There has been a significant increase in the granting of unconditional offers to A-level students in the past few years, accompanied with a requirement that students put the university giving the offer as their first choice. Last year, 34% of university offers in the UK were unconditional, with UCAS finding that these students were more likely to ultimately fall two or more grades in their final results. Damien Hinds, education secretary, has contacted the worst offending unis (usually lower-tier), asking them to stop this practice. Whether A-levels really matter (or not) is ultimately up to the universities themselves
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