How a Predicted Grade Is Actually Decided

What a predicted grade is for

A predicted grade is a professional judgement about what a student is likely to achieve, given to universities before any exams are sat. Offers are made on it. It determines which courses are realistic to apply to and which are not worth one of five choices. It is not a target, an aspiration, or a reward for effort. It is a forecast, and like any forecast it is only useful if it is honest. That distinction is where most of the difficulty comes from, because students and families understandably want the number to be high, and the person issuing it has to be able to defend it.

What the judgement is built on

A defensible prediction rests on evidence produced under conditions resembling the real thing. In practice that means mock exams sat under timed conditions and marked against the awarding body mark scheme, together with the record of written work across the year. The mark scheme part matters more than people expect. Work marked generously produces inflated evidence, which produces an inflated prediction, which produces an offer the student cannot meet. Marking to the published scheme is uncomfortable in November and extremely valuable in August. Trajectory matters too. A student improving steadily is a different case from one who peaked in January, even if their average is the same. A good prediction reads the direction, not just the mean.

An inflated prediction does not help a student. It converts a disappointment in August into a rejection in August, and admissions offices notice patterns.

Why an optimistic prediction is not a favour

It is tempting to round upwards. The student is more likely to get an offer, the family is happier, and the consequence lands months later. The consequence is real. A student holding an offer they were never likely to meet spends the year believing a place is secured, and then loses it on results day with no fallback in place. A student given an honest prediction applies to a spread of courses that includes ones they will actually get into. There is an institutional dimension as well. Universities track how a centre's predictions compare with its actual results. A centre that consistently over-predicts finds its predictions discounted, which harms the next cohort of students rather than the one that benefited.

If you are a private candidate with no school

This is where predicted grades become genuinely difficult. A student studying independently often has nobody with the evidence to predict from — and no reputable centre will issue a number for a student it has neither taught nor assessed. The way through is to generate the evidence. Sit assessed papers at a centre that will mark them properly, produce a record, and get the prediction from the people holding it. That is a service some centres offer to external candidates. It is worth starting earlier than feels necessary. The UCAS deadline for Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine falls in mid-October, and the main deadline for most other courses is in January. Assessment has to happen before a prediction can be written.