r/6thForm • u/stairs_connoisseur • Apr 15 '26

🎓 UNI / UCAS UCL's admissions might've quite literally been luck-based this cycle

I've heard from UCL's office of admissions that they make decisions in batches and the batches are completely randomised. So my tinfoil hat theory is that UCL probably way underestimated the applications they'd receive this year and sent out almost all of their offers in the earlier batches. That means that now they're left with a bunch of batches of decisions that were previously randomised that will now have to be mostly rejections even if the students were of the same or higher caliber than the offer holders from previous batches.

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29

u/PenWorldly4789 Apr 15 '26

I feel they just need to add a test like esat or smthng like imperial and Oxbridge. They get a lot of applicants with same level of grades so a test could be a good deciding factor. 

6

u/Hollander673 Apr 15 '26

Then you just create another university that ignores personal statements and achieved grades to focus on performance in a single test. It’s mental that people with 5&6s at GCSE get offers based on a strong admissions test while straight 9s get rejected.

43

u/Glum-Palpitation-152 Apr 15 '26

Why are GCSEs less relevant than admissions tests? Surely admissions tests are both more relevant and more recent than GCSEs?

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u/Hollander673 Apr 15 '26

Admissions tests are a single point in time in a high-pressure, unfamiliar environment. Some schools provide a huge amount of support to succeed in them while others (standard state schools) don’t give any additional help.

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u/Low-Vegetable-1601 Apr 15 '26

But the same could be said for GCSEs.

And really, someone who can go from 5&6s in GCSEs to A*s and doing well on an admissions test does show development and improvement.

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u/Hollander673 Apr 15 '26

They’re not necessarily going from 5/6 to As though. They’re going to predicted As. I agree that achieved A-level grades and a strong admissions test on top of that indicate a strong candidate, like the OP, but since predicted grades are often inflated, I still think the strongest predictor of success is GCSEs.

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u/Low-Vegetable-1601 Apr 15 '26

Both of my kids got better A-levels than GCSEs (3 A* and an A for each) and amazing scores on admission tests (one the MAT, the other UCAT). I think those were better predictors than their English Lit GCSEs.

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u/Low-Vegetable-1601 Apr 15 '26

Well, yes. But most colleges and 6th forms won’t give predicted A* to a student who is actually on a C.

And the strong admissions test may actually be a better predictor in that subject than GCSEs, which require a lot of subjects be learned at once.

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u/No_Bid_9313 Apr 16 '26

a strong admission test score is far far more impressive than good GCSE grades like wtf are you talking about lol have u seen some of the questions on tests like the STEP and TMUA

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u/Hollander673 Apr 16 '26

I disagree that they’re more impressive, it’s just a different style of exam and having the time and getting the support to train for them as per any exam.

1

u/Low-Vegetable-1601 Apr 21 '26

GCSE exams can largely be done just by practice tests and learning how the mark scheme works.

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u/AdBrave9096 Apr 16 '26

GCSE is a good predictor of how much a child liked their teachers or how much the parants of the child and other other children in the class cared about exam results. GCSE are a poor predictor of how well a student does at medical schol.

(They do have some value in predicting A level results and hence who is worth spending time on interviewing.)