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A-level grades in the UK are lower than the past two years but still remain higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Hundreds of thousands of pupils across England, Wales and Northern Ireland nervously collected their results today, one week ahead of GCSE students.
It was the first time they’d sat exams since the Covid pandemic, and they expected to face tough competition to get into university this year.
Around 40% of students were expected to use the clearing system – used by universities and colleges to fill remaining courses when applicants don’t secure their first choice.
The Universities and College Admissions Service (UCAS) chief executive Clare Marchant warned today will not be ‘pain-free’ for all and that offer-making has been ‘more conservative’ this year.
Grades were expected to drop back from 2020 and 2021 levels – when pupils were assessed by their teachers.
This year’s grade aim to reflect a midway point between last year’s record surge in high grades and pre-pandemic results of 2019.
To make up for the disruption Covid has had to students’ learning, examiners were asked to grade papers more leniently than in previous years.
Grade boundaries were made more lenient, meaning people could get lower scores to make the same grade, and some advanced information was published on which topics to revise.
Despite the challenges, a near-record number of students have been accepted into their first or second choice universities, according to UCAS.
A total of 425,830 pupils received the grades they needed for either offer – 2% down from the all-time high of 2021.
Still around 19% more were accepted compared to the last year students sat exams in 2019.
However, analysis by DataHE found that the number of students not holding a university offer on the eve of results day was 28,000 – up 16,000 on 2019.
The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) said the overall pass rate – the proportion of entries graded A* to E – fell slightly from 99.5% in 2021 to 98.4% this year.
But this is up from 97.6% in the pre-pandemic year of 2019. A total of 36.4% of entries were awarded either an A or A*, down from 44.8% in 2021 but up from 25.4% in 2019.
Around one in seven (14.6%) of entries received an A*. This is down from nearly one in five in 2021 (19.1%), but higher than the figure in 2019, which was 7.7%.
The proportion of entries graded A to C dropped from 88.5% in 2021 to 82.6% this year, though that’s still up from 2019’s rate of 75.9%.
The JCQ said there were a total of 848,910 A-level entries, up year-on-year by 2.9%, compared with an increase of 2.4% in the 18-year-old population.
Girls continued to outperform boys overall, with A* to E grades at 98.7% for the former, compared with 98.1% for the latter.
The number of A-level students in England who took three A-levels and achieved all A* grades is nearly three times what it was in 2019, rising to 8,570 compared with 2,785.
JCQ interim chief executive Kath Thomas said the results ‘represent a huge milestone’ in the country’s recovery from the pandemic.
Congratulating students, she said: ‘Not only is it the culmination of two years of hard work, but these students are the first to have taken formal summer exams in three years, so we should all celebrate this achievement.
‘Exams are the fairest way to assess students, as they give everyone the chance to show what they know.
‘Today’s results therefore represent a huge milestone in our recovery from the pandemic and are testament to the diligence and resilience of young people and school staff across the country.
‘As intended, these results are higher than the last set of summer exams in 2019, but lower than last year’s teacher-assessed grades.
‘This reflects the special arrangements that were put in place to support students, schools and colleges through another challenging year due to Covid.’
Chief regulator of exams regulator Ofqual, Dr Jo Saxton, said: ‘I felt strongly that it would not have been right to go straight back to pre-pandemic grading in one go but accept that we do need to continue to take steps back to normality.
‘These results overall, coming as they do broadly midway between 2021 and 2019, represent a staging post on that journey.’
Pupils in Scotland received the results of their Higher examinations last week, with a similar trend in that the pass rate was down on last year but above pre-pandemic levels from 2019.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
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