Still Waiting On A Level Results

Yesterday was A level results day and I always knew it was going to be stressful. Daniel had applied to take a Physics with Astrophysics course, but as with most students, the university had accepted him on condition that he reached a certain grade in each of the subjects he'd taken.

He went to school yesterday morning to collect his results and found that he'd got a B in Physics and a C in ICT. He was actually really disappointed with the ICT result as he thought he'd done enough to gain at least a grade B if not an A, however, a selection of work from the class had been sent to the exam board for moderation who decided it had been marked too leniently and therefore, all the class had their grades lowered. As it turned out, Daniel was only one UMS mark, which equates to 0.7 of an actual mark, lower than a grade B. He wanted to send the work in for a remark, but the whole class would have to give written consent for their work to be remarked too, which would never happen as in this situation marks can be deducted as well as added which could alter their overall grade.

The major problem with his results was that his Maths grade was missing. He spoke to the exams office at school and although he knew his actual marks for each of the Maths exams he'd taken, it hadn't been graded. It was worked out that he'd achieved a B, but until the exam board confirmed that, he was in limbo. His first choice university, York, wouldn't make a decision on whether they'd accept him or not with those grades until his Maths grade was confirmed to them by the exam board.

The problem here is that if they weren't going to accept him, he would have to go through clearing, and he can't do that until a decision is made by York. A Catch 22 situation.

We spoke to a really helpful gentleman at York who confirmed that they would accept him, providing his Maths grade comes through at a B. We've had confirmation from the exam board that his Maths grade is a B, but getting them to upload this on to the system to allow York to dot the i's and cross the t's and make an unconditional offer is proving to be less than easy.

It's now 5pm the day after results day and this is what it's showing on UCAS Track. He still hasn't got an official unconditional offer and it now looks very likely that he's going to be left in limbo over the weekend.

I'm very thankful that it looks like Daniel's got the grades he needs to go to his first choice university and study the course he wants to study, but exam results day and today has proved to be so stressful for us all. Yesterday should have been about celebrating or commiserating with friends, but he's been so busy trying to get all this sorted out that he's hardly had any time to even find out how everyone else has done. From the bits I can gather, most of his friends haven't done as well as expected, but I think things have worked out for them university wise with some of them being offered alternative courses and other's taking up places at other universities.

I'm just keeping my fingers crossed now that everything does work out the way we're expecting it to for Daniel.

UPDATE I've just finished this blog post and meanwhile, Daniel's checked on UCAS Track and he's had confirmation.