Getting into Varsity: Comparability, Convergence and Congruence ...

hardly a proliferation—in the use of (normally subject-specific) aptitude testing for admissions.

As an illustration of the challenge faced by admissions tutors when attempting to discriminate between applicants on the basis of A-Level results, 25% of the more than 400,000 UCAS applications from the United Kingdom in 2004 scored a UCAS tariff of 360, which is equivalent to three GCE A-Levels at grade A or better. For competitive-entry courses, this proportion, and the average tariff, is higher still. Of course, applicants may accumulate points through various combinations of qualifications, not necessarily taking several A-Levels concurrently, and universities may choose to consider only the points from examinations taken concurrently over 2 years or to discount non-preferred subjects. Nevertheless, there are many applicants with very high UCAS tariffs applying to universities. Some of the most popular courses are also those that require an aptitude test and/or an interview, such as pre-clinical medicine, but there are many other popular courses, such as psychology, for which admissions tests are not used at all and interviews are used rarely. In these cases, estimated GCE grades are the primary source of information used for selection. It could be argued that the information necessary to discriminate more effectively between the top A-Level candidates already exists, for example, in the form of GCSE results and—in a PQA system—modular A-Level Uniform Mark Scale (UMS) scores. (Some examinations are structured to allow candidates to take particular modules [or units] at different times [series]. Given that the cut scores [boundary marks] for each grade [A, B, C, etc.] may vary among series, candidates’ raw marks from each module are transposed onto a Uniform Mark Scale [UMS] to preserve their value across series.) By agreement with UCAS and the Joint Council for Qualifications, individual unit grades have been made available to those institutions that wish to receive them, following a pilot in 2006. However, given the time frame for applications, the unit grades available at the time of application are likely to be only for AS-Level units taken in the first year of a 2-year course.

The issue of admissions tutors’ ability to discriminate between applicants on the basis of their A-Level results recently crossed paths with the