University Admissions - I'm willing to answer any questions!

[MrsBright]

I have worked in Uni Admissions at several different Unis, RG and non-RG, for over 20 years and am very happy to answer any general questions about UCAS/Offers/F&I Decisions/Clearing/Adjustment etc.

ragged

They don't read the Admissions Requirements (ie. they apply without the vital A level in Physics or GCSE in Maths) and think we won't notice. We will.

They don't answer the most basic question in their PS - 'Why do you want to study this subject?'.

They use silly pretentious words/phrases like 'enthrall', 'piqued my interest' etc. If you wouldnt use that word in ordinary speech, please don't put it in a PS.

They waffle on about books they've read as part of their A level course. We aren't interested. We want to know what you've done OUTSIDE your course reading or OUTSIDE school - and particularly what your school hasn't organised for you or your parents didnt 'buy' for you (ie. World Challenge in Zambia - yawn. We'd be more impressed by you running Race for LIfe and beating your own personal best for the distance - that shows real determination and personal committment.)

I'll answer more tonight folks - of to work now.

PS. Great website for your son/daughter