Over at LKMCo…. Facilitating Subjects & The RG Group

My puzzlement over the EBacc is not new.  I have explained what it is, why I dislike the reasoning given for the subjects included, some oddities of its use, and its potential for detrimental impacts on A-Level choice.

But I’ve always believed I could be wrong. From the very outset I wanted more information about what the biases are that the universities held. I wanted to know because, at the time, I was a sixth form manager and part of my job was advising students on their best options. All I could find though were suggestions of preference, rather than actual outcomes. Perhaps the RG said they liked geography instead of economics, but did they really?  

Unfortunately no-one has yet shown me any convincing evidence that says the facilitating subjects all, and equally, will improve your chances of uni entry.

So over at LKMCo today I have published the results of a few months of emailing Freedom of Information requests to the Russell Group Universities to find the A-Levels of applicants and people offered on to courses. To an extent I found what I was looking for (facilitating subjects are not systematically preferred), but there were also a few unexpected surprises…..