Private colleges offering structured A Level revision courses during the Easter holidays are reporting a strong increase in demand for the second year running. Steve Boyes, Director of MPW College, said yesterday: "Parents and students, and for that matter schools, are becoming increasingly anxious about the growing competition for places at top flight universities. Marginal misses on conditional offers now frequently mean rejection, whereas in the past admissions tutors were in a position to be more flexible. Students who find themselves in Clearing in August 2010 will face the unpalatable choice of either dramatically lowering their university aspirations or taking a 'gap year' and embarking on retakes. So a very structured, high-octane revision course often gives students the extra impetus they need to transform their aspirations into reality."
The fear factor is accompanied by a much greater awareness of the growing difficulties facing university applicants this year, which have been well-publicised in the media. David Lowe, Principal of Davies Laing & Dick College, believes that students are becoming much more savvy about getting good grades in order to get into selective degree programmes and that this is helping to drive the demand for intensive one-week revision courses. Also, parents are keener than ever to invest in their children's hopes for higher education. Chris Kraft, Principal of Duff Miller College, comments : "Although the recession has hit the country pretty hard in many sectors across the U.K., it would appear that private education is still thriving. I believe this is due to parents putting their children’s education before anything else. More and more parents are prepared to pay for intensive revision courses in April which can provide a vital boost just before the examinations in June."
Although AS and GCSE revision courses are proving more popular than ever, a survey of tutorial colleges showed that it is the A2 revision courses which are in most demand, especially in "high tariff" subjects such as Mathematics, all three Sciences and Economics. Interestingly, many of these courses are now specifically geared to the precise specifications and differing styles of the three separate major Examination Boards. According to Mike Kirby, Principal of Ashbourne College, another major benefit, as well as board-specific courses, is the wealth of revision material which the students can take away and use to assist their preparations right up to the time of their exams. "Each course is accompanied by a wealth of past paper questions sorted by topic," he says. "In addition, students receive incisive summaries for each topic and an outline of all elements of the syllabus. The course materials for each course can extend to over 100 pages!" He also believes the fact that students are facing new A2 syllabuses this year is fuelling demand.
All the colleges mentioned above and many more that offer specialist Easter Revision courses are members of the Council for Independent Education (CIFE), which is a national organisation of independent colleges which specialise in preparing students, home and international, for university entrance. CIFE One case study of a successful Easter Revision student accompanies this press release. If you require more case studies, or any further information, please contact James Wardrobe 01428 723087 or 07706 914901; e-mail: james@wardrobe.org.uk
