There’s been rampant growth in unconditional offers for university places<\/p>\n\n\n
I wonder if it\u2019s too soon to write the eulogy for conditional offers of a place at university? An unconditional offer of a place at a university<\/a> of your choice reminds me of Japanese knotweed \u2013 once a rare thing \u2013 now rampant in the land and popping up every time you read an article about university entrance. Commonplace, in fact.<\/p>\n\n\n I\n understand that most gardeners would say the knotweed is a bad thing in\n the garden, an alien beast, and its invasion marks a radical change in\nthe garden. I wonder if that will happen to the universities which have\njumped aboard the unconditional-offer gravy train? Will they find\nthemselves with large numbers of students with mediocre grades taking a\nvery relaxed approach to their studies because it was easy enough to get\n in, and now you\u2019re there, it\u2019s no sweat doing well \u2013 look how many\nstudents get first-class degrees now, way more than 20 years ago, chill\nman, let\u2019s start a rock band, \u2019cos you gotta find something to fill the\ndays, actually you could get a few shifts in a fast food outlet\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, back in the school garden, to hold the metaphor a little longer, no doubt some seriously upright students are relaxing into cheerful fat green knotweedy slumps because they no longer need to bother. You want to go to a good university? I\u2019m going! It\u2019s in the bag. Better than that \u2013 \u201cThey are so keen to have me, they don\u2019t even want me to get a top grade! I can doss about for the rest of the year! I would be a fool not to!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Unnecessary\n effort? Why would you? Why would anyone bother? It\u2019s like being given a\n free air ticket to New York. Who in their right mind would scrape and\nsave and work like the devil to get the money to pay for it, thrusting\nyour hard-earned notes into the airline\u2019s dismissive hands, when the\nairline has said, \u201cIt\u2019s free! Get outta here with that cash \u2013 what do\nyou not understand about the concept of free?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n You\n can see the logic of unconditional offering from the university\u2019s point\n of view. Presumably such offers are only made to the kind of candidate\nwho already has a stash of top grades at GCSE, suggesting similarly high\n grades to come in the A-level exams, and a CV which describes the kind\nof student they want, probably contributing to his\/her school in all\nmanner of ways in addition to simple academics: choir, team, prefect,\nall round very good egg.<\/p>\n\n\n A\nuniversity can be forgiven for thinking here is exactly the kind of\nstudent they want, who is going to get top grades anyway, so how to\nensure they hook this fine fish? Give him\/her an offer he\/she can\u2019t\nrefuse (why does that sound sinister?). Bait the hook with the very\nprize the student wants \u2013 a place in your university, no faffing about\nwith grades, no pressure \u2013 and reel the fish in.<\/p>\n\n\n It\n will of course be a very fat, fine fish \u2013 look at the back story and\npersonal statement \u2013 obviously an ace student! Barring disaster, highly\nlikely to continue to be a star student.<\/p>\n\n\n It\n looks like a win-win situation: the university has an almost guaranteed\n intake which means a guaranteed income, and students will have a\nworry-free year, enjoying his\/her studies with no anxiety or exam stress\n threatening to ruin the chances of the university education for which\nthey have been aiming for years. Easy street. Everyone a winner. How\ncould anyone object?<\/p>\n\n\n And it\u2019s\nnot as if an unconditional offer is a new thing. It\u2019s been around quite\nsome time, but it used to be a rare flower in the garden. In 2013,\nBritish universities made 2,985 unconditional offers. In just five\nyears, this figure rose to 67,915 offers in 2018. That was 23% of\napplicants. Lord knows how high the number will go next year, as more\nuniversities cotton on to this development in the admissions business.<\/p>\n\n\n While\n cheering the students who have these golden tickets to tertiary\neducation, there must be many a head of sixth form doing their utmost to\n persuade their students of the wisdom of still working like the devil\nin the sixth form to get the very best A-level grades they can. We know\nthey need them even if they now don\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cYou don\u2019t need them now \u2013 but you will, \u201cYeah, yeah, whatever\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cNo\n seriously \u2013 you will need them. Every form you fill in for a future\nemployer when you\u2019re applying for any job you can get, will ask about\nyour A-levels \u2013 what subjects and what grades? And there won\u2019t be space\nto record three Es at A-level and explain that actually you could have\ndone much better but you had an unconditional offer because you did get a\n good lot of GCSEs. You could have got great A-levels but you knew you\ndidn\u2019t need them, so you went off the boil a bit in the sixth form.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n An\n unconditional offer of a place at a university of your choice reminds\nme of Japanese knotweed \u2013 once a rare thing \u2013 now rampant in the land<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n Sorry,\n no room to explain all that. The grades will stand, like a tattoo,\nyours for life. The university of your choice has announced you don\u2019t\nneed the grades proving brilliance. But you do! For your own\nsatisfaction. For your own self-esteem. <\/p>\n\n\n For\n your parents who believed in you and the teachers who helped you get\nthere. Because A-levels are the pinnacle of your secondary education \u2013\nindeed, your whole school education \u2013 and if you can do brilliantly well\n on this stage of your journey, then why would you choose not to? If you\n are lucky enough to have a Ferrari of a brain, don\u2019t choose to drive as\n if it were a Ford Fiesta.<\/p>\n\n\n A\nconditional offer is probably the best incentive to work hard and\nachieve the best grades possible that any student could need. Take that\naway, possibly for several students at the same time, and you change the\n whole climate of the sixth form. The very best students may well have\ninternalised all the incentives they need. They will continue to learn,\ngrow, enquire and strive for their own pride, and the pleasure of\npursuing knowledge for its own sake, grades incidental. Even as I\ndescribe that, I\u2019m thinking, \u2018Er\u2026 how common is such an individual and\npersonal interest in A-level material?\u2019 and not much liking my own\nanswer. I have inspected in too many sixth form classrooms where I have\nseen a teacher\/pupil pursue an interesting avenue only to be reined back\n by other students tapping their pens on the desk and asking, \u201cIs that\non the syllabus?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Perhaps the very best candidates will be safe and successful in this new world. It\u2019s the ones just behind them we have to watch and encourage, poke and prod to continue to work hard even if \u2013 ostensibly \u2013 they don\u2019t need to. Do not be deceived by an unconditional offer \u2013 everyone who finishes a marathon gets a medal. But to be among the first to cross the line \u2013 that\u2019s worth the work. <\/p>\n\n\n This article first appeared in IE-Today<\/a> on 25 January 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There’s been rampant growth in unconditional offers for university places I wonder if it\u2019s too soon to write the eulogy for conditional offers of a place at university? An unconditional offer of a place at a university of your choice reminds me of Japanese knotweed \u2013 once a rare thing \u2013 now rampant in the land\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[28,101,224,226],"class_list":["post-492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ie-today","tag-a-levels","tag-grades","tag-unconditional-offers","tag-university"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
mark my words!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n