LONDON Chris Byrne and Khadijah E. Olonade worked hard to get into medical school, but the computer said no.
The teenagers are among thousands of graduating high school students scrambling for spots at British universities following the governments disastrous decision to award final grades using an algorithm.
The process was intended to replace exams canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, but unfairly lowered the marks of many students and froze them out of their chosen schools.
While the program was ditched after an outcry, and affected students had their grades raised, universities and families are still picking up the pieces.
Many 18-year-olds don’t know if they will be attending college in the fall. Aspiring doctors are particularly in limbo because the hands-on training medical schools provide means the number of slots cant easily be expanded to accommodate those turned away by the algorithm debacle.
Im stuck waiting, Byrne said. There has been no word about if theres going to be enough medicine places for me to get in this year. Theres just a lot of uncertainty about whats going to happen.
COVID-19 has upended many aspects of life, including the complex admissions system for higher education in Britain. Universities offer final-year high school students places based on grades predicted by their teachers, but admission is contingent on the results of final exams, known as A Levels.
This year, with schools largely shut since March and no exams, education authorities in England attempted to to standardize results by running students’ teacher-predicted grades through an algorithm that compared them with their schools past performance.
High-achieving students at under-performing schools, many in deprived areas, ended up with their marks downgraded, while students at above-average schools kept their predicted grades.
Amid anger from students, parents and educators, and growing unease within Britain’s governing Conservative Party, the government backed down this week and said students who were downgraded could get their predicted grades.
That brought relief but hasnt ended the uncertainty, because some students who now have the grades they needed to go to the universities they applied to have been told the courses they hoped to take are full.
Sixteen-year-olds, whose equally crucial GCSE exams were also canceled by COVID-19, are due to receive results Thursday that will determine their future studies. The government has promised there will not be a repeat of the A-levels fiasco.
Universities caught between a government in damage-control mode and students demanding fair treatment have formidable choices to make.
How do we make decisions fairly on behalf of everybody? said professor Jenny Higham, principal of St. Georges University of London medical school. Because every individual feels that their case is legitimate and I would, if I were an individual student.
Medical schools, which already have far more applicants than spaces, face their own constraints. Becoming a doctor takes five to seven years, and involves a blend of classroom, lab and practical training. Its not simple to squeeze more students in.
Medicine is an apprenticeship, Higham said. You need a wide range of clinical experience in a huge variety of domains — in hospitals, teaching hospitals, community placements and also general practice. And those placements are both difficult to acquire, and also expensive.
St. Georges and other medical schools are asking some students to wait a year before starting university. Its the poorest students who are least able to put their educations on hold, but the pandemic also has curtailed the traditional gap-year activities of travel and work abroad.
The process is very stressful and it feels like all my hard work amounted to nothing, said Olonade, who attends a public school in Londons diverse Hackney borough. My grades shouldnt have been determined by the area I live in, but the hard work and effort Ive put into my studies.
Olonade initially missed out on a place to study medicine at University College London because of the algorithm. Now, the university says she can go, but not until 2021.
I am unsure if Ill be able to even use this unplanned gap year productively, she said in an email. I dont know if Ill even be able to get a job, as many jobs have been cut due to the COVID pandemic.
Kaya Ilska, who comes from a single-parent family and also hoped to study at University College London, said the admissions system failed to take account of the fact that prospective medical students – unlike those pursuing many other subjects have to spend time during their final year of high school school taking entrance exams and having college interviews.
Ilska stayed focused on those assignments rather than her coursework and practice mock exams, which ended up being a big part of teachers’ predictions. But she was confident of excelling on her A Levels.
Its all about the final exam, which many medical students were gearing and preparing themselves towards. And they would have received the top grades if they had been able to do that, she said.
Dr. Martin Marshall, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said that if students from deprived areas were deterred, the grading failure could hurt efforts to get doctors to represent the communities they serve.
The Royal College said every student who met the criteria to study medicine should get to do so. It has called on the British government to lift the cap on undergraduate numbers and to come up with extra funding so universities can admit more students.
Education Secretary Matt Hancock said Wednesday that the government was doing everything that we can, and were working on this issue right now.
His words are cold comfort for students left in anxious suspense.
Im thinking about it like, what could I have done differently? Byrne said. I managed to get the offers and its still been ripped away from me by something out of my control, which is incredibly frustrating.
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