On Thursday, university offer holders from England, Wales and Northern Ireland will wake up from their summer slumbers and head to their school or college to collect their exam results. They might expect three things: falling grades, high competition, and to be attending university with more international students than before.
The rapid rise in awarding top grades during the Covid-19 pandemic, followed by an only slightly less precipitous decline, is well-documented. Since the use of more generous centre-assessed grades in 2020 and TAGs in 2021 caused a spike in the number of top grades awarded, Ofqual is attempting to steer a managed return to pre-pandemic grade distributions. Now in Scotland, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) adopted a “sensitive” response to the same problem. This year, 77.1% received grades A-C in Higher courses (the equivalent to the first year of A Level), a drop from 78.9% in 2022 but still some way off the 2019 rate of 74.8%. In England, there will be no such sensitivity. Ofqual has briefed that 2023 will be the year when the grade distribution returns to pre-pandemic levels.
If Ofqual succeeds, Professor Alan Smithers predicts that there could be up to 100,000 fewer top grades awarded. This uncompromising position is not necessarily worrying, since it has no direct effect on the number of university places available. But there may be logistical challenges. Firstly, 2023 applicants will be competing against those with better average grades from 2022 and before. It is unclear whether, and how, admissions teams will account for the fact that an A in 2023 is worth more than one in 2022. As their grades look worse on paper, this might put the 2023 cohort at a disadvantage.
