A level results out today

Hundreds of thousands of teenagers are finding out whether they have made the grade in their A-levels, amid record pressure on university places.

Students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland receive their results later ahead of the last academic year before tuition fees rise in England.

Places pressure means some universities are raising their entry requirements.

But Universities UK said “apocalyptic predictions” of students missing out “usually turn out to be incorrect”.

From 2012, English universities will be able to charge up to a maximum of £9,000 a year in tuition fees, compared with the present level of just over £3,000 a year.

Anyone taking up a place this autumn will pay the lower fees for the whole of their time at university.

Applications are at record levels and a there has been a drop in the number of teenagers taking a gap year, creating intense competition for places.

The government said 15 of England’s universities now wanted applicants to have at least one A* grade.

The new top grade was brought in last year, together with changes designed to make A-levels more challenging to bright students.

Last year the A* was awarded for 8% of exam entries – while a total of 27% of entries scored either an A or an A*.

So far, there have been just over 673,000 applications for undergraduate places in the UK. Last year, there were places for 487,000 people.

About 47,000 of these were allocated through the clearing process, where students are matched to university places which have not been filled in the first instance.

‘Barrage of gloom’

While some university and union leaders have called for more places to be funded by the government, others say “alarmist predictions” are not helping applicants.

Nicola Dandridge, the chief executive of Universities UK, said: “It must be very dispiriting for students who have worked hard for the results they’re receiving to be faced with a barrage of gloom and apocalyptic predictions, that usually turn out to be incorrect.

“Last year we had the same people telling us that there would be zero places available in clearing, that a quarter of a million applicants were going to miss out on a place and that the system would be in complete chaos.

“Overall, nearly 70% of all applicants were accepted.”

Applications to UK universities are at a record high, after several years of steady increase.

Last year, they rose by 12%. This year applications rose by 1.3%.

At the same time, the number of candidates taking a gap year – deferring their place for 12 months – has fallen by 40% to 30,000.

Stretching the brightest

Education Secretary Michael Gove has ordered a review of A-levels to see how they compare with exam systems in other countries.

He has also said he wants more emphasis on a final exam that stretches candidates’ capacity for original thought.

Recent changes to the A-level – brought in with the A* grade – involved the introduction of questions designed to stretch the brightest students and the cutting of the number of modules or sections of an A-level from six to four.

About 160,000 teenagers in Scotland got the results of their Highers and Advanced Highers earlier this month.

The pass rate for the Higher was 75.2%, an increase of 0.5% on the previous year, while the figure for Advanced Highers was 79.3%, up 1.8%.

Source: BBC News