to uni? Not both?

If you apply before you get your autumn exam results, I think you would need to declare your existing grades- but if you applied in 2021 or a future year, you wouldn't.
Original post by sswnnxx
except for med/dent/vet applicants, their application deadline is 15th oct...

This is true, but in most cases I think results would still come out before interview and before final decisions are made.
Reply 8
Original post by SarcAndSpark
This is true, but in most cases I think results would still come out before interview and before final decisions are made.


i have asked dental schools about this and so far I have 1 reply- they said that they would not be able to wait for the december results, so I assume other schools would be the same
Original post by sswnnxx
i have asked dental schools about this and so far I have 1 reply- they said that they would not be able to wait for the december results, so I assume other schools would be the same

AFIAK, most dental/med school interviews are in Feb/March? So they wouldn't know necessarily before they made decisions about who to interview, but they would know by the time you went to interview- if you then had strong achieved grades, this would work in your favour.

I hope that makes sense!
Original post by SarcAndSpark
AFIAK, most dental/med school interviews are in Feb/March? So they wouldn't know necessarily before they made decisions about who to interview, but they would know by the time you went to interview- if you then had strong achieved grades, this would work in your favour.

I hope that makes sense!


I know right! To me it does not make sense how the school said that unless you have sufficient A level predictions then they won't be able to wait for your results in Dec if you wanted to apply with those achieved grades.

But I hope it is the case like you mentioned in your reply.
Original post by Anonymous17!
So if we take October exams and score higher, we only have to declare that grade when we apply to uni? Not both?

You have to put both on UCAS but uni's will most likely prioritise the autumn exams over the calculated grades. But for everything else it seems like you can use the higher of your summer or autumn grades.
Original post by Southcoaster747
Yes


No UCAS said you have to put both grades on. Although it should not make much of a difference.
Original post by blackugo
No UCAS said you have to put both grades on. Although it should not make much of a difference.

I sure hope it doesn’t
Just a general clearing question, do we need to use ucas points or actual grades? Because I have 4 a levels so UCAS points helps
Original post by blackugo
No UCAS said you have to put both grades on. Although it should not make much of a difference.

This contradicts what Ofqual have said about the autumn exams not being treated as retakes. Normally, you would have to list both grades on UCAS, but I think they will change this advice once the results come out in December.

Original post by L'anatra.M
Just a general clearing question, do we need to use ucas points or actual grades? Because I have 4 a levels so UCAS points helps

It depends on how the uni list their requirements.
Original post by SarcAndSpark
It depends on how the uni list their requirements.


I know that is what I was thinking as well. But there was ambiguity so I contacted UCAS. It is unfortunate because if you do worse in the autumn exam it will look poor on your UCAS application so you should really only do the ones you have to.
Original post by blackugo
I know that is what I was thinking as well. But there was ambiguity so I contacted UCAS. It is unfortunate because if you do worse in the autumn exam it will look poor on your UCAS application so you should really only do the ones you have to.

I think what UCAS might mean is that if you apply before December results, you'll need to list your summer results and the resits as pending. Once someone has December results, I think they should just list these- given what Ofqual have said about how these are to be treated, I can't see how UCAS can insist that you list both.
Original post by SarcAndSpark
I think what UCAS might mean is that if you apply before December results, you'll need to list your summer results and the resits as pending. Once someone has December results, I think they should just list these- given what Ofqual have said about how these are to be treated, I can't see how UCAS can insist that you list both.


They said you have to put your autumn results which get released in December as well as your Summer grades. They might contradict this or change this later but this is what I've been told.
Original post by blackugo
They said you have to put your autumn results which get released in December as well as your Summer grades. They might contradict this or change this later but this is what I've been told.

Do bear in mind that sometimes the people who answer the phones for UCAS (especially at this time of year) are sometimes temporary staff and aren't always that well informed. I've known them to give people bad/wrong advice in the past. I'd wait to see what guidance issue once the results are released.

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