As the 2022 freshers arrive and start finding their way around, some will be supremely confident; others somewhat apprehensive; all will be excited. But will the right students be settling in to their new digs and dorms in the right places?
Here are some numbers you won’t find in the official UCAS, Department for Education, or Ofqual statistics.
For every 100 students awarded AAA for English A Levels in Chemistry, Biology and Physics – a subject combination well-suited to Medicine, for example – about 15 would have been given at least one grade B had their scripts been marked by a senior examiner, whose grade, according to Ofqual’s preferred terminology, is ‘definitive’ or ‘true’. If your institution used AAA in these subjects as the determinant of which students to admit, and which to reject, then about 15 per cent of your intake could well be under-qualified, occupying places that perhaps should have been taken up by students who received certificates bearing at least one B, when they should have received AAA.
