A*ienating students

A warning has been issued from a group which represents universities including Warwick, Durham and York about the proposed new A* grades for A-level students.

In a report into the impact of school qualification reforms on university admissions, the 1994 Group warns that the A*, “could disrupt efforts to make the undergraduate population in research-intensive universities more socially inclusive”.

The A* grade is being introduced largely in response to complaints from universities such as Warwick which find it difficult to distinguish between candidates with a number of A grades at A-level.

The current proposal is that the new A* grade would be awarded to those getting marks of 90 per cent or more in at least two of their A2 units.

Around 26,000 A-level candidates currently achieve three grade As. It is estimated that under the new system a much smaller number, around 3000, will gain three A*s, with around 11000 gaining two A*s.

The A* grade will narrow the pool of candidates with the very top grades. This will make it easier for elite universities to discriminate between applicants.

However it may also suggest to some candidates that they have no chance at the most selective universities if they have not achieved a string of A*s. They may think they have even less chance of getting in than under the current system and so decide not even to apply.

This does not matter if you accept that A-level performance is the only factor that matters in university admissions. Yet many believe this is not the case.

A spokesman for the university told the Boar: “There’s a lot of discussion and debate around qualifications at the moment - not just the A*s - and we’re keeping a close eye on the situation.

"We view applications to the university as a whole, taking a holistic view of people coming to Warwick and the qualifications they present.

“HEFCE give the university widening participation benchmarks, and we’re less than a percentage point off ours - but even then there’s no room for complacency.”

The new A* grade could also leave the university with an entirely different problem.

The best A-level grades already go mostly to those from independent schools. The pupils achieving the new A* grades are most likely to be from independent or grammar schools, which could affect the universities policy to take roughly equal numbers of pupils from private and state sectors.

There is some evidence for this. The government has done some statistical modelling of the possible effects of the A* based on last summer’s results.

It estimates that 3050 candidates would have achieved three grade A*s. Of these 1150 - almost 39 per cent - would have come from independent schools.

This is a higher proportion than the percentage of independent school pupils achieving three A grades- at present just over 34 per cent- suggesting there is a risk that the A* could lead to even greater domination by the independent schools of admissions to top universities.

In view of the difficulty the elite universities already face in achieving wider participation, this could set back the government’s wider participation agenda.

A second year student told the Boar: “I got into Warwick with two As and a B. With the new A* grade, would that have meant my grades wouldn’t have been good enough. I came from a state school, and I would definitely have aimed lower when applying to universities if this had been in place when I was at school, so surely this can’t be a good thing for students or universities in the long run?”

As the Sutton Trust has shown, access to the top universities is already heavily skewed towards a small number of highly selective, and mostly fee-charging, schools.

It believes that the decision to go ahead with the A* grade is now ‘past the point of return.’

It was for reasons like this that certain recent Secretaries of State for Education resisted the introduction of the A*.

The government may wish to undertake further modelling of the A*. For example, there is still some debate over whether it should be awarded simply on the arithmetical basis of those getting 90 per cent or better or whether it should be based on the qualitative judgement of examiners.

The government will need to investigate before it comes under renewed criticism that it’s A Level reforms are responsible for shooting a gaping hole in widening participation policies at universities such as Warwick.