Student told she’d lost her place at uni after achieving straight A*s in her A-Levels

An A-Level student was told she hadn’t got her place at uni, before later finding out she’d achieved straight A*s in her exams.

To confirm her place on a medicine course at UCL, Amber only needed to achieve A*, A, A, so she was unsurprisingly confused when she heard the news.

After relentlessly calling the exam board, the cock-up was eventually resolved and Amber was able to take up her place at uni. Others may not have been so lucky.

Thousands of students who were given the wrong grades on A-Level results day, could face missing out on going to university.

The AQA exam board marked some students absent in exams or gave them unclassified grades, when they actually sat and passed their papers.

Unsurprisingly, AQA has been flooded with appeals as many students are left in limbo, unsure whether they will be able to take up their rightful places at uni.

Universities held places open for students with appealed grades until yesterday (August 31st) meaning that many students could have unfairly missed out on going to uni.

According to MailOnline, the number of students affected could be around the 4,000 mark. AQA disputed this claim, saying the actual figure is much lower. They refused to disclose the actual number of those impacted.

Many of the students contacted their unis who promised to hold their places until the end of August to give time for the exam board mistakes to be rectified. But AQA staff strikes may have delayed this process.

MailOnline spoke to several students and parents affected by this issue.

Amber’s father, Karl, said: “When she logged on to her Ucas account, it said she was unsuccessful on both courses. So we assumed that she had achieved below the A, A, B grades.

“She was obviously very down and so I drove her to school to collect her results.

“She opened them up and had achieved three A* grades! We were left really confused. Why was she unsuccessful?”

Amber rang up UCL who said she’d failed the practical element of her course. Amber’s teacher confirmed to her that this was not the case.

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Amber repeatedly tried to contact AQA on A-Level results day who finally told her that her grade would be corrected by the following Wednesday,

Karl said: “But on Wednesday, the teacher could not access the AQA site. Eventually they said it would be available on Thursday at 8am. She could now access the website but no results slip.”

After being given a number for AQA by her teacher, Amber called them up. Karl said: “She was fobbed off with a reply along the lines of ‘Only your schools examinations officer can deal with this’.”

AQA denies the claim they “fobbed off” students, but other families told MailOnline they receieved similar responses from the exam board.

Eventually, Amber’s Ucas page said her place was awaiting confirmation and UCL confirmed to her that they could see her pass grade. Thankfully, she will now go on to study medicine at the uni.

But others may have not been so fortunate

A spokesperson for AQA said: “It’s normal in any year to have some pending results for a number of reasons, and these represent a really tiny proportion of the 3 million+ grades we award each summer. But we know how hard students have worked for these results – and our teams work to resolve them as quickly as possible.

“We have a priority, fast-track process whenever there’s a university place involved, and we have a dedicated team who work with schools, colleges and Ucas to meet their deadlines.”

Featured image: Shutterstock / Adityo B Hardoyo

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