Exeter University Module Grades: Where GradeHack Started

In 2018, as an undergrad at Exeter, I filed my first Freedom of Information request asking for module-level grade distributions in Computer Science. I wasn't building a company. I wanted to know whether it was worth taking ECM3428 over the alternative in my final year.

The request came back with real data. That data changed which module I took. That's the entire origin story of GradeHack.

What the original Exeter request asked for

The 2018 request was narrow and specific: mark distributions for a handful of Computer Science optional modules, broken down by cohort year. No names, no individual results — just aggregated distribution data, which universities are obliged to disclose under the Freedom of Information Act unless a specific exemption applies (most commonly s.40, personal data, or s.38, where disclosure would cause harm).

Exeter's response confirmed what every student suspects but can never prove: modules on the same degree, at the same year level, with broadly similar workload on paper, had meaningfully different first-rates. Some computer science modules at Exeter ran distributions where a much larger share of students cleared the First boundary than others.

What that pilot proved

The 2018 Exeter pilot proved two things that shaped everything GradeHack has built since:

1. The data exists and is genuinely disclosable. Universities aren't hiding module-level grade data illegally — they're just not proactively publishing it, and almost nobody asks.
2. Students act on it when they see it. Given real distribution data, students make different, more deliberate module choices than they would relying on handbook descriptions and secondhand opinion.

You can read the full methodology behind how these requests are filed, and what universities can and can't lawfully withhold, in FOI requests for university grade data.

What the data looked like, banded

We don't publish raw percentages from any cohort, including the original Exeter data, on public pages — our privacy threshold excludes any cohort under 10 students regardless of source. Banded, the shape of the original finding looked like this:

Module type	First-rate band	Cohort size
Established, coursework-heavy CS module	High	Large
Newer, exam-heavy CS module	Low	Medium

That gap — a genuine, data-backed gap between modules that looked interchangeable on paper — is the entire commercial thesis GradeHack is built on.

From one pilot to a national dataset

What started as one student's FOI request to one university has scaled into FOI requests filed to universities across the UK, covering multiple subjects beyond Computer Science — see our guides for economics, law, and psychology optional modules for how the same pattern shows up elsewhere.

The core insight hasn't changed since 2018: module choice moves your degree classification more than almost anything else you control, and almost nobody has the data to choose well. See does module choice affect degree class for the maths behind why.

Access the data

If you're at Exeter, or anywhere else in the UK, and choosing between optional modules right now, join the GradeHack waitlist to access FOI-sourced grade distribution signals for your subject — the same kind of data that changed my own module choice back in 2018.