This week, the old proposals to change the university application system so that students apply AFTER they know their results has reared it's head. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has heard this mooted in the past. For the full story, you can read it here in The Daily Mail.
I think it is a brilliant idea. If there is a system that favours the cheeky and ambitious over those with proven academic credentials, then the current system of applying with predicted grades is it. The current system is confusing, time-consuming and leads to disappointment.
It's not surprising that it is a proposal that has been dragged up again by the Conservative-Lib Dem government. The Tories especially love the notion of the free-market, and the current system allows customers and suppliers (students and universities respectively) to work with imperfect information, which is sub-optimal (see, I was paying attention in economics class).
Where students work with unknown, predicted grades, an over-optimistic student will apply to a university course which demands grades way above what they will actually go on to achieve. This leads to disappointment and a panic as they end up applying through clearing. At the other end of the scale, a student whose tutors predict low grades will apply for courses with low grade requirements where they could have got a place on a much better course and at a much better university.
Either way, the system favours the student putting in a cheeky application and works against those who under-estimate their own ability. I can't help thinking that those from families who favour high academic achievement are the most likely to try their luck, whereas the students from families where university is an alien concept will likely see elite courses and universities out of their reach. Even if they achieve way over what they expect, it will mean either accepting the course they have been offered or pulling out and re-applying. It's not an ideal way to choose to do something which will influence your career path, and indeed your whole future. Allowing a student to apply to university after they have their A-Level grades would be a big step towards giving students a university place based on actual achievement, regardless of class, school-type or influence from family or college tutors.
The proposals to move A-Level exams to earlier in the year in order to allow enough time to process results for the start of the university is not a bad one. I remember getting very bored toward the end of my two-year A-Level course and would have welcomed exams in the May rather than dragging things out until June or July. However, I still feel this would mean the window to apply would be too short. The reason you have to apply six months before you sit your exams is because the whole process - involving literally thousands of students and over 100 universities - is a huge administrative task.
Surely it would be better to either have students take a year out as standard. The gap between sitting your last A-level exam in July, and starting university in the October is too short. To this point you would have been at school for at least thirteen years, and are going to be at university for another three. I don't think that a year out to work a bit, get some money and have some breathing space to think over your course and university choices is a bad thing.
Anyway, I am in favour of allowing students to apply to university after their A-Level results. I think it can only be good for social mobility and a system that is based on true achievement and potential, rather than on the imperfect information and blind optimism it is based on now.
Do you think that the current system needs fixing? Do you think if you had applied after knowing your results, your choices would've been different? I welcome your opinion, as usual.
