August 14, 2022

Experts Find More Than 28,000 A-Level Students that Wish to Attend College Have No Offer

A According to experts, 28,000 students who applied to attend university in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland are still waiting for an offer just days before the release of the A-level results. In what appears to be one of the most competitive university entrance rounds in recent memory, analysis by DataHE reveals the overall number of 18-year-olds without offers has increased from about 16,000 at this point in the admissions process in 2019 to 27,850 in 2022.

The fact that there are more applicants than ever before helps to drive up demand, but analysts think it was also likely spurred by greater rejection rates and more cautious offer-making by high-tariff institutions aiming to rein in recruiting after the excesses of the pandemic.

…the chance of candidates not holding a single offer at this point has increased from 6% to 9% in just two years, a 50% proportional jump, returning to levels last seen when universities had to adhere to numerical controls…

“The chance of candidates not holding a single offer at this point has increased from 6% to 9% in just two years, a 50% proportional jump, returning to levels last seen when universities had to adhere to numerical controls,” claims Mark Corver, cofounder of DataHE.

After over a decade of progressively increasing possibilities of receiving an offer, Corver predicted that this would come as quite a shock. His caution came as the university admissions service UCAS and England's exams regulator Ofqual addressed an unprecedented letter to all A-level students to try to reassure them as stress rises before results day on Thursday.

News reports say that there is a great deal of ambiguity, according to news reports. The government urged regulators to set limits so that grades would be halfway between those in 2019 and 2021, with grades returning to pre-epidemic levels in 2023, after two years of higher-than-average grades during the pandemic - when exams were cancelled and work was teacher-assessed.

The number of A and A* grades in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland are expected to decline by 10 percentage points, which may put tens of thousands of A-level students with offers from their preferred universities at risk of losing their spots.

With the government's recalibration, industry analysts predict that after record results last year, when 44.8% of grades were either A or A* at the A-level, this number will drop to 35% (up from 25.5% in 2019).

Posted in News and tagged News, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, DataHE, A-Level Students, UCAS
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