Architecture at Bath, advice re review of marking 2024

Hi there,
Posting re my son.
Received offer of A* A A but got A* A* B - same number of UCAS points (152). Found out the B is one point from an A (he got 250, grade boundary this year is 251).

On Thursday we applied for priority review of marking for all three economics papers, before we were told by various friends etc most people decide on one paper to submit first. We weren’t advised to do this by the school, perhaps because his economics teachers weren’t contactable (‘Message them on Microsoft teams and they should get back to you at some point.’).

I also have neurodiversity issues and I’m a single parent, so this was all a challenge for me to help him, too, and I feel I may have let him down by not knowing what to do for the best.

I’m now deeply concerned that he might be disadvantaged if the aggregated marks from all three end up meaning he has no chance if finding that extra point, Bath have said they will honour his place until 4 September if he gets an A on remark.

I have contacted his school by email over the weekend but I fear the timings might not work if we say to the exam board, ‘Hold fire until we know if we just want one reviewed.’

I don’t know what my question would be here but I guess I’m just wanting to hear people’s thoughts on all of this.

Thank you

Students (and parents) are placed in an impossible position when it comes to choosing which paper(s) to have reviewed.
The potential issue with having more than one reviewed at the same time is that you might gain a mark on one paper, only to lose it on the next. But, as you've suggested, you simply don't have time to wait for one review to come back before deciding whether or not to do the second review.
Some exam boards provide immediate on-line access to your marked exam papers on results day, and the ideal approach would be to have a teacher go through all three to determine which had a better chance of gaining an extra mark. However, as his economics teacher wasn't contactable (which is poor), that wasn't an option anyway.
I'll end by giving you a few stats from the reviews which took place in 2022, in the hope of putting your mind at rest a little. These are ballpark numbers from memory, but are within 0.5% of the actual numbers. That year, 65% of reviewed papers resulted in no change in the mark awarded, 10% resulted in the mark going up by one, and 5% in the mark going down by 1. (In the other 20% of cases, the mark went up or down by more than 1 mark.) So if the mark on a given paper changes (which it doesn't do the majority of the time anyway) it's twice as likely to go up by 1 mark than down by 1 mark.
All you can so now is wait and see what happens. Was Bath his firm or insurance choice? If it was his firm, would he be happy (albeit disappointed) to attend his insurance?

Thank you so much for responding - I really appreciate it.

It’s his firm choice, but if it doesn’t happen he will have to accept that he’s going to his insurance choice.

If he misses out in Bath for the sake of 1 mark, it'll be tough to accept. But this happens to students every year. Even if universities had access to students' marks (rather than just grades), and could see the difference between a student who just scraped a B vs. one who missed an A by one mark, it wouldn't really help, as they have to draw the line somewhere.
Do keep this thread up-to-date with what happens. Good luck to you both!

Students (and parents) are placed in an impossible position when it comes to choosing which paper(s) to have reviewed.
The potential issue with having more than one reviewed at the same time is that you might gain a mark on one paper, only to lose it on the next. But, as you've suggested, you simply don't have time to wait for one review to come back before deciding whether or not to do the second review.
Some exam boards provide immediate on-line access to your marked exam papers on results day, and the ideal approach would be to have a teacher go through all three to determine which had a better chance of gaining an extra mark. However, as his economics teacher wasn't contactable (which is poor), that wasn't an option anyway.
I'll end by giving you a few stats from the reviews which took place in 2022, in the hope of putting your mind at rest a little. These are ballpark numbers from memory, but are within 0.5% of the actual numbers. That year, 65% of reviewed papers resulted in no change in the mark awarded, 10% resulted in the mark going up by one, and 5% in the mark going down by 1. (In the other 20% of cases, the mark went up or down by more than 1 mark.) So if the mark on a given paper changes (which it doesn't do the majority of the time anyway) it's twice as likely to go up by 1 mark than down by 1 mark.
All you can so now is wait and see what happens. Was Bath his firm or insurance choice? If it was his firm, would he be happy (albeit disappointed) to attend his insurance?

I’ve posted a few questions re remark for our young person. They have their firm choice confirmed.

Was 4 marks off a A in a language. Paper 2 got almost full marks - so not worth re mark, paper 1 feels expected/correct looking at the scripts and teacher advises this rarely budges. Paper 3 is the speaking - Am I understanding correctly that the 4 marks needed can be just from one paper...

...and they’d have to lose 20 marks to drop from a B to a C? It was AQA - how have you found the data ? Scared to risk a remark and drop to a C as then would lose firm choice - but want to see risks so any data on this would be super helpful.

