After two years of record results, the government told this year’s graduates, who were the first to sit A-level exams since the start of the pandemic, that the exams would be graded at a “midpoint” between pandemic increases and normal levels of 2019. However, universities now fear that the unexpectedly low results in Scottish Highers, which students received last Tuesday, are likely to be repeated in England on Thursday morning. The overall pass rate for seniors dropped from 89.3% in 2020 to 78.9% this summer. Andrew Hargreaves, a former director at admissions service Ucas and co-founder of dataHE, a consultancy that advises universities on admissions, told the Observer: “There is a frenzy about this in universities. Many fear we may have another year similar to 2020, when all the headlines were about the Tier A fiasco.” After schools closed as a result of the pandemic in March 2020 and students were unable to sit exams, the exam regulator came up with a controversial standardization algorithm to award A-level grades. This led to nearly 40% of predicted grades being downgraded and many students, especially those from poorer backgrounds, losing university places. Students and parents reacted furiously and the government was forced into a humiliating shift back to teacher-assessed grades. Although A-levels in England and Wales are overseen by different independent regulators, and a Department for Education spokesman said it would be “wrong to use Scotland’s results as a basis for speculation”, Hargreaves said Scotland’s results would they could well be an indicator of what is to come. He added: “It’s a much more dramatic swing than expected and certainly not an average.” Competition for positions is expected to be extremely intense. Photo: M4OS Photos/Alamy Competition for places at the most selective universities has been extremely tough this year, with institutions reducing the number of offers made after being forced to take on more students than they wanted during the pandemic and a demographic increase in the number of 18-year-olds – old ones. In recent years, before the pandemic, strong applicants who dropped a grade had a good chance of speaking to a top institution on the phone, but experts now say that’s much less likely, especially in popular subjects. Hargreaves urged students awaiting results to start researching a plan B just in case, while Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, warned that Thursday’s results could be devastating for social mobility. He said selective universities may not be able to “take a chance” on many promising disadvantaged applicants because their grades turn out to be too low. “The real fear is that many disadvantaged students, whose learning has been disproportionately damaged by the pandemic, will be turned away,” he added. “This year will be the toughest admissions round in living memory for many applicants.” Victoria Panni from Hampshire, whose son Taylor hopes to study sociology at Bournemouth University, said: “I saw that Scottish students were not getting their predicted grades and I spoke to my son about back-up plans. It’s a very worrying time.” He said: “It seems the government and exam boards completely ignored the fact that for the first year of A-levels students had two lockdowns to endure and most of their learning was online alone.” Mark Garratt, director of marketing, communications and recruitment at Anglia Ruskin University, said students may not realize the clearance is already open and can contact universities now to see if they have places available in the subjects they want. “There will still be plenty of places at universities across the country,” he said. “Preparing in advance can ease anxiety when students receive their results.” The DfE said: “The pattern of grades in each subject in England will be based around a mean between the proportion of each grade in that subject in 2021 and 2019. This is not the same policy as in Scotland. Ucas expects the majority of students to secure their place on their fixed choice this year and our focus has been to work with universities to ensure offers reflect the grades students will receive this summer.”
