U-turn at A-levels: Universities that have ‘crazy question’ of students

After the government made a last-minute U-turn on how A-levels were assessed, thousands of students who initially thought they had missed their first choice of university can now have the degrees to act on . But can universities still help them if it’s too late?

“The demand from students has gone crazy,” says Emma Reay, director of admissions at Newcastle University.

Following the government’s announcement on Monday to return to teacher-rated grades, it says the university is “overwhelmed” with student questions, with more than 700 phone calls in the first two hours on Tuesday morning.

“It’s been just a logistical nightmare the last few days,” she says. “We want students to know what’s going on, we want to be able to support them.

“If that includes them coming to Newcastle University, or embracing those who no longer want to come here, we need to make that as easy as possible for them and that is what we are trying to do.”

‘Waiting game’

She says the process was made harder because universities themselves still have to have access to upgraded results, so the university puts its admissions process on hold until they receive them.

“It’s a waiting game until we hear from Ucas – we’re just making sure the systems are ready to go.”

Access service Ucas says it hopes to pass the degrees to universities on Friday.

The university has received more applications than usual from UK students who want to postpone next year, she says, but they have so far not seen many students withdraw their application.

Before the results U-turn on results, she says Newcastle University had minimal places to fill. But it is one of a number of institutions that have said they are working to honor all of their offerings, although, like others, they have limited places in medicine and dentistry.

“Somehow we will honor an offer for them, regardless of the course,” she says. “It may be that some students need to consider next year to address the question, but we just have to wait and see.”

She says it could mean accepting more students than they had originally planned, although that would bring other complications, such as capacity issues, a need for more staff, and trying to operate within Covid-safe conditions.

However, she says the main focus for the university – a member of the Russell Group consisting of 24 leading universities – is to make the situation as “easy as possible” for students.

“Every meeting I go to, everyone just talks about how these poor students should feel in all of this. It might be another year for us, but it’s the only year that these students will apply for university and it has been terrible for them. “

Students ‘on loose ends’

Anxious students have also kept their phones busy at the University of Greenwich, which has seen its admission line become more of a student support service, according to Karen Brough, assistant director of student and academic services.

She says she has offered pastoral care to many students who call to say “I have no idea what my options are, I need some support”.

The university had to be very responsive to try and “unpick” from the problems caused by the policy changes, she says, and instead of waiting for the assessed qualities of the teacher by Ucas, they share all the evidence provided by students .

“What we are aware of is the longer we wait for verifiable information, the longer we have students who are on a loose end and do not know what is happening. And that, of course, creates an enormous amount of fear.”

She says the challenge is that offers are not straightforward decisions based on degrees delivered by a computer. Instead, they have become “an individualized conversation with each applicant”.

There have been suggestions that some universities will lose students because of their improved results, but Karen says that has not been the case at the University of Greenwich, adding that the “level of applicant traffic is equal to last year”.

The issue of withdrawing students has also had no impact on the University of Brighton, says Carl Griffiths, head of recruitment at the university, who says there has been less movement than previous years.

He speculates that may be because students who applied for them in the main cycle have already secured accommodation, “so relocating universities may now be more disruptive in what has been a very challenging time”.

The university has already begun making oral offers to students whose grades have gone up by relying on “formal communication from their schools,” instead of waiting for Ucas to confirm them, he says.

“We hope this means they can relax now,” he adds.

For universities that are already too subscribed, offering a proposed place for 2021 is an option, although Prof Mark Goodwin, Deputy Chancellor at Exeter University, told the current program of Radio 4 that would result in “knock- on-implications “for current students Year 12.

However, he adds that his university expected fewer students to procrastinate this year due to the pandemic limitation of caronavirus options such as gap years, so “in general it may not be that many more students procrastinate”.

He adds that there should be some flexibility in the system “because this year and next year are years when there are relatively low numbers of 18-year-olds” compared to four or five years ago.