Admissions Teams for highly competitive courses such as Medicine, or places offered at Oxford and Cambridge will be starting to respond to the last couple of years grade inflation. The last two years of Teacher and Centre Assessment have resulted in grades being higher than previous years, leading to far more students meeting their university entrance targets. The government have already announced that grades in Summer 2022 will be lower, half way between the 2019 examination results and 2021 Teacher Assessed Grades.
Universities are expecting a competitive year, and so interviews and course examinations, such as the BMAT, are going to be extremely important. The Universities are going to want to avoid having to offer monetary incentives to students to study elsewhere, free accommodation, or deferring their place, as they did in some cases this summer. This, combined with potentially lower grades will make competition even greater in the summer of 2022. Universities who have currently taken on more students than they would have in normal years may scale back entry numbers.
Perhaps a Year 13 student wanting to study medicine in 2022 could decide to take a year out. This may give them time to gather important relevant work experience which will strengthen their application. It may also potentially put them in a strong position, with their 2022 grades being comparatively better than those of the 2023 cohort.
Most importantly, all students should have a back-up option - another course, another university. Insurance places should be that - places asking for grades that are achievable no matter what happens on the day. Finally, this year students need to take all the chances they can to practice their exam technique. Not having sat formal GCSE exams, current Year 13's have missed previous opportunities of answering questions under examination conditions and have limited experience of high stakes assessment.
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