TOP universities in the UK are always looking for ways of identifying the ‘brightest pupils’ because about a quarter of all A levels taken are now awarded an A grade.
As a result, from this summer it will be possible to gain an A* grade at A level. To achieve this grade students must achieve 80 per cent overall and 90 per cent in the second year exams.
It is estimated (based on last year’s grades) that only about seven per cent will achieve the A* grade, but this is predicted to vary widely between subjects. For example, it is expected that about a quarter of those taking A level Latin and Advanced Maths will achieve the new A* grade, whereas only about two per cent of those taking subjects like Media Studies or Business Studies will achieve it. This has less to do with the variation in difficulty of subjects and more to do with the different cohorts of students who opt for subjects like Maths and Latin as opposed to Media and Business Studies.
Some top universities like Cambridge and Imperial College, London have already changed their entry requirements to include at least one A* grade.
To make matters worse, some very well respected university courses have also now said that they will no longer accept predicted A level grades based on AS level resits. They will only accept the grades that students get first time round. These include University College London
(UCL) medical school and the architecture department at Bath University. UCL also wants all exams to be taken in the summer term (rather than staggered with a January sitting) to ensure that students are able to cope with a large number of exams in one go.
Why are universities doing this? Obviously, they have been getting too many students applying who are predicted to get all A grades. So to make it easier on their admissions departments, this means that in the future they will get far fewer applicants. And anyone not predicted to meet their very high standards will be easily identified and rejected.
They say they are trying to identify the brightest students but this, of course, assumes that the brightest students are a) those that achieve the top grades and b) those that do it first time round.
Anyone involved in education knows that A level students are individuals with different levels of motivation and different backgrounds and educational experiences that advantage or disadvantage them in playing the exam game.
A levels used to be linear: students studied a two-year course and took a load of exams at the end. This meant it didn’t matter too much if students did not settle down in the first year of the course (aged 16). Many bright ones got a bit more mature in the second year, reinforced their learning from the early part of the course and improved their skills. Those with particularly good memories just learnt a whole load of information and, with some good exam preparation, they produced what the examiner wanted to see on the day and thus, got the grades.
Then the A levels got harder and required a lot more critical thinking skills. To balance this out and make the exam system fairer, a linear system became a modular system, which included first taking the intermediate AS levels. In practice, this meant that students could take exams at four different times over the two years, with the option to resit any that they wanted to achieve a higher mark in.
The consequence of a modular system is that schools encourage students to take their first set of AS exams in the January of their first year of the course. Ready or not, these 16-year-olds take exams after the first three months. The idea is that it is good exam practice if they do not do as well as they could, and if they get a really good grade, they don’t have to worry about that exam paper ever again.
A win, win situation, you would have thought, but not any more. In reality many students do sit retakes in order to maximise their marks; that is the system we have. It allows kids, especially those without the privilege of an exam factory education to prove themselves over time rather than relying on what they can show on one day at the end.
And all schools now play the game by encouraging retakes. This move is a bit unfortunate for those who are already half way through a two-year A level course and may have already opted for resits, thinking it didn’t really matter.
It will be interesting to see whether Bath and UCL will still allow their medical students and architecture students to retake exams. To my knowledge, it is common practice at university to allow retakes, even at medical school.
What is the message these universities are sending to A level students? The brightest students are those who never experience personal difficulties in their teenage years and those that are sensible enough, at an early age, to settle down and study from day one of their course. Really? This will advantage those students at private schools, who will be better prepared for this shift in the rules of the game. And let’s not forget that this will make any talk from these universities of ‘widening participation’ and ‘inclusion’
meaningless.
Logically we might just as well go back to a linear system. At least we all knew where we stood with that.
