So the Former Foreign Secretary, and a pretty poor one at that, has decided to quit the Labour front bench and the media goes over the top about it. I say poor. Let us not forget that apart from getting it wrong on torture, this was the Foreign Secretary who decided to travel to New York to pick up a foster child instead of greeting the King of Saudi Arabia on his arrival in the UK. Funny thing is while one Miliband says he is too busy with his job to register himself as the father of his son, the other says he is too busy building his family to attend to one of the most important functions of his job.
Still, now that he is gone it seems that whoever gave him is place at Oxford on the back of 3 B's and a D has deprived some more deserving candidate. You really have to work hard at it to get less than an A at A Level, to fail to get one A grade in 4 A Levels requires true mediocrity.
5 comments:
whoever gave him [h]is place at Oxford on the back of 3 B's and a D has deprived some more deserving candidate.
Presumably he applied under the old system where it was the entrance exam that counted. A Levels were irrelevant provided the candidate attained the two E grades necessary for Matriculation.
to fail to get an 4 A Levels out of 4 requires true mediocrity.
You seem to be confusing O Levels (where D was the "equivalent" of a fail under the old School Certificate) with A Levels (where grades A to E were all pass grades).
"Presumably he applied under the old system where it was the entrance exam that counted."
Not quite. I am not sure about the details of the system at Oxford, but I was awarded a place at Cambridge on the basis of my A-levels (straight A's at an embarrassingly young age) and took the entrance exam for an award. I knew one person in the year above me who was offered an award and place at Oxford. He now runs the economics department at Harvard.
You seem to be confusing O Levels (where D was the "equivalent" of a fail under the old School Certificate) with A Levels (where grades A to E were all pass grades).
Not at all. In my world less than an A is as good/bad as a fail. All my 3 daughters went or go to Oxford.
There are no prizes for coming second.
Actually that's not true: second prize is a set of steak knives, third prize is you're fired.
But would D Miliband (agreed - a poor Foreign Secretary and no loss to the body politic) not have sat his 'A' levels before New Labour grade inflation made results less than at grade A meaningless?
Not quite. I am not sure about the details of the system at Oxford, but I was awarded a place at Cambridge on the basis of my A-levels (straight A's at an embarrassingly young age) and took the entrance exam for an award. I knew one person in the year above me who was offered an award and place at Oxford. He now runs the economics department at Harvard.
What year are you talking about?
At the time Miliband went to Oxford the norm was to award places on the basis of the Entrance Exam, either before A Levels (fourth term) or after (seventh term).
It wasn't uncommon with seventh term candidates for those with lower grades to get places and those with higher grades not to. The dons took rather a pride in such results because they considered that A levels were a crude indicator of ability and potential (which was why they preferred to gather the evidence for themselves).
Some colleges awarded a few places on the basis of actual A level results, or made conditional offers (typically AAA, but AAB or ABB if they liked a candidate - allowing him leeway if he had a bad day when he took his exams) or matriculation offers (EE). The total number of places involved, however, was small (less than 5%).
Not at all. In my world less than an A is as good/bad as a fail.
My apologies. As what you wrote was rather garbled I wasn't quite sure what you were saying.
Perhaps he was good at rugger and his brother good at cricket. That's how it worked when I were a lad. None of this business where one of your Dad's former students and acolytes was a leading academic relating to the College you applied to.
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