Are A-Levels important after University?

Moses99p said:
What if someone did an alternative level 3 qualification (not A levels, but an equivalent)? That catered for on application forms?
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I don't see why that would be a problem :)

There certainly is the space for it on the application forms. It depends how obscure it is, I suppose.
 
BigglesPiP said:
Not to a sensible employer, especially once you have experience, do a Sandwich placement.
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I don't understand where some people are getting this idea from. The top graduate schemes all look at your UCAS points. IBM, Accenture, Shell, Exxon Mobil are all companies that will take your A levels into account.

You can't call some of the most successful businesses on the planet "not sensible employers".
 
gord said:
I don't understand where some people are getting this idea from. The top graduate schemes all look at your UCAS points. IBM, Accenture, Shell, Exxon Mobil are all companies that will take your A levels into account.

You can't call some of the most successful businesses on the planet "not sensible employers".
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Yet despite a B and an E @ A2, I work for IBM.
 
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lozzick said:
They aren't dumbed down today whatsoever.
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I think it's fair to say they have been dumbed down at least marginally. Heck, even 3-4 years ago they dumbed down mathematics by replacing three 'pure' modules with four 'core' modules of almost identical content.
 
It depends on the job, many are more interested in your skillset than any numbers or letters.

General rule, the last qualification you got is the one that counts - the one before that may just be considered. I don't think it's worth taking an extra one though, unless you're in a ridiculously competitive field.
 
w11tho said:
Certainly, in the case of the OP there's little point in doing extra A-Levels now. The point I was attempting to make was that when employers want to rate your degree, they simply look at your A-Level score and infer from those what type of University you went to. So whilst it's already set in stone what University you're at or where you went, employers will always use your A-Level results to determine that standards at the University.
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I know what you're getting at, but you've gotta remember that the standard of University people actually go to is not always directly proportional to A-Level results. People with good A-levels may go to an 'average' uni (perhaps for personal reasons or because it has a good reputation for sports).

My sister got straight As (3 A levels plus further maths AS Level) but she didn't go to a genuine top uni, she went to Birmingham (which is currently outside of the top20 in overall league tables, although it's possible it may have been higher in the 90s when she went). By your logic (using obtained grades, not required grades) to judge the standard of a university, it may create a false picture.

It just seems unnecessary to make such a derivation - employers are more likely to directly assess the uni attended, otherwise you could have a straight A student waltz into, I don't know, Luton (no offence) and land a 1st, whereas they might not have achieved that at a top end uni. You'd basically be encouraging people not to challenge themselves in terms of their choice of uni which would presumably be bad news for prospective employers.
 
HangTime said:
I know what you're getting at, but you've gotta remember that the standard of University people actually go to is not always directly proportional to A-Level results.
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In the majority of cases the correlation will be very strong, but of course, as with everything in life, there will be exceptions. Regardless of how strong the link is though, it's what companies use to rate a degree (or rather, make sure its standards are above some lower bound).

:)
 
w11tho said:
In the majority of cases the correlation will be very strong, but of course, as with everything in life, there will be exceptions. Regardless of how strong the link is though, it's what companies use to rate a degree (or rather, make sure its standards are above some lower bound).

:)
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That's just the point I'm making.... it doesn't make sure that the standards are above a lower bound. A university might accept people with two Es, yet have people attending who got much better grades than that. You have no assurance whatsoever as to the standards of a uni based on what grades an individual student got at A level. Otherwise how can you have a situation where some students at a uni have 5As, and others only have 3Bs?

In my opinion the correlation is likely to be stronger the other way around, i.e. a Uni with a good reputation implies that the student probably had a good academic record prior to going there. That's certainly the way I've always viewed it, i.e. if someone has got into Oxbridge, then they probably got good grades. That doesn't mean that other unis are necessarily just as good simply because they have some students attending who got identical grades.

I just don't really see the need to judge the strength of a uni based on acheived grades, surely required grades is a better measure if you want to do what you are talking about i.e. "make sure its standards are above some lower bound". If a uni says "you must have an AAB with an A in your chosen subject" then imo that's a much easier way of assuring quality than simply looking at the CV of one student who went there and saying "oh he got AAB at A level so it must be a fab uni" :)
 
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I'll put my oar in, I think some people have alreaday made the same point

I work in a medium size company of around 100 people, When we get CVs in the A levels are looked at but not in great detail, your degree is also looked at but also not religiously

The first stage of recruitment is a phone interview, and you'd have to be pretty poor not to get a phone interview. We have very (too) high standards but i interviewed a guy with DDD at A level yesterday.

Once you have an interview, while good results will work in your favour for sure, it doesnt really matter. The interview is very technical, and if you can answer my questions in detail ill put you through for a face to face interview

At the face to face stage the questions are harder, but if you know the answers and present the other things we are looking for you've demonstrated you can do the job and you'll get the job. Your A levels no longer matter.

I'd mention too that I've had many people that were very poor with great A levels and a first in Compsci from uni who were nowhere near able to pass the interview

In fact (although this is a bit of an extreme) I interviewed a guy with 6 As at A level and I went in with a really negative opinion of him (thinking 'you seem like a bit of a loser you obviously had no fun at uni and are probably smart but unable to communicate) in the end, he got the job because he could answer the questions and in fact he was very personable. his A levels never factored into it.

I would say however that when applying for larger companies it makes a big difference, they receive so many CVs and have so many graduates flooding them that they can't afford to phone interview all these people and they use the CVs as a means to whittle down the people applying, and in that case you dont really stand much of a chance
 
I got poor A levels but i was heavily addicted to WOW at the time :(

I got

B- Media Studies
D- German (2 marks off a c :( )
E- Psychology (HATE WITH A PASSION)

I now study Film and Television and just got an A3 for my 2nd year and I'm lucky that the only A level I did well in IS relevant to my course.

So in my CV i just write 3 A levels including a B in media studies! Once I've finished my CV i'm going to apply to sky sports for a placement as a runner making tea and coffee :)

Helps that i can put down 9 A-C GCSE's too in contrast to A-E like other n00bs do.
 
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Interesting that recruiters base so much on maybe a 1hr interview above the outcome of 5 years of study (general comment, this isn't 'news' to me!), albeit the majority of it irrelevant. Just goes to show how important making a good impression is and makes me wonder if academic institutions ought to place a bit more focus on how to handle those situations. I don't really ever remember having any kind of formal 'interview training' (aside from preparing for a uni interview) so maybe I ought to invest in some kind of professional training along those lines if such a thing is available.

I also thinks it places a little too much emphasis on luck in terms of what kind of questions you get asked and whether you 'hit it off' with your interviewer(s), although of course in smaller companies where you will be working closely with them this is clearly of value.
 
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HangTime said:
That's just the point I'm making.... it doesn't make sure that the standards are above a lower bound.
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I'm not sure on what point I've been unclear. No one has suggested that this means of assessment is bullet-proof. No one has suggested that there aren't exceptions. Companies need to use some sort of yardstick, and a fairly good one is that of the grades required to enter into a course. They use it as a means to judge the University people went to. Of course people who went to Oxbridge will have got good grades - in this case the system works: they all point out they got AAAAA+ at A-Level, then low-and-behold the companies filter system assumes they went to a good university.

What is there not to get?
 
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