Blog31 August 2022
Earlier this month students across the country waited with bated breath to receive their A-level results. On results day we saw typical media coverage of students who did (or didn’t) get the grades they wanted – but as usual we missed some important nuance. Often the way we speak about grades in education implies two things:
- Grades are a definitive measure of potential to succeed
- Students with the best grades get onto the best courses and get the best jobs
Here’s why neither of these assumptions are true.
- Grades as a measure of potential
Grades play a central role in higher education (HE) admissions. However, as recently highlighted by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), the disadvantage gap in attainment between students from richer and poorer backgrounds persists at every level of compulsory education, and this flows through to study at post-16 and progression to HE; it is extremely unlikely for someone in the bottom fifth of GCSE scores to earn a degree by their mid 20s but nearly 80% of those in the top 10% of the GCSE scores have a degree by this point.
This disparity means that, if we focus solely on exam results, we risk missing out on the talents of huge numbers of students who face a tougher journey through school, and whose grades reflect it. There are two ways we can address this. First, we must work to eliminate attainment gaps. Earlier this year, the Office for Students (OfS) called for universities and colleges to do more to raise the attainment of school students. We responded with a rapid evidence review which found HE providers need to do a better job of tracing how their activities facilitate improvements in academic performance. We’re following-up with a suite of work designed to help the sector articulate and measure their impact.
The second way is the use of contextualised admissions – using information, such as where a student lives or which school they went to, to take into account barriers they’ve faced in education and adjust HE offers. Research shows that admitting students with lower A-level grades does not necessarily diminish their degree outcomes and polling by HEPI suggests that this approach has support among students.
A dual approach – both raising attainment and contextualising admissions – is likely to be necessary to make progress on narrowing the equality gaps in entry to HE. But even if we close this gap, we need to tackle the second common assumption about grades: that students with the best grades get the best jobs.
2. Best grades = best jobs
The way grades are often discussed implies a sort of ranking which is assumed to translate through to success in the labour market. In reality, two students with the same A-level grades can end up in very different places. The IFS report that ‘young people from better-off families – and especially those who attended private school – enjoy much higher financial rewards from completing a degree than their peers from disadvantaged backgrounds, even holding constant attainment during school and at university as well as subject and institution’. In other words, two students who get the same grades at school, study the same subject at the same university and get the same class of degree, can end up on very different earning trajectories because of where they grew up.
This is because, when it comes to students accessing HE and job opportunities, grades are only part of the picture. So where attainment is equal, what else varies between students? One important factor is so-called ‘social capital’ – who we know, our networks and our ability to draw on those connections to get ahead in life.
It’s not what you know, it’s who you know
Measuring attainment on a test is easy. We can translate letters into numbers which tally nicely in a spreadsheet. By contrast, social capital is not so simple to measure, but this is exactly what researchers in the US have recently tried to do.
Using a sample of over 70 million social media users, researchers explored connectedness between different types of people. They found that, for people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, having more advantaged friends is one of the strongest predictors of upward income mobility. So, children growing up in low-income families are more likely to earn more in the future if their families are connected to richer families.
This paper provides large-scale empirical evidence for the old adage: it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. But how does this play out in the context of HE? Personal statements are a prime example of how social capital can give some students a head-start in life. Research shows that, even when personal statements are written by students with comparable academic attainment, there are clear differences in the experience which individuals can bring to bear, reflecting their different levels of social capital. Students from more advantaged backgrounds are able to draw on a network of friends, family, teachers and advisors to support their journey into HE. Similarly, as outlined in our recent report on equality gaps in employment and employability, students from more advantaged backgrounds are able to leverage social capital to access internships and opportunities in the job market.
What to do about social capital?
Once again, this disparity means that, if we ignore people’s backgrounds, we risk missing talent in our student population. So how can HE providers respond? Again, there are two possible angles. First, in a parallel to attainment-raising, universities and colleges can deliver activities to build social capital. For example, mentoring programmes can help students access networks to support their journey into HE or into particular professions. This is something we are seeking to build evidence on as part of our Multi-intervention outreach and mentoring project.
Second, as per contextualised admissions, we must guard against systems and processes compounding inequality. This means keeping a watchful eye on how we assess personal statements and interviews, for entry to HE but also to work experience opportunities and in the labour market more broadly.
Why this matters more than ever
Demand for university places is likely to balloon over coming years. The 18 year old population is due to increase through the decade and, as numbers grow, there is only so far the sector can go in accommodating students. Grades can be beguiling in their apparent simplicity as a way of assessing applicants, but as I’ve outlined here, we can’t rely on them as a definitive measure of potential. Given the expected surge in applicants, now is the time for HE providers to interrogate the primacy of grades in admissions and how this might hinder efforts to close equality gaps in the coming years.
But as I’ve outlined, the same applies to other parts of the admissions process.
Chief Executive of UCAS, Clare Marchant wrote recently about how universities and colleges may respond to increased demand with the use of interviews and tests to refine offer-making. And as this bumper wave of students moves through HE, it’s possible new tools will be used to assess applicants for entry to graduate employment too.
We need to ensure that, when it comes to the pinch, disadvantaged students are not squeezed out, both in HE and in the labour market more broadly. To do this, we must be mindful of how different approaches to handling grades, and other assessment criteria can either ‘bake in’ or mitigate the effects of inequality. Because when it comes to understanding students, their academic potential and what they can bring to the table, those nice neat letters on a page are just the tip of the iceberg.