What Are Predicted Grades?

Predicted grades are a common basis of university qualification for A-level students in the English education system. The teachers make these predictions to provide support to the students’ university applications.

Universities and colleges then use the predicted grades as part of the admission process to evaluate the applicant’s skills and potential. Over the past couple of years, the COVID-19 has significantly changed the regulations regarding predicted grades. So if you are looking for the latest update about predicted grades, this post will discuss everything you need to know.

How Do Teachers Make Grade Predictions?

Every school or college predicts grades based on its own system of rules and regulations, but they are primarily based on the students’ performance. The teachers have to draw their judgement and experience while making the predictions. Generally, the teachers consider these things for predicted grades:

• GCSE or Scottish National 5 results
• AS results
• Mock exams or in-class tests
• Class performance
• Attitude to the studies
• How well does the student cope with revision and exam stress

When Do Students Get Their Predicted Grades?

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) suggests students get their predicted grades as soon as possible. That’s because when they know their grades, they can match them with different universities’ requirements and evaluate their chances of qualification.

Students probably receive their grades before the summer holidays at the end of Year 12, or S5 in Scotland, or any equivalent for foreign or international students. The teachers are responsible for adding students’ predicted grades, along with the reference, to their UCAS applications.

What Are Some Challenges Faced by the Teachers?

When predicting grades, teachers have to go through a lot of internal and external challenges, including:

• Continual changes in academic, technical, and vocational qualifications (changes in assessments and standards)
• Myths from the students’ parents and the media
• Differences in the nature of university and college (variation in entry requirements, acceptance levels, and offer terms and conditions)

How Did COVID-19 Affect Predicted Grades?

The pandemic has brought significant changes in the curriculum and assessment criteria of almost all universities and colleges. Some of the additional challenges caused due to COVID-19 can be:

• Coverage of the entire curriculum after the teaching and learning loss, including technical and vocational qualifications.
• The conduction of fewer internal assessments and evaluations for predicting grades.
• Very few in-person interactions and communications between teachers and students to evaluate the student’s attitude or behaviour.
• Vague image about how the loss has affected the students’ willpower regarding their studies, considering their home environment and technology access.

If you want to know more about the proposals for changes in assessments of 2021 and 2022 in the UK, you can check them from: Ofqual – England, WJEC – Wales, SQA – Scotland, CCEA – Northern Ireland

What Are Basic Principles for Predicting Grades?

The predicted grades must be for the betterment of the students. The primary goal of these grades is to help students get admissions to their desired universities or colleges. These grades must be:

• Entered for all pending qualifications, unless it is not allowed by the qualification structure or the assessment method
• Motivational for the students
• Evaluated by unbiased, professional judgement
• Based on accurate data from the students’ past years
• Finalised with no errors

Since universities and colleges accept predicted grades that come with the UCAS application, the grades should be free from any sort of data entry errors.

Predicted grades must not be: Influenced by student, media, or career pressure, affected by the entry requirements or behaviours of different universities or colleges or influenced by students’ backgrounds. The predicted grades should not be affected by any students’ gender, race, disability, religion, sexual orientation.

Can a Student Get Their Predicted Grades Changed?

Once the predicted grades are submitted to UCAS, students can’t get them changed. However, if any student has concerns regarding their grades, they can speak to their teachers and evaluate any solution.

The predicted grades are not only an important part of students’ UCAS applications but are the measure of their progress as well. So, they need to be accurate and authentic.

How Accurate Are Predicted Grades?

Since these grades are just predictions, students and parents will always doubt their accuracy. Although the teachers assess students' performances carefully, it’s always possible that they may have performed better or worse than their predicted grades. And these are not just estimations!

In 2019, the End of Cycle Report for Entry from UCAS, which examines university admissions, published a report regarding the authenticity of predicted grades. According to it, only 1 in 5 18-year-old students succeeded in meeting or exceeding their predicted grades.

What are Unconditional Offers?

Unconditional offers are those where a university offers a place to any student irrespective of their final results.

These offers rely on various reasons and are not entirely based on predicted grades. Many students with impressive academic qualifications and achievements, such as good grades in GCSEs, usually get unconditional offers.

When a university gets impressed by any applicant’s particular talent and thinks they might be the pick for their courses, it offers an unconditional offer to that student without considering their predicted grades.

Are Predicted Grades Important for the Application?

Of course, they are an essential element of an application, but they are not the entire evaluation criteria. During the pandemic, many universities changed their evaluation criteria. Now, universities also look at the applicant’s skills, achievements, and talent to determine whether they can be a good fit in their institution or not. Moreover, they also look at the applicant’s related experiences, references, and a well-designed portfolio more than any other thing. Additionally, they also consider the student's personal statement. These statements are a way for students to showcase their passions, skills, and future goals.

Yet, it’s important that your application is strong enough with good predicted grades. So are predicted grades necessary for your application? No. But are they useful for your application? Yes.

Conclusion

Predicted grades are a vital part of students’ university applications. This is why they need to be unbiased, professional, and in the best interests of the students. However, the current situation, where exams got cancelled due to the pandemic, has shown that these shouldn’t be the sole basis for the evaluation.

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