A-star A-levels for the girl who had two brain tumour ops
Universities drop entry requirements by 3 grades to fill places
ELITE universities dropped their entry requirements for courses by up to three grades yesterday in a scramble to fill places.
At least five of the prestigious universities of the Russell Group advertised courses in clearing with reduced entry requirements.
They were Exeter, Liverpool, Warwick and York universities and Queen Mary University of London. In many cases they were dropping requirements from a string of A grades to B and even C grades.
Universities are dealing with a glut of places this year because of a drop in the number of 18-year-olds coinciding with the removal of a cap on the number of places.
Yesterday morning, early figures showed there had been a drop of 1 per cent in people accepted onto courses before clearing opened – 411,860 compared with 416,310 at the same point last year.
It meant that all through results day, even the country’s top universities were having to compete to fill popular courses.
Experts criticised the move. Alan Smithers, professor of education at the University of Buckingham, said: ‘Universities are showing signs of over-expansion and even some of the leading ones are dropping their entry requirements.
‘This will reduce the value of their degrees and may lead to people entering expensive courses only for them to find that they can’t really cope, which would lead to higher drop-out rates.’
Clearing is the process by which students who do not have a university place – or have missed out on their place due to poor performance – can shop around for a new course. Many universities have their own clearing pages on their websites.
A Daily Mail audit yesterday found that many elite universities were listing entry requirements on their clearing pages which were lower than those originally on their course pages.
It showed Exeter had at least five such courses, including natural sciences, which appeared to have dropped grades from A*AA-AAB to just AAB. Geography dropped from AAA-ABB to AAB-ABB, and modern languages dropped from AAB-ABB to BCC.
The same was true at Liverpool, which had at least six courses appearing to drop their grades. Its requirements for history dropped from AAA-AAB to just BBC – a full three grades.
At Warwick, at least five courses dropped their grades, including history which lowered its requirements by two grades from AAA to ABB.
At York, four courses – history, biology, mathematics and English all dropped two grades. At Queen Mary, mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering both dropped by three grades from AAB to BBC. Two other courses – history and English – dropped by two grades.
A spokesman for Warwick said: ‘As a result of demographic changes and the decline in the number of 18-year-olds compared with 2017, the number of potential places available has increased.’
Queen Mary said: ‘Like many universities, for high-potential candidates we occasionally make offers below the advertised grades on our course pages and during clearing.’
The others universities declined to comment.
Meanwhile, the huge rise in unconditional university offers for students has led to the collapse of one school’s A-level results, it was claimed. Pupils were said to have given up trying in their exams at the secondary school as a result of securing a degree place regardless of their grades – with some no longer even bothering to turn up to lessons. The shocking trend was revealed by Partners in Excellence (PiXL) – the largest network of schools in England and Wales.
Sir John Rowling, its chairman, told the Times Educational Supplement that the school, which he declined to name, has seen A*-E grades dive from 74 per cent in 2017 to 14 per cent this year. Forty students received unconditional offers from universities this year.
The school at the base of Grenfell Tower has achieved outstanding results in the first A-levels sat by its students. Safety concerns forced Kensington Aldridge Academy in north Kensington, London, to move to portable classrooms after the fire in June last year. Four of its pupils and one former pupil were among the 72 who died.
The comprehensive school opened in 2014 and its sixth form started two years later. Yesterday, in its first set of A-level results, 62 per cent were grades A* to B and the pass rate was 99.6 per cent.
Almost every pupil has secured a university place.
‘This will reduce the value of their degrees’