England’s regulator consults on post-qualification admissions

The use of predicted grades should had been abolished long ago - a national embarrassment to use an invalid index for HE admissions.

The problem with a "post-qualification admissions" system is that it assumes that examination grades are a realiable and valuable indicator of undergraduate potential. In some disciplines, especially in the arts and humanities, this is simply not the case, especially at élite level (because even the ostensibly "academic" Level 3 qualifications, such as A-levels, are sometimes so dumbed-down as to end-up rewarding those who regurgitate the ideas and paradigms in the revision guide rather than those who are willing to be a bit more original and creative in their thinking). Another problem with such a system is that it leaves the prospective student far less time to prepare for the course. Under the current system, the applicant will know where he/she will probably be enrolling 5–9 months in advance (assuming no gap year), and can thus start preparing himself/herself accordingly (I trust that universities still write to offer-holders with advice about this?), and figure out matters such as accommodation without too much pressure. Better that a prospective student gets a realistic evaluation as to whether he/she has the potential to succeed on a given course *before* his/her A-level or equivalent examinations, rather than hold false hope and be disappointed upon rejection despite outstanding grades, or, worse, be admitted to a course for which he/she manifestly (from the perspective of any admissions tutor who actually looks at the application) lacks acumen. Unfortunately, most universities are not willing to expend the person-hours required to evaluate applicants properly as individual people rather than a set of data (ideally, this process should involve not only a personal statement but also an open-ended interview, something which some courses/institutions still do).