Correspondence

Letter to students from Ofqual and UCAS

Published 16 July 2024

Dear student,

For those of you receiving your results this summer we know you might have questions about how your results are determined, results day, confirming offers and Clearing. You might want to know more about your options on results day or what happens if you change your mind about your choices.

Here are several key things to keep in mind:

How will my exam be marked?

• Your work is marked by expert examiners, who are mostly teachers with many years’ experience. They do not know your name, which school or college you go to, or where in the country you live. Ofqual makes sure that the rules are the same for all students taking the same qualification.

How does grading work?

• The normal tried and tested arrangements for grading will continue for GCSEs, AS, A levels and vocational and technical qualifications (such as in health and social care or engineering) in 2024. This means that a student who would have achieved a certain grade last year should be just as likely to achieve that grade this summer.

• For most qualifications, after most of the marking has been done, expert examiners review the papers to see the quality of student work and use all the available evidence before recommending grade boundaries (the number of marks needed to get each grade). Your grades are determined only by how you perform in your own assessments.

Grade boundaries often vary from year to year to reflect the difficulty of each paper. These changes to grade boundaries make sure that fair and appropriate grading standards are set. Whatever your results, you can be confident that for GCSEs and A level it’s no harder or easier to achieve a particular grade in each subject between one awarding organisation (exam board) and another.

How can I appeal against my grades?

• If you think there has been a mistake in how your exams or assessments have been marked, you should talk to your school or college, which can ask the awarding organisation to check if there were any errors in how your exam or assessment was marked. More information can be found in Ofqual’s Student Guide.

What if I don’t get the results I need?

• If you get the grades for your offer, then you’re in – congratulations! If you want to keep your options open or do not get the grades you were expecting, there are still plenty of choices in Clearing. Last year, around 1 in 5 of accepted applicants achieved or exceeded their predicted grades. Yet over 80% of UK 18-year-olds applying to UCAS secured a place at university or college.

• Clearing offers choice and flexibility to all students, regardless of whether you receive predicted, better or lower grades. A record 39,620 UK 18-year-olds secured a place using Clearing in 2023. This year, there will be tens of thousands of choices on offer. UCAS’s Clearing Plus tool on ucas.com can help you find the best options as it matches you to a personalised list of available courses.

How can I prepare for results day?

• You can put yourself in the strongest position by exploring all your options and planning ahead of results day. Take control of your future by discovering personalised options in your UCAS account (UCAS Hub), listening to UCAS’s Streetview YouTube series or getting a taste of different university courses with Springpod’s Subject Spotlights in the UCAS Hub.

Each year, UCAS supports almost 1.5 million students in making informed choices about their future. On results day, you will also receive an email from UCAS tailored to you, clearly outlining your next steps and other options you may want to consider. UCAS’s team of advisors will also be standing by ready to answer any questions via telephone, website and social media channels to help all students navigate their next steps.

Yours faithfully,

Sir Ian Bauckham CBE, Chief Regulator, Ofqual

Dr Jo Saxton CBE, Chief Executive, UCAS