A/AS results

Just realised a remark of my two Economics papers (1-2 marks from each of them will get me a B overall) is going to set me back over £110 :eek:. Don't know if it's worth it to be honest, it doesn't stop me from going to Uni, it just makes my application for future jobs look a bit better.
 
Moses said:
Which leader boards? Subjective newspaper rankings which don't use measures of academic quality? Aren't they just based on the student satisfaction surveys? If you want to go by that measure, in the Guardian ranking, Hallam's 83rd... after being 65th last year, and 71st the year before that. That's an old poly not going up the leader boards each and every year.

The only rankings I'd look at are the QS Rankings (out of interest, to see how a university might be perceived internationally) and the RAE rankings. Nottingham being 74th in the QS Rankings... Hallam not being on there.
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All of the different methodologies favour certain universities more than others. Many of the UK's most elite universities don't rank at all on the 'large' world rankings, for e.g. the QS. York, Durham, even LSE in certain cases. Highly-selective, highly-ranking domestic universities that don't even glance the world top100 - mostly because of size and hence 'influence' or 'brand awareness'. You have to just take all of them with a pinch of salt, understand some rankings favour certain criteria over others, etc. The Times World Top 100 puts a high weighting on international appeal via total citations, etc. which is a helpful index - and it produces pretty radically different results to the QS, which favours sheer massive numbers.

Similarly universities such as Manchester and Bristol are regarded highly worldwide because of their size and output - particularly in the sciences for places like Manchester - but regularly are in the 20's and 30's (sometimes even 40's) according to domestic rankings. All of which rankings are totally blown out the water when looking at pure academic research assessments, etc.

TBH the whole rankings craze that has developed this last 5 or so years is totally harmful to higher-education. Many people don't use them properly and just rely on their 'favourite' newspaper to dictate to them what is good and what is not. The Guardian switches up their rankings so much on a yearly basis, with no measurements for actual academic quality (instead relying on student satisfaction and such spurious, equivocal statistics) and actually ends up doing much harm. Institutions that have been around building a serious reputation for 150+ years and The Guardian asserts they drop 20-30 places in any one year? Absolute nonsense.
 
Hope all you guys and girls got what you wanted. If not, it's not the end of the world so don't beat yourself up if not :)
 
Nitefly said:
Well I know a 2 people with 'poo' A-levels and 'average' universities that have recently had interviews at google....!
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I'm sure there are always exceptions-- especially with employers like Google who are quite forward-looking and progressive, and want pretty 'out there' employees anyway that may not fit the 'typical' mould. I'm sure many of the savant-level people working at Google weren't all model students :p .

I'm talking about Big City firms and such though, which deal with 1000's of applications for intern and fast-track schemes every year. They all use these methods of filtering, to some greater or lesser extent.
 
Moothead2 said:
Just realised a remark of my two Economics papers (1-2 marks from each of them will get me a B overall) is going to set me back over £110 :eek:. Don't know if it's worth it to be honest, it doesn't stop me from going to Uni, it just makes my application for future jobs look a bit better.
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Is that a priority remark? Why not just get non priority?
 
Moothead2 said:
Just realised a remark of my two Economics papers (1-2 marks from each of them will get me a B overall) is going to set me back over £110 :eek:. Don't know if it's worth it to be honest, it doesn't stop me from going to Uni, it just makes my application for future jobs look a bit better.
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If you're confident in the remark being better for you, I'd do it. £110 is a small expense to airbrush your resumé for the rest of your life and clear up any grades that are going to niggle your conscience.
 
RomanNose said:
Is that a priority remark? Why not just get non priority?
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No option for a regular remark on the form. The priority remark seems to have been bumped up a tenner more than it usually is too unless AQA have done it everywhere over the last year :(.

InKursion said:
If you're confident in the remark being better for you, I'd do it. £110 is a small expense to airbrush your resumé for the rest of your life and clear up any grades that are going to niggle your conscience.
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My mum and dad say do it and since they said they'll pay I think I will. It's one of those exams where there are two 25 mark essays and a 15 mark essay which may make it easier to find an extra mark or two but it could easily go the other way. £110 and a potentially lower mark is an annoying risk to take.
 
