Responding to today’s Level 3 results and university acceptances data, Nick Harrison, Chief Executive of the Sutton Trust, said:

“All students receiving their results today should be proud of their achievements, particularly as they’ve endured significant disruption to their education since Year 9.

“Given the challenges of the past few years, it’s remarkable that more disadvantaged young people are going on to university. However, stubbornly wide access gaps remain. The parts of the country which have previously seen fewer pupils go to university, are falling even further behind other areas. This gap has increased since last year, and is now higher than a decade ago. Urgent action is needed to tackle this.

“Grades have remained broadly similar to 2023, but top grades remain higher than pre-pandemic, with substantial regional differences remaining across England. The East Midlands and the North East have the lowest rates of top grades, whereas London, the South East and East of England are far ahead. The gap in top grades has also continued to widen since 2019 between those at independent and state schools.”

Sutton Trust analysis of today’s data:

A LEVEL RESULTS 

  • OVERALL: The proportion of A level grades at A and A* has stayed broadly steady, from 27.2% in 2023 to 27.8% in 2024, a slight rise of 0.6 percentage points (data for England, Wales and NI). This is still above the 25.4% of 2019, two years after Ofqual had first aimed to return to pre-pandemic grading levels. Lower grades have also stayed broadly similar, with 97.2% of students achieving grades A-E this year, compared to 97.3% in 2023.
  • GEOGRAPHY: The proportion of students gaining A and above has risen this year in all regions, but substantial regional gaps within England remain. Students in London were the most likely to secure top grades (31.3%, up 1.3pp on last year), followed by the South East (30.8%, up 1.3pp) and the East of England (27.5%, up 0.9pp). Those with the lowest rates are the East Midlands (22.5%, up 0.2pp), the North East (23.9%, with an increase from last year of 1.9pp) and Yorkshire & Humber (24.6%, similarly also up on last year, by 1.6pp). The gap between highest and lowest region for top grades has grown from 7.3pp in 2019 (between the South East and East Midlands) to 8.8pp today (between London and the East Midlands).
  • SCHOOL TYPE: The gap between state and private schools has continued to widen since 2019. A*/A grades at independent schools are up by 4.5 percentage points from 2019, to 49.4%, while at comprehensives the increase was 2.2 percentage points (up to 22.3%), and at academies only 2.5 percentage points (up to 26.5%).

UNIVERSITY ACCESS

  • OVERALL: 243,650 18-year olds have been accepted to university across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, an increase on the figure last year. The 18 year old entry rate in England has increased from 30.4% in 2023 to 31.7%, still down on the high of 34.1% in 2021. It is however still higher than the pre-pandemic rate of 28.1% in 2019.
  • UNDER-REPRESENTED AREAS: Entry rates have increased for young people from areas with historically low and historically high rates of participation in HE.
    • The 18-year old entry rate for POLAR Q5 (highest historic rates of participation) is 45.4% this year, compared to 43.2% in 2023, and 39.9% in 2019.
    • For POLAR Q1 (lowest historic rates), the rate is 19.6% this year, compared to 18.7% in 2023, and 16.9% in 2019.
  • However, the gap in participation between these groups has widened slightly this year, currently at 25.8pp, up from 24.5pp in 2023. This now means that other than during the pandemic (when the gap reached a high of 27.7pp), the gap is now at its widest since 2013.
  • SELECTIVE UNIVERSITIES: The share of acceptances at higher tariff universities has gone up to 42.8%, from 40.1% in 2023.

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