Fairness, Potential and Preparing for UCAS

1. Fairness, Potential and Preparing
for UCAS
Steve Minney
Senior Student Recruitment
Officer

2. Why Higher Education?
How does higher education benefit participants?
• Develops capabilities
• Provides credentials
• Provides enjoyable experience and social network
• Facilitates the intrinsic value of learning
• Higher Education should equip students for life, not just to make a living
• The highest achievers are not always those who will learn the most
www.swansea.ac.uk

3. Key Factors in HE Admissions
UCAS is a complicated nexus of achievement and potential.
Three principles for admission to Higher Education:
• Excellence: academic merit should be the sole standard of access
• Fair equality of opportunity: access mechanisms (contextual admissions, funding,
outreach, information) should correct for background social inequalities
• Social benefit: access should depend on what the students are likely to do with the
education they get
www.swansea.ac.uk

4. Excellence
Problems with Excellence:
• Excellence is partly undeserved – depends on birth/luck
• Conflation of High Scores with Merit/Talent
• Definitions of Talent/Potential are unreliable
• Distance travelled/Value Added usually lesser considerations
• Targeting high achievers may be socially wasteful
• In UK admissions potential is subliminally equated to likely degree
outcome and not much else
• Cultural capital is an invisible entry requirement
www.swansea.ac.uk

5. Fairness
In UK admissions “Fairness” usually refers to process not outcome.
“We will give equal consideration to each and every application.”
• Is it unfair that a student is rigorously taught in small groups whether via
scholarship funding, parental sacrifice , successful entrepreneurship,
inheritance or geography?
• Is it unfair that students are bullied for reading by their peers?
• Is it unfair that students can be divided into information haves and have
nots?
www.swansea.ac.uk

6. Fairness & Potential
The UCAS process cannot remedy 18 years of disadvantage.
Admitted students must be adequately prepared for the rigors of academic
life at selective universities
Beyond that, students are admitted who have the ability to:
• Take advantage of an institution’s intellectual and other resources, and to
contribute to the education of their peers
• Uphold institutional loyalties and traditions
• Augment campus diversity
• Make distinctive long-run contributions to the welfare of society
www.swansea.ac.uk

7. Fairness & Potential
The cynical, but likely accurate view
Selective Universities admit children from relatively privileged
backgrounds and prepare them to occupy relatively privileged positions in
society, increasing their chances in the competition for unequally
distributed social resources, using public funding inaccessible to children
who do not go to University.
www.swansea.ac.uk

8. Social Benefit
How much will the admitted students be likely to learn from the institution and each
other?
Are they likely to become:
bankers, or nurses?
marketeers or social work administrators?
philosophy professors or primary teachers?
Is a A*A*A* student who aspires to become a financial engineer more deserving than
a BBB first generation HE applicant who may inspire future cohorts?
www.swansea.ac.uk

9. Do applicants get what they deserve?
www.swansea.ac.uk

10. Do applicants get what they deserve?
Sutton Trust Study – Degrees of Success, 2011
Eton, Westminster, St Paul’s Boys, St Paul’s Girls, Hills Road Sixth Form College sent
946 pupils to Oxford and Cambridge between 2007 and 2009
2000 Schools with 2 or fewer Oxbridge entrants sent 927 pupils to Oxford and
Cambridge between 2007 and 2009
35,000 English pupils with 8 or more GCSEs A-C did not go on to post-16 study
60,000 English pupils who were at some point in the top 25% of their class do not go
on to high education
www.swansea.ac.uk

11. Preparing for UCAS – Year 1
•Early identification of those at risk of non-progression
•GSCE performance
•Post 16 subject choice
•HE Input to set scene for Year 12
•Compact Agreements
•Work experience
www.swansea.ac.uk

12. Preparing for UCAS – Year 1
•Open Days
•UCAS Convention
•Regular input from HE
•Registration and preparation for admissions tests
•Formal UCAS programme – summer of year 12
•Summer Schools (Headstart, Reaching Wider, Sutton Trust)
www.swansea.ac.uk

13. Preparing for UCAS – Year 2
•Predicted Grades (English students must declare AS)
•Personal Statement Workshops
•References
•Mock Interviews
•Post Application Interviews/Visits
•Firm/Insurance strategy
•UCAS Extra
•Clearing
www.swansea.ac.uk

14. UCAS – The Future
PQA consulation – emphatic NO from variety of sectors
Clearing to be reformed :
•Online applications only
•Gap between confirmation and clearing
•All CF/CI decisions final before clearing
UCAS Extra to be reformed:
•Applicants will be able to hold CF & CI via Extra
Defined offer deadlines
Relaxation of number controls >ABB
www.swansea.ac.uk

15. We can help…
b.m.clark@swansea.ac.uk 01792 295889
s.n.minney@swansea.ac.uk 01792 513221
g.williamson@swansea.ac.uk 01792 606689
www.swansea.ac.uk