A Levels: How to appeal your grades and how to get a 'priority' review if you have a university offer waiting

• Students who believe there is a problem with how their A Levels were marked can ask for a review.
• Most will need to apply with their school or college’s help.
• For those with a university offer waiting, there is an expedited service available.
• There are three different review steps unsatisfied students can go through.

Final A Level grades have the potential to be life-changing for students.

Young people across the country are receiving their all-important A - or ‘advanced’ - Level exams today (Thursday August 15). Many a conditional university offer will be hinging on them, and students will finally have more clarity around what their next steps are likely to be.

The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) has confirmed that the amount of A Levels taken overall has risen in 2024, and while the number of top grades has gone up, the overall pass rate had fallen a little.

This year’s cohort of A Level candidates has had to deal with a lot. They sat their GCSE exams in 2022, the first year that exams returned after the Covid-19 pandemic interrupted schooling, while many have also had to contend with disruption from the RAAC concrete scandal.

Only a rare few will manage to get a clean sweep of A* grades across all of their different subjects, with any grade from E up considered a pass. But what should you do if your grades are significantly lower than you expected, or you think there might have been an issue with how your exam was marked?

That’s when you can ask your exam board for a review. Here’s everything A Level students and their parents need to know about the process:

How to appeal your A Level results

Just like with GCSEs, you’ll need to appeal directly to the exam board that marked your papers (this will be AQA, OCR, Pearson or WJEC Eduqas for students in England) via your school or college. Unless you’re a private candidate, you can’t do this by yourself.

After discussing your results with your school leadership team, careers counsellor, or teacher, they will be able to ask the exam board to review it on your behalf. They will look over your exam for any mistakes or issues with how it was marked. You grade may change, increase or decrease, depending on what they find.

They will send their decision to your school, who will pass it along. If you’re still not happy with the outcome, your school can appeal this review, and send it back to be looked over again. This will be the exam board’s final decision on the matter.

In England, this process in only free if the exam board finds they have made a mistake. Students may be asked to pay a fee if they ask for a review but their grade is not changed as a result, government guidance warns. You should be able to check this with your school before they contact the exam board.

There is one final option once you’ve got your final result from your exam board after appealing. Your school can then request a review from Ofqual - the government’s official qualifications regulator - which will look at whether the awarding organisation followed its own procedures correctly, and whether it complied with Ofqual’s rules.

You won’t be charged for this service, but at the same time Ofqual says it is not able to change your grades. If it does believe the exam board has made a mistake, it can ask them to take another look at your appeal.

How do I get a ‘priority’ review?

If you have a conditional place at a university waiting and you’ve just sat your A Levels, you can request a priority review. This service aims to get the results of your review back to you more quickly, so you can confirm your plans.

Ofqual’s 2024 guidance for students says that awarding organisations will aim to complete priority reviews by 4 September, which is also the UCAS advisory deadline for universities or other higher education providers to hold places open for students.

To make sure you get a priority review if you need one, just let your school know. They should be able to note this to your exam board when they send through your request. It’s worth noting that priority reviews can be a little more expensive and need to be filed a little earlier than other requests.

It’s also worth letting the university you applied to know that you’re filing an appeal too, the Complete University Guide advises. They may agree to hold your place until a decision has been made, if you keep them updated.

When do I need to file my appeal by?

Priority appeals usually need to be filed pretty quickly. AQA, for one, requires them to be filed by 22 August - one week after results are in.

The exact deadlines for other appeals or reviews vary by exam board, so it’s worth taking a look as post-exam services on their website. Your school’s exam officer should be able to advise you on this, but it’s usually within a few weeks to a month of results coming out.

If you find you need an Ofqual review, you need to send in your request within three weeks (21 days) of getting your exam board’s final decision. At all stages, it is best to apply as early as possible.

The government has issued some advice for parents and carers supporting students as they receive their exam results. This can often be a tense and emotionally fraught time, especially if things don’t go as expected. You can check this advice out online here.