SQA results day 2024: What happens after results come out?

About 145,000 pupils across Scotland are waiting for their exam results to arrive this week.

Here is everything you need to know ahead of the SQA results day.

Pupils in Scotland receive their results this Tuesday 6 August.

The results cover Nationals, Highers and Advanced Highers, as well as the more vocational National Progression Awards, Skills for Work Awards, and National Certificates.

The results have been sent out by first class post but many students will have opted to receive their grades digitally.

Text messages and emails will be sent to candidates who have an activated MySQA account from 08:00 onwards on results day – so make sure your alarm clocks are set.

If you have opted to receive your results by post, it will depend on when your mail normally arrives.

Courses at National 5, Higher, and Advanced Higher are graded A-D.

National 2, National 3, and National 4 courses are not graded — the units that make up these courses are assessed as pass or fail.

Grade boundaries vary from year to year and the exact percentages for 2024 won’t be published until results day.

However, the SQA sets initial grade boundaries for their assessments at 50% for a C, 70% for an A, and 85% for an Upper A.

These boundaries are the starting point for deciding the final grade boundaries each year.

A grade D is a pass.

If you receive a grade D result this usually means you scored between 40 and 49% in the course assessment.

Candidates who score less than 40% are not awarded a national course and will receive a no award result.

Last year, the proportion of pupils awarded an A, B or C at Higher was 77.1%.

This was a drop from 78.9% in 2022 and 89.3% in 2020.

The pass rate was 74.8% in 2019.

It was a similar picture for National 4s and 5s and for Advanced Highers.

The pass rate for National 5 qualifications was 78.8%, which was down from 80.8% in 2022 and 85.8% in 2021 but up from 78.2% in 2019.

At Advanced Higher level, 79.8% passed.

That was down from 81.3% in 2022 and 93.1% in 2020. The pass rate was 79.4% in 2019.

There is lots of support available if you don’t get the results you are hoping for.

The SQA’s candidate advice line will open at 08:00 on results day and will stay open until 18:00.

Guidance staff at your school will also be on hand to provide help.

If you have a conditional offer for university or college that you don’t meet, you can apply to Ucas’ clearing process which is used by universities and colleges to fill empty places.

Skills Development Scotland (SDS), the agency which supports training and skills for work, will also operate an advice line from 6 to 9 August.

If you need help and advice about the next steps in your career or education or if you didn’t get the results you hoped for you can phone the SDS results helpline number on 0808 100 8000.

Yes, and every year thousands of pupils do.

Before anyone sits an exam their school, college or training centre submits estimated grades for every candidate to the SQA.

If you don’t think your grade is correct, you should first talk to your school or college.

It will contact the exam board on your behalf and ask for your marks to be reviewed.

You can also submit your own appeal.

Appeals will be subject to a marking review – a check that marks have been added up and submitted correctly and a check that the marking meets the national standard.

An appeal can be prioritised if you have a conditional place at university or college, or are in training or employment that depends on your grade.

The deadline for priority appeals is Tuesday 13 August, or Tuesday 27 August for other appeals.

In 2023, over 39,000 of the 540,920 certificated grades were appealed.

A total of 3,980 appeal requests resulted in an upgrade while five resulted in a downgrade.

This means the success rate is around 10%.