Student sentiment directly from The Student Room community

Most students found exams just as tough as they expected

A-level students have now gone through the first ‘normal’ exam season since 2019. Although it’s important to remember these students have still really felt the impact of Covid across their secondary education.

It was a massive exam season on The Student Room this year with 30% more posts and people talking in our forums throughout exams compared to 2022. In the third week of exams we saw conversation pivot from a focus on humanities to more of a STEM emphasis.

Our ‘students react’ articles continued to be popular, with GCSE Maths and English papers being the most popular in the last fortnight of exams.

It was a truly mixed bag of responses when we asked whether they’d found their GCSE or A-level exams easier or more difficult than they expected. Almost an even split every way, some found them easier, some found them tougher and lots found them exactly as they expected.

"I would say that they aren't fit for purpose, but not because of AI. Especially with adjustments made during covid, we've seen the flaws with the way that students are currently assessed. I think that even at secondary school level, they need to use a more coursework and assessment based approach rather than the final exams system that is currently used."

Students not confident they will secure their firm choice university

While almost 30% of students said they feel using ChatGPT is cheating, in a new poll this month, almost 60% said they feel current GCSE and A-level exams are still fit for purpose. This is mostly because while students could revise using AI, it won’t help them in the actual exam. Others feel exams aren’t fit for purpose - but not because of AI.

"You can't use AI to cheat during an exam, and it even has limitations when being used for revision, for example, it won't be able to produce a perfect english literature essay because it doesn't know the markscheme or the AOs so the best it will give you is a generic essay that won't score high marks."

"Researching about clearing but I've basically gone nowhere... every degree has grade requirements that are really high, i check the salary of graduates and it's always something like 'starts at 20k, can work up to 33k in 10 years' for degrees requiring minimum ABB??"

"I was looking at the clearing options this year, and was surprised to see that KCL had so many competitive courses in clearing. They had computer science, medicine, artificial intelligence all in clearing. Is this a mistake or is it legit, because it seems too good to be true. I want to apply to the AI course, but if my grades are lower than the entry requirements can I still apply?"

"Hi does applying for advance interest for clearing at a university get rid of all of your current offers that you hold?"

"I got the grades I wanted! However my UCAS has only updated my insurance, not my firm, when should I start to worry?"

Now exams are over, Year 13 students are facing the nervous wait for their results. We asked Year 13 students what resource they found most helpful when they were researching for universities. The clear top choice was in person open days.

This shows the importance of the ‘real life’ experience and reflects what we saw during the pandemic when in person open days were the most missed resource. It’s important to note however, the cost of living is presenting barriers for some students to attend these events.