So if just Paper 3 Speaking remark - what is the risk of dropping 20 marks ? They’ve never got such a low score that would constitute the equivalent drop of losing 20 marks. Have we understood the weighting’s correctly- it is 20 marks to lose before dropping a grade ? They got 92 (weighted ) for Paper 3. Any help most appreciated

The fact that you say, "They have their firm choice confirmed" is great news as it means you don't need to opt for the "Priority review of marking" (request deadline 22 August) and can instead opt for the "Review of marking" (request deadline 26 September), which takes the time pressure off a little.
Correct. And the fact that there's really only one paper those marks can come from helps, and (a) it saves on cost (they charge per paper which is reviewed) and (b) you eliminate the risk of gaining marks when on paper is review only to lose them when the next paper is reviewed.
I can't tell you how many marks they'd have to lose to drop from a B to a C because you haven't mentioned the subject. You've just referred to it, someone elusively, as "a language". I could trying to match the weightings and maximum marks to the languages which AQA offer at A level, but it seems that you don't really want people to know what subject this was for some reason - so I'll respect that and not try to work it out.
The numbers I quoted in the post above came from Ofqual's Reviews of marking and moderation for GCSE, AS and A level: summer 2022 exam series. Take care when reading it as they keep switching from whether they're talking about GCSE or A levels, 2019 or 2022, grade increases or mark increases. However Table 4 (in the main report) is probably most relevant to you ("Distribution of raw mark changes for AS and A levels following reviews") which shows that in 2022, 2.7% of reviewed papers went up by 4 marks and a further 5.5% went up by 5 marks or more. You will note, however, that 3.8% also went down by 5 marks or more.
Again, without knowing the subject I can't confirm that it'd take 20 marks before dropping a grade. I can confirm, however, that the risk of dropping 20 marks is very, very low. But it's not zero.

If he misses out in Bath for the sake of 1 mark, it'll be tough to accept. But this happens to students every year. Even if universities had access to students' marks (rather than just grades), and could see the difference between a student who just scraped a B vs. one who missed an A by one mark, it wouldn't really help, as they have to draw the line somewhere.
Do keep this thread up-to-date with what happens. Good luck to you both!

Hello there. We got the review of marking back and his marks went up 11 points, so he has the A. He is overjoyed, and so are we!

In the end all three went in and it was fine, but my takeout from this is to insist on speaking to the subject teacher/s if you’re thinking about getting a review in order to see whether you should put the papers in one at a time. It worked out well for my son but it was hair-raising while we were waiting (not that long, as it goes) and it could easily have not gone in his favour.

Thanks for all your thoughts/advice. So happy!!!!

Ok thank you so much for such a detailed response. The language was Spanish and it was Paper 3 x the way we’ve worked it out the speaking is out of 60, 35 for the IRP & 25 for the card. YP is very confident they’d have scored very high on the IRP - day before doing practice with teacher told it was perfect - but allowing say for a few nerves may not have been full marks. The card was tricky - as out of the 2 cards given the school hadn’t finished the syllabus for one. So forced to choose other - YP felt immediately after exam & still to this day that they managed to save themselves but would not have got full marks. Probably middle band. Does that help ascertaining risk of remark ? Thank you for being so helpful to everyone

You are amazing! You are spot on ! Yes it’s 4 raw marks - weighted 8, thank you so much. YP kind of just wants to move on but I wanted to ensure I’d understood the boundaries/mark scheme properly. I looked at the data sheets you kindly shared - if I understood them correctly seems Spanish doesn’t budge much. Really appreciate your help.

Hello there. We got the review of marking back and his marks went up 11 points, so he has the A. He is overjoyed, and so are we!
In the end all three went in and it was fine, but my takeout from this is to insist on speaking to the subject teacher/s if you’re thinking about getting a review in order to see whether you should put the papers in one at a time. It worked out well for my son but it was hair-raising while we were waiting (not that long, as it goes) and it could easily have not gone in his favour.
Thanks for all your thoughts/advice. So happy!!!!

Hello there. We got the review of marking back and his marks went up 11 points, so he has the A. He is overjoyed, and so are we!
In the end all three went in and it was fine, but my takeout from this is to insist on speaking to the subject teacher/s if you’re thinking about getting a review in order to see whether you should put the papers in one at a time. It worked out well for my son but it was hair-raising while we were waiting (not that long, as it goes) and it could easily have not gone in his favour.
Thanks for all your thoughts/advice. So happy!!!!

Such good news! Which exam subjects and board if you don’t mind me asking - my YP has a few friends anxiously awaiting remarks x

It was Pearson Edexcel, and it was the priority service.
Wishing them the best of luck.