Yay, you’ve completed your UCAS Application! The next step will require your counselor or teacher to supply predicted grades for you IB, AP, or other exams. You may be wondering: What is the best way to approach this? Will submitting the wrong grade hinder your chance of acceptance? We asked Ashley Warmington from University of Glasgow to help us understand this process.
Before we begin, it’s important to understand a major differences between US and UK secondary education. In high school, which is called ‘college’ in the UK, there are no GPAs or transcripts. Instead, students work towards exams called A-levels or Higher’s (Scotland) taken in May or June at the completion of their course. Students use scores they receive on quarterly practice tests to estimate the grade they will receive on their final exam. This is the predicted grade.
Often US teachers or counselors do not know how to calculate a predicted grade and are afraid they may be held accountable if they guess incorrectly. This is not the case. When approaching the predicted grade, think of it as the University asking you if the student is likely to meet the academic requirements. Using the mid-year transcript or a first semester progress report is a great way to estimate a final grade. We recommend that the teacher try and answer as honestly as possible based on the student’s previous coursework, but also keep in mind what the university’s minimum entry requirements are.
With all this in mind, we can see why the UK admissions process is historically test-focused. US applicants either appreciate the transparency (get the grades and you’re in, fall below and you aren’t) or fear it. It isn’t a perfect system, but one of the silver linings of the pandemic has been more and more UK institutions offering a flexible and holistic review process for US applications.
I hope that clarifying the UK grading/testing system helps you to understand the UK application/admissions process a bit better. As always, we recommend reaching out to a UK university representative if you are unsure. You can always find helpful articles on our website, The UK Study Expert or UCAS.
Ashley Warmington is the Senior International Officer for western USA at the University of Glasgow. Ashley studied her undergraduate degree in Scotland and has worked in UK admissions since 2016. She is now based in Southern California, where she helps American students through the UK application process.
