A-Level Results Day Looms

A-level Results day looms, but is the predicted grade system hopelessly out of date?

All around the UK tens of thousands of students are eagerly awaiting the results of their A-Levels. After months of study, they are going to be presented with grades that will have a decisive impact upon the rest of their lives. I certainly don`t envy them - the trepidation they feel around this time must be overwhelming.

For some the results will mean getting into their first choice university, and securing a place on a course, which will hopefully guide them towards their chosen career. For others who don`t achieve the required grades for their 2 preferred universities, results day may well be a time when they have to reappraise their options, and make different plans for the future.

The `clearing` system is designed for students who don`t achieve their required grades, and are looking for another university to apply to. Clearing can be accessed via UCAS website, but students may find it easier to contact preferred universities directly, in order to see if they have any places, and will accept you with your grades. Many people advocate preparing in advance - before you receive your results you should have a contingency plan in place, with alternate universities and courses you would be interested in applying to if you don`t get your required grades. This will help save time when competing with many other students going through the clearing system.

There are many teachers who support a radical change in the university application system, being of the opinion that predicted grades should not even be part of the process, and students should only decide where they wish to go after they get their results.

Britain is actually the only nation that uses predicted grades as part of the university application system - as a UCU study, which investigated the processes in more than 30 countries revealed -and there are calls for this forecasting system to be scrapped completely.

The University and College Union (UCU), a trade union that represents university staff, has said the UK is `out of step` with the rest of the world, and says an `urgent overhaul` of the application process is desperately needed.

Research conduced by the UCU revelled an astonishing statistic: only 16 per cent of A-level grade predictions are correct. I can`t imagine any business would continue using a predictive system with such a low accuracy rate - and it may well be unduly stressful for students, not to mention an administration nightmare for universities, for degree applications to be based on such a fallible process.

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt was quite clear in her disapproval of the predicted grades method of university application:

`We are alone in the world in using a system where students are offered university places based on highly inaccurate predicted grades. Unconditional offers have made a mockery of exams and led to inflated grade predictions, while putting students under enormous pressure to make a snap decision about their future.`

`The simplest and fairest way to deal with these problems is for us to adopt a system of post-qualification admissions, where offers are based on actual achievement rather than estimated potential, as the rest of the world does. It`s time for the government to give the system the urgent overhaul it needs.`

Her opinion chimes with my own: courses should be chosen, and universities selected and applied for only after students have received their results. It seems plainly obvious that you should only make decisions based on what is available to you - predicted grades do just that, they predict what will be available to the student; as UCU`s research has shown though, the predictions they make rarely come true.

The deputy general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders Malcolm Trobe voiced a similar opinion, citing the archaic nature of the predicted grades system:

`Out of date and no longer fit for purpose, it is a historical quirk which is not mirrored in other countries and creates unnecessary problems. In particular, we are extremely concerned about the rising number of unconditional offers made to students before they have taken their A-levels.`

A-Level results will be released on the 16th of august. Long gone are the days when the whole family would wait expectantly for the postman to deliver the letter containing the grades - nowadays students can `track` their university status in real time on the UCAS website. This will inform them if they have got into their university of choice - but it won`t actually tell them their grades. For this information they will need to travel into their school or college. By this time of course they will already know if the results are good or bad.