The deadline for applying for a University place through the UCAS system passed on January 15th, with many young people understood to have either missed out on the deadline or as having chosen not to apply. The predicted drop in the number of people applying through the UCAS system is thought to be as high as 23,000 when compared to last year.
While many prospective students have blamed the fee increases for the fall in the number of applications, there have also been suggestions that young people have been discouraged to apply to certain institutions, as top Universities appear to be demanding higher A* grades. As prospective students seek to get better “value for money” from their courses, high-ranking Universities are believed to be heavily oversubscribed. A recent article in The Telegraph suggests that Universities including “Oxford, Nottingham, Bath, York, King’s College London and University College London were making greater use of the A* during the admissions process” in order to limit the number of applications.
According to the chairman of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, Kenneth Durham; “It would appear some universities are introducing tougher entry standards to manage places and avoid over-recruiting.”
One of the dangers with the UCAS system is that offers are allocated based on predictive grades and therefore those students who are not predicted the higher A* grades may miss out on a place at some of the top Universities, even if they later go on to achieve an A*. According to a spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills “Ucas are currently looking at the accuracy of A* predictions and this will enable the sector to judge whether they are sufficiently accurate to be used in the applications process.”
The worry is that a number of potentially high achieving young people have been discouraged to apply for the top Universities as a result and instead have either chosen to reapply next year or to apply to another University. In order to achieve an A* pupils must score over 90% in all second year A level exams.
Tags: Education, UCAS, university fees, university places, youth development