I'm just thinking. The 15% of students who would have otherwise been accepted can always re-apply on results day if they achieve the grades. They'll just have more competition and will be facing off against students who exceeded their expectations/predicted grades. And I don't think competition is a bad thing.. win-win situation for both the uni and bright students.
Competition is a bad thing when it is someone's future you are talking about. It isn't like football. Teachers know their students, so why should people with perfectly good grades and perfectly good levels of intellect be held back just in case someone's teacher got it wrong?
We are moving further and further away from the original system: you apply, the uni decides, if you get your grades you go. There is too much mucking around. If the Government has so little faith in the UCAS system that they have to keep fiddling with all these 'extras' then they should scrap the system completely and start afresh.
Teachers know their students, so why should people with perfectly good grades and perfectly good levels of intellect be held back just in case someone's teacher got it wrong?
1) Teachers may be inherently bias and/or prejudiced.
2) There lacks a prescribed standard/method of predicting grades across all schools.
3) Students with "perfectly good grades and perfectly good levels of intellect" should be held back because someone else is better for them.
If they're truly the best, there's nothing stopping them from securing the offer.
As you ignored the previous post on this Alex, 55% of predictions are inflated. This is why they can't be trusted. What's the point of making an offer to a predicted AAA student if they could end up with CCC?
Well again it is an element of trust. If they cannot be trusted, it needs to be looked at and an alternative system drawn up. But I am sorry, how can we justify the system stretching out as long as this? If this system is put in place, and many people don't get offers because places are being held back, the process could take ONE YEAR from application to decision. That is ludicrous and simply not fair on the people going through the system.
Applying in September and having all your decisions in February is fair enough. Applying in September and potentially having to wait until August because of places being held back just is not fair.
If you applied for 6 universities, and all 6 rejected you just because you fell within that group of 15% which would have otherwise been accepted under normal circumstances, then you obviously have set your sights a tad too far for your own abilities.
You could very well secure 4-5 offers and be rejected by 1-2, which you CAN re-apply for after results day. If you're good enough, you'll get in. Otherwise, you have other options to fall back on - simple.
I’m loving the sound of this new system, I’m only in year 12 at the moment, but I know people who have achieved higher than their grades were predicted and then were slightly resentful of the course they took.
My only concern is the extra strain this is going to put on the system, and the inevitable complications it will create, I don’t think universities (at least the admin staff) are going to be pleased to hear this!
Exactly my point.. or am I missing something?
we are basically saying that some Unis are crap and should be avoided.
Well, I was rfeerring to the fact that the way the admissions system works giving you a choice of 6 Unis means that Universities need to give out substantially more offers than places (my course gave ~350 offers for 200 places and it's one of the best in the country) and only allowing them to give out 200 offers would create big gaps for the worse Universities(and even some of the better ones) which wouldn't be able to be filled with the requisite quality students.
I partly agree with Alex Mann. This is going to cause chaos in an already fairly chaotic system. Fair enough that many predicted grades are wrong but to suggest universities leave 15% of places open to 2nd chance candidates hardly seems either fair or doable for the universities in the present state. If they want to have a large number of people APQ then they should perhaps look at restructuring the exam system so that leavers exams are taken earlier (like with the SAT system in the US?) and everyone applies after they have their results. But I don't see that coming in for some years.
It may be what some people say, but do you think that is right? Standing here, judging Unis we have never even visited, saying they are crap? Surely it would be far more constructive to look at ways of helping these Universities, rather than giving them less students, therefore less income etc etc.
So students should have to go a university they don't want to go to because it's "fair" to the university?
Not at all. What I am saying is that rather than just ****ging lesser Unis off and trying to find ways of getting more people into Oxbridge, Durham etc etc, someone should look at a viable way of improving University standards, rather than simply shifting students about.
Adding another stage to the application process won't help students at all. All it will do is delay the process, creating further stress for equally matched students fighting for an ever decreasing amount of 'top level' places. I wish the Government would stop focusing so much on the application process and would actually put some proper effort into improving the quality of our Universities. If they think the application process isn't adequate they should start afresh rather than this constant tinkering.