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Universities churn out record numbers of top class LLB students

Re 'It's not just LLBs' (17.01) While I can offer no personal experience relating to GCSEs, my husband is in the admissions department of a red brick university where he has worked for more than 20 years, and has a lot of experience relating to 'A' levels. His experience is that these days it is increasingly difficult to choose between admission applications on the basis of A-level grades because almost no-one is admitted that does not have three (or more) 'A's. However this does not mean that all candidates are equally good, and huge differences in intellect between different students are masked by the fact that both have identical grades. This is problematic because it makes to choose without interviewing every straight-A student individually, which is logistically impossible, meaning that some candidates inevitably receive places that would be better deserved by others that are rejected. This problem is not one that existed when he began his role in the early 1980s.

17-Jun-2008

5:15 pm