It's all academic

Picture source: Google images

It's a strange feeling this week, with all the news coverage of the A-Level results, to know that it's been 11 years since I got my own. I'll always remember the day: jumping out of bed and running to the front door so excitedly when the postman rang the doorbell.

He wasn't bringing my A-Level results, of course I had to go the school like everyone else to collect those, instead he was bringing me my Ramones Anthology boxset. "I Wanna Be Sedated" has never seemed a more fitting theme tune than it did that day.

My own results were very mediocre, I was a little disappointed but at the same time also relieved as I knew I'd be accepted by at least one of my two universities of choice. I was never going to be an Oxford student.

It seems those golden days are long behind us now, as the news fills with tales of students getting straight A grades, but being denied university places. To my mind, it's a product of schools putting too much pressure and focus on the grades and not enough attention on the rest -- extra-curricular activities, what you actually do with your time. You can get straight A grades, but if you want to go to the top universities in the country you are competing with everyone else who has the same grades.

It's been widely noted on the internet this week that if you read almost any of the major newspapers, you might be misled into believing that only pretty, skinny, white girls got their A-Level results. News coverage all features the same pictures of these photogenic girls "jumping for joy" or hugging each other. Nobody else matters, they seem to say. The question is, with all the attention this disparency is attracting online, will next year's coverage be any different?

Opinions are also divided over the creation this year of the A* grade at A-Level. Personally, I think it's extra pressure that you don't need at that age. I remember on GCSE results day, seeing a girl crying her heart out at being a failure because of her 10 GCSEs, only 9 had returned an A* Grade -- she was crushed to have got one grade A, as if she had failed everything. One could argue that this pressure came from parents or teachers or the girl herself, and had nothing to do with the A* grade being available -- but to my mind, it devalues grade A. Why don't we introduce a double-A* grade for those who do even better?

It was reported that because of the shortage of university places, versus the demand for them, some universities are encouraging students to look overseas. I don't know if such a system exists, but wouldn't it be something if students were able to put their grades -- actual or predicted -- into some kind of international database, to see all the universities and colleges around the world that would be thrilled to have them?

I'm certain there are hundreds, if not thousands, of universities in English-speaking countries or where the courses are taught in English -- and that with straight As or A* grades these universities would be falling over themselves to welcome British students. Perhaps this competition would mean that British universities would have to do more than just exist to attract students to them? I know when I was going to university, it was important to me to be able to have time abroad -- if I could have had the chance to spend the whole time in another country, I probably would have taken it.

But it all comes down to what everyone else thinks. What do you, the two readers of this blog think? Does the A* grade devalue the A? Should students have more access to universities outside the UK? And should schools place more value on things other than straight acadmeic scores?