Today, hundreds of thousands of students will open envelopes containing their A-level results and be disappointed by what they find inside. Indeed, because of grade deflation, up to 50,000 students will miss out on the A and A* grades that they would have received last year.
A decade ago, I was that student feeling disheartened by their results. Having received lower grades than predicted, and consequently losing my place at my choice of university, I was faced with navigating the “clearing process”, a negotiation with universities that still have places left on courses – and a daunting task for an extremely shy 18-year-old. I can still feel the anxiety of calling various institutions to see if they would accept me. Over that interminable summer, I scrambled desperately to find a place, and felt let down that my school did nothing to help assuage the feeing of panic that was rising within me.
Eventually, after several fraught weeks, I settled on a university too far from home, and a course that I didn’t connect with, simply because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. Having wanted desperately to study classics at the same place as my friends, I was now studying history at a university where I knew no one, and which specialised in medieval history, a period I loathed.
Having missed out on halls thanks to my late-stage application, I was given access only to a “chat site” hosted by the university in question to find other students facing a similar conundrum over housing. We ended up renting a house that, on reflection, was an absolute hellhole – all because we had nowhere else to go.
I knew something was wrong as soon as I arrived for the start of term, but I felt unable to voice my growing discomfort because I thought that there was no alternative. I somehow managed to struggle through, believing that I was the problem, until the very last term of my very last year, when everything finally became too much, and my parents insisted I return home.
I was depressed, suicidal and on the verge of developing a severe mental health condition that would consume the rest of my twenties. I felt as though I had failed miserably and let everyone down. Going to the wrong university was not, of course, the sole reason for my mental decline – it was far more multifaceted than that. But it certainly didn’t help. As I stood there opening that envelope, I wish I had known what I do now.
First, I wish I had known that I was not the disappointment I thought I was. A-level grades are not a reflection of the person who holds them. Indeed, some of the smartest, most compassionate and genuinely interesting people I know never even did them. The older I become, and the more I have experienced the world, the more I realise that the values I admire most in people are not things that a single envelope can hold. And as we’re seeing this year, an A one year could be a B the next, or vice versa – but that could be the difference between meeting your offer or not.
If you open that envelope today and realise you haven’t got your first choice of university, don’t make the same mistake I did. Clearing can be brilliant – lots of people find courses on there that are perfect for them. But take the time you need to work out if that’s actually the case, or whether you feel pressured to opt for something just to escape a sense of failure that you shouldn’t have to feel in the first place.
There is no shame in making another decision, and there are plenty out there: resits, remarking, apprenticeships, foundation degrees, or going to university later in life. Indeed, in 2019-20, 37% of undergraduates were classed as “mature students”, and I had my happiest educational experience as one when I completed an art and design foundation course seven years after my original degree, when I finally felt I had agency over my decision.
Taking a year or two to figure out what you want to do is nothing in the grand scheme of things. You may even find that outside an institution, and with your time finally your own, you discover who you really are. I know that there is a certain privilege attached to the idea of a gap year, but if I were to be prime minister for a day, the first thing I would do would be to make them mandatory.
The idea of a year of “national service” is gaining traction in the US, but is still little discussed in the UK. While many balk at the whiff of authoritarianism associated with the term and its history, this mandatory gap year of national service would have nothing to do with military conscription. Instead, in my utopia, young people would be paid for a year of voluntary work in their communities, having a chance to learn and grow away from the high pressure of academia.
If you find yourself with the “wrong” grades today, just remember there are many options out there other than university, you are not the disappointment you are being led to believe, and the best people in life don’t need a certificate to prove their value.
Dorothy Dunn is a freelance journalist
• In the UK, the youth suicide charity Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141 or email pat@papyrus-uk.org, and in the UK and Ireland Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 988 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
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