A Level Awards and Entry to University - Updated Statement (7.00 pm BST Monday 17 August 2020)
We welcome the announcement by the Government (4 pm 17 August 2020) to award A level grades to students in England based on teacher assessment, and wanted to share an update on what this means for the students that have applied to us.
As we've already said, all the decisions we've made have been, and will continue to be, in the best interest of our applicants. If a student has been made an offer and has accepted their place at Warwick, nothing changes, we will honour these offers. And likewise, if students have applied to us through clearing just last week, and have been made an offer, these offers will still stand. We look forward to welcoming them all to campus in the Autumn.
We are also proud to further our commitment to addressing the wider issues of access to higher education by honouring those offers that were made to students who have applied via our established Widening Participation schemes.
We appreciate some may wish to reassess their options following this news. We fully support this, recognising this is a fluid and difficult situation and would encourage students and families to take time and make the decisions that are best for them.
We are awaiting guidance from UCAS about how to process decisions for those students whose grades have now changed and we will update this statement accordingly when we have more information.
Previous Statement (issued 2 pm BST 17 August 2020)
In light of the difficulties in grading this year, we wanted to explain how we've made our admissions decisions on calculated grades, and what we'll do if grades change. All the decisions we've made have been, and will continue to be, in the best interest of our applicants.
As usual, we made admission offers conditional on achieving particular grades and, if a student met those grades, their place at Warwick would be guaranteed. A higher number of students achieved their grade offer this year.
Each year, we also take students who have just missed their grades; in this exceptional year, we made a decision to willingly accept grades below offer, capacity allowing. We were keenly aware how the awarding process could negatively impact on students from particular backgrounds, and planned our strategy to combat this accordingly. Notably, almost a third of our acceptances have been to students who did not meet their offer based on the grades that we received.
We have great sympathy with our offer holders who have been disappointed with the grades that they were awarded. We hope that our flexibility has given many students an opportunity to study with us that may have been denied to them in previous years.
Sadly, our flexibility can only stretch so far. We are committed to providing our students with the best possible teaching and learning experience. Therefore, we are wary of placing additional pressure on space and resources at a time when social distancing measures are providing institutions with unprecedented challenges.
However, there are students who have been rejected from oversubscribed courses with grades only marginally below their offer. We are committed to honouring the places of any students should their grades be revised to meet our offer. Please note that we might ask them to consider whether they would like to defer to next year. We are not insisting on deferral, as this would reduce places for 2021 entry which would be unfair on the next cohort.
We are conscious that this is a fast-moving situation, which naturally is causing a great deal of uncertainty and upset. However, we are keeping abreast of all Government and exam board announcements, and will provide updates as soon as we have them.
