posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sevenhelz at 01:49pm on 21/08/2005
sevenhelz at 01:49pm on 21/08/2005Aha!
"As revealed in The Independent earlier this month, universities will also in future be given the grades pupils have achieved in each module of an A-level as well as the overall subject grade. This will enable youngsters to record up to 18 grade As - a figure at present only achieved by 6 per cent of the 22,000 who obtain three grade-A passes. The move will make it easier for universities to select the brightest candidates."
There's your top 5% cass.
Has it ever occurred to "Tom Astin(, who) is expected to collect five A grades this morning, but has been left without a place at any university" that they might also look at his extra-curricular activies? I don't know the full story behind this candidate, neither does the paper. Useless to look at a single case on such a shallow level and say it proves a point. Also, he says "The universities decide things about people and their futures without even meeting them and just by looking at their forms." Fair enough - isn't filling in forms a useful job skill?
bluecass says "universities have never used just a level results to pick their students. thats just crap. theyve never wanted just the brightest. they also want people who do more than study, who might win the football, who are interesting, who will fit in, and so on. hence interviews and statements"; which is exactly my point.
I keep hearing that A levels are outmoded, but I don't understand what that's supposed to mean. I know a lot of people who worked hard for the grades and the experience they got, so they aren't easy. And surely there's a range of ways of teaching, which must somehow fit with the range of teaching in universities.
bluecass has this to say: "in a system that isn't using (standard deviation) to grade, you would expect (for people to do better every year), because teachers work harder and better, kids pick up more about how it's going to work, the curriculum gets more settled, etc etc. but how people portray it is that it must be getting easier, because that never USED to happen. welcome to lies, damn lies, and statistics...
"learning 3 subjects in depth is bollocks. the switch to AS levels was about phasing that out... A levels were the gateway into university, in the days when university was the top 5-10%, academic-y people. and that was all fine and make sense. then you say hey, let's get 50% of people into university. 50% of people are not going to handle massively academic courses with a lust for book reading and research. yes?
"(so) a lot of universities are less academic (than they used to be), and increasingly so - which means there is now a total mismatch between the gateway system to university (old fashioned in depth academic a levels) and what many of them provide for and/or want from their students"
Our A levels at our college taught us to research the parts of our subjects that were interesting and relevant, and incidentally gave us a good grounding in this this and this topic. I don't feel that's outdated, or irrelevant to what will happen next. Perhaps I speak from a priveleged viewpoint but if there's a problem with the system it's because the users are stupid. Hah. How's that for teenage arrogance?
xx
"As revealed in The Independent earlier this month, universities will also in future be given the grades pupils have achieved in each module of an A-level as well as the overall subject grade. This will enable youngsters to record up to 18 grade As - a figure at present only achieved by 6 per cent of the 22,000 who obtain three grade-A passes. The move will make it easier for universities to select the brightest candidates."
There's your top 5% cass.
Has it ever occurred to "Tom Astin(, who) is expected to collect five A grades this morning, but has been left without a place at any university" that they might also look at his extra-curricular activies? I don't know the full story behind this candidate, neither does the paper. Useless to look at a single case on such a shallow level and say it proves a point. Also, he says "The universities decide things about people and their futures without even meeting them and just by looking at their forms." Fair enough - isn't filling in forms a useful job skill?
bluecass says "universities have never used just a level results to pick their students. thats just crap. theyve never wanted just the brightest. they also want people who do more than study, who might win the football, who are interesting, who will fit in, and so on. hence interviews and statements"; which is exactly my point.
I keep hearing that A levels are outmoded, but I don't understand what that's supposed to mean. I know a lot of people who worked hard for the grades and the experience they got, so they aren't easy. And surely there's a range of ways of teaching, which must somehow fit with the range of teaching in universities.
bluecass has this to say: "in a system that isn't using (standard deviation) to grade, you would expect (for people to do better every year), because teachers work harder and better, kids pick up more about how it's going to work, the curriculum gets more settled, etc etc. but how people portray it is that it must be getting easier, because that never USED to happen. welcome to lies, damn lies, and statistics...
"learning 3 subjects in depth is bollocks. the switch to AS levels was about phasing that out... A levels were the gateway into university, in the days when university was the top 5-10%, academic-y people. and that was all fine and make sense. then you say hey, let's get 50% of people into university. 50% of people are not going to handle massively academic courses with a lust for book reading and research. yes?
"(so) a lot of universities are less academic (than they used to be), and increasingly so - which means there is now a total mismatch between the gateway system to university (old fashioned in depth academic a levels) and what many of them provide for and/or want from their students"
Our A levels at our college taught us to research the parts of our subjects that were interesting and relevant, and incidentally gave us a good grounding in this this and this topic. I don't feel that's outdated, or irrelevant to what will happen next. Perhaps I speak from a priveleged viewpoint but if there's a problem with the system it's because the users are stupid. Hah. How's that for teenage arrogance?
xx