Medical applicants questioned whether calculated grades could fairly replace public examinations
When schools closed and public examinations were cancelled during the early months of COVID-19, UK medical school applicants faced a selection process unlike any previous admissions cycle. The study captured their views at a moment of deep uncertainty, when calculated grades were introduced to replace A-level exams and admissions systems had to adapt quickly to a disrupted school year.
Among 2887 respondents who completed an online questionnaire between 8 April and 22 April 2020, concern about the grading process was widespread. Many applicants did not regard calculated grades as fair enough to use on their own for selection into medicine. Their responses point to a central problem in admissions during the pandemic: schools varied in how they could observe, assess, and rank students, and applicants were alert to the risk that those differences would shape outcomes unevenly.
Concerns clustered around school type, ethnicity, sex and deprivation
Views on calculated grades were not uniform across the cohort. Female applicants and Black, Asian and minority ethnic applicants were more likely to believe that teachers would find it difficult to grade and rank students accurately. Applicants from non-selective state schools and those living in more deprived areas also expressed concern about the standardisation process.
Those patterns matter because they track familiar fault lines in access to educational opportunity. A system that depends heavily on teacher judgement can be affected by the amount of direct contact teachers have had with students, the availability of prior attainment data, and the level of support a school can provide when formal assessment disappears. Applicants from less advantaged backgrounds appeared to recognize that risk, and their skepticism was not abstract. It reflected the practical problem of being judged through a process that may not have fully captured individual ability under disrupted conditions.
Applicants were not rejecting all use of calculated grades outright. They were more accepting of them when combined with other admissions measures, including interview performance and aptitude test scores. In other words, they appeared to accept calculated grades as one component of a broader assessment process, but not as a sufficient stand-alone measure for selection into medical school.
Access to remote learning diverged sharply during lockdown
The survey also captured how the national lockdown affected education itself. Applicants from non-selective state schools reported less access to educational resources than pupils from private or selective schools. They also reported less online teaching in real time and less time spent studying during lockdown.
This was not a minor inconvenience. Medical school admission depends heavily on sustained academic performance, and the loss of classroom teaching placed more responsibility on home resources, school infrastructure and the ability to self-direct study. For applicants already navigating inequalities linked to school type and deprivation, the lockdown appears to have widened the gap between those with stable access to teaching and those without it.
One sentence in the findings cuts straight to the clinical and educational consequence: the applicants who were already most exposed to disadvantage were also the ones who reported the weakest access to teaching support during lockdown.
The implications extend beyond a single admissions cycle. If remote teaching is less available or less effective in some school settings, then interruption to normal schooling can translate into unequal preparation for examinations, interviews and admissions tests. That is especially consequential in medicine, where selection processes are intended to identify high-potential candidates from across society rather than amplify pre-existing differences in educational provision.
Admissions policy had to balance disruption against fairness
The study sits at the intersection of two urgent pressures. On one side, admissions systems needed to continue functioning despite the cancellation of public examinations. On the other, schools and universities were operating under conditions that made traditional measures of attainment unreliable or unavailable. Calculated grades were introduced as a response to that emergency, but the responses from applicants show how fragile confidence in those grades could be when the process rested on uneven educational environments.
The data also raise a broader question for medical admissions: which combination of selection tools is most defensible when one component has been disrupted? Applicants in this study were more comfortable with calculated grades when they formed part of a package that included interview and aptitude test scores. That preference is clinically and administratively important because it points toward redundancy in admissions systems. When one measure is weakened by extraordinary circumstances, another may help preserve fairness—provided the remaining tools are themselves accessible and valid.
There is also a workforce dimension. Medical schools are not simply selecting students for a degree course; they are shaping the future composition of the profession. Any admissions policy that systematically disadvantages applicants from non-selective state schools or deprived areas risks narrowing the social diversity of the workforce. The survey responses suggest that applicants understood this risk clearly.
A pandemic admission cycle with long consequences
The investigators concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic has had, and will continue to have, significant effects on the selection, education and performance of the medical workforce. The applicant responses support that warning. Disrupted schooling changed not only how students learned, but also how they believed they would be judged.
Because the questionnaire was administered early in the pandemic, it captured views before the full consequences of cancelled examinations and altered admissions pathways had played out. Even so, the direction of concern was plain: applicants from some backgrounds anticipated greater difficulty being assessed fairly, and those same groups reported weaker access to the educational resources needed to compete on equal terms.
The study does not resolve how admissions should be redesigned after a national disruption of this scale. It does, however, provide a direct account from the people most affected. Their concerns point to the need for admissions systems that can withstand school closures without turning temporary educational disruption into long-term inequity. For medical education, that remains a practical and unresolved challenge.