Absolutely. I agree it could work. My only point was that there would be more of it (time, that is). If you wanted to shift uni start dates by a fraction of a year though then you’d need to consider how that might impact the rest of the uni community. Unless the whole world did it (so it’ll be OK when the whole planet is governed in harmony by a supreme council of wise elders) we’d presumably have to shift our third term back into the summer. That would allow a decent break between the stress of setting and marking final exams and the arrival of the new kids after Xmas. But that would set us at odds with everyone else. Uni staff have kids too and now their long holiday wouldn’t match the school one. What about aligning the conference seasons ? The law of unintended consequences rears its ugly head …
What has that got to do with anything? I didn’t discover drugs or shagging at uni (I already knew about booze…) but I still got a third, however it’s never caused me a problem. Well except once, when TAG Mclaren hi-fi refused to interview me as I didn’t have a first, but they got their come-uppance! I have genuinely been offered every job I have ever interviewed for, and no one has ever suggested that a third class honours is something to be ashamed of.
I graduated in 1995 and the job I’m in now is the first one that has had me rummaging back through my course notes to assist me. Generally speaking, I found just having a degree helped get me into interviews and the rest I did myself.
Equally, Mrs. B got a third - her current job title starts with “Vice President of…” so, again, she seems to have muddled through. Admittedly, her mother did inform her that she would “never be more than a waitress” on hearing her result, so I think she’s been determined to prove her wrong, which probably helped!
Regarding time, there is nothing to say that the term times couldn’t change - so university could start in January, say. A levels complete, summer travel, autumn work for some spending money. Would work well IMO.
I agree with your point on pressure on A levels, but it’s there anyway. I would have no problem on GCSEs also contributing to a student’s score, or a school report that included how much they contributed. My main point is that it should be a broad, open scoring-based system rather than an opaque offers-based one.
He’s quite modest about the fact and doesn’t make a big thing over it, but I’m lead to understand Rabski went to university. Maybe he could offer some input
Unconditional offers are about nothing other than bums on seats. It is quite likely that OFS will ban them. HEIs have already had a shot across the bows from OFS.
There is a growing body of evidence from 6th forms and schools that unconditional offers are causing A’Level students to throttle back on their A’Level studies, and getting grades far worse than they would otherwise achieved.
Lower grades at A’Level will have an impact on the school league table position.
Students are then turning up at their chosen Uni poorly prepared because of poor A’Level results and performing badly. Sometimes so badly they get kicked out. Then they have wasted a year, used up a year of their student loan, and can’t often find another Uni to accept them because their A’Level grades are so bad. I have some national data in a spreadsheet that shows that dropout rates are increasing amongst recipients of unconditional offers.
Sorry there is nothing good from the pre-exam (A’Level) unconditional offer.
Someone hinted Uni started in Jan - many of us already do, I welcomed a 120 new students a few weeks ago. Mainly post grad MSc’s but also a good few degree apprentices. We also welcomed nearly 200 students on to our online programmes in Jan. In fact the online programmes will have a third starting point in May.
most HEIs have way more non-EU students (Ug and PG taught) on tier 4 visas, than EU. Most of our EU students are on the Erasmus exchange scheme or “year abroad” schemes, which apparently will be unaffected by Brexit.
FYI, the term International Student applies to non-EU non-UK students only. They arrive on special tier 4 visas. It is these students counted in the immigration figures, not the ones from the EU.
And for research students things might be a bit different. There may well be a distinct difference in getting research grant funds from EU institutions, especially where you need an EU HEI as a collaborator. So it will (probably) hamper our ability to access the massive research funds available through the EU.
We have seen a small slow down in EU researchers, and some European researchers relocate back to their home country.
We have well formed plans based on modelled impact assessments.
I’m not sure whether this will have any direct impact on the student though, except perhaps when it comes to applying for jobs with a few of the stuffier employers.
At the other end of the scale it definitely has an impact on university academics though. If their graduate students don’t complete their doctoral degrees there are, or at least once were, consequences. When I was a lab manager one of my university users used to bring his MSc students en masse to look at various pieces of specialist kit we had on site. He often used to bring his partner too - she was also a post-doc in his group. I think he’d left his wife for her, although they’d been together years by the time I got to meet them. Strong woman, Polish, rode a 650 bike. Anyway, while my user took his students off to another part of the site this lady asked if we might drop in on a grad student from the group who’d recently got a job with us. We found the guy and to begin with the chat was amicable enough. But then she asked him how his thesis was coming along. He said that frankly he was stuck and given that he was now very busy in proper work he was thinking of giving up on it. She started to bawl him out, saying that he was letting his group leader down really badly. Then without warning she slapped him round the side of the head. Hard. Then she did it again, and stormed off. As the person responsible for her, in a sense, on site I half expected to be hauled up on a disciplinary. Fortunately the ex grad student didn’t make a complaint. Perhaps he suddenly felt more motivated to deliver the thesis though, despite not technically needing to any more.
We have seen a 50% drop in applicants for funded PhD research positions from the EU countries.
We used to attract the very best applicants (maybe we still do, I am not involved in that side of the organisation) but we are certainly attracting less of them.
