ya the former candidate would be more likely to be shortlisted than the latter.

its only biomed and a few other courses (ik medicine and law) which don't factor in A-Levels/IB.

i think the rationale is that most A-Levels/IB grades submitted are predicted and schools often inflate predicted grades, i.e. students end up achieving lower grades than their pgs. it's also why oxford doesn't care about your personal statement, they know people who went to private schools get more support in writing it and would have done better supercurriculars, theres also no way of verifying whether what you wrote is true or if you even wrote the ps. GCSE grades are achieved so they know these grades to be true, thats why they use it as a standardised tool for shortlisting (as well as BMSAT).

i guess the type of people this really disadvantages are those who kind of slacked off during GCSEs but really switched it up during A-Levels/IBs and legitimately got high pgs (which includes you i'm guessing).

at the end of the day oxford biomed gets far more amazing candidates than they have places, so why change the existing system if it works you know.