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Moses said:
Oh yeah, it's all pretty stupid. Don't worry, I don't even look at them (I only did early to reply to someone). The LSE gets massively affected by that, because of the no science aspect, whilst Imperial has it for having nothing other than science/engineering, etc.
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Generally speaking in top-tier domestic, continental and world rankings, having a large science-research budget, along with having medical/law schools is a prerequisite for being 'top-tier'. That's why many smaller, specialised universities, such as the highly elite liberal arts colleges in the states, do not rank higher. It's a sheer numbers/research output game. Large state universities in the US which are nowhere near as elite or selective as small, private liberal arts colleges will always rank in the top50 because of their massive scientific, medical and professional output. One of the main characteristics of the Russell Group is that they have this high-priority and high-budget for scientific and medical research, which other small universities may not have.

If you want quality of education then I'd look at individual subject rankings collated from a few different sources, and then the RAE results for your particular department. The research an academic is doing may not directly relate to the quality of their teaching, but of course there's an obvious tie between the level an academic is working at and the sort of knowledge they're going to impart to you. In my experience it nearly always follows that a 'star' academic will be an utterly brilliant teacher - even if his/her teaching methods aren't exactly The Dead Poets Society brilliant.
 
Phew, got my AS A's (Maths, Econ, Critical Thinking. Taking Maths/Further/Econ/Art Pre-U next year) thankfully so an Oxford application is still on the cards despite my time out this year (lung collapsed, 8 weeks off for an op/recovery), even if the module results aren't quite good enough for an easy Cambridge app
 
Over here if you pay for a remark and get a higher mark after the remark you get all your money you paid for the remark back (remark, remark... :D). Not sure if it's the same in England, though.
 
Ksanti said:
Phew, got my AS A's (Maths, Econ, Critical Thinking. Taking Maths/Further/Econ/Art Pre-U next year) thankfully so an Oxford application is still on the cards despite my time out this year (lung collapsed, 8 weeks off for an op/recovery), even if the module results aren't quite good enough for an easy Cambridge app
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Good luck! You might want to check out English Literature or History instead of Art, though, because I think it's viewed as a 'soft' subject. My girlfriend had about 5A's at A-Level but two of them were in Art-based subjects, and she didn't even get an interview for Oxford!
 
InKursion said:
Good luck! You might want to check out English Literature or History instead of Art, though, because I think it's viewed as a 'soft' subject. My girlfriend had about 5A's at A-Level but two of them were in Art-based subjects, and she didn't even get an interview for Oxford!
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What did she apply for? I ask because a lot of subjects at Oxford rely very heavily on the entrance test - plenty of my friends failed to get to the interview stage with exceptional AS grades.
 
I got DDE last year, decided to redo all 3 A levels this year at college.

Went from DDE to BBB, I'm pretty happy with that, would have liked ABB (but chem exam screwed me over)

Anyway I'm going to my 1st choice for Pharmacy so :D:D:D
 
InKursion said:
Good luck! You might want to check out English Literature or History instead of Art, though, because I think it's viewed as a 'soft' subject. My girlfriend had about 5A's at A-Level but two of them were in Art-based subjects, and she didn't even get an interview for Oxford!
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Depends what sort of art. You can get vocational art a-levels which aren't seen as soft, seeing as the amount of work required for it is huge.
 
InKursion said:
Good luck! You might want to check out English Literature or History instead of Art, though, because I think it's viewed as a 'soft' subject. My girlfriend had about 5A's at A-Level but two of them were in Art-based subjects, and she didn't even get an interview for Oxford!
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Thanks :) I've already committed to the Art pre-U and I reckon my grades, subject choice (Double Maths and Econ for Econ and Management) and academic background is strong enough to get away with Art for one subject. I was deciding between Art School > Photography and Econ and Management > Economist/Boring Corporate Tool when I decided on my A-Levels. At the E&M talk at the Oxford open days the head of the department said that those three would be enough with decent grades (obviously along with a good all round app as well), so I'm not too worried about having one soft subject. More worried about practicing my TSAs really
 
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ABCDU in AS. Can resit one maths module to make it ABB but gonna resit 3 and hopefully get it to AAA. D in chemistry, and U in general studies. A in physics, and B in maths, C Fmaths. Not great by any standards but not the end of the world.
 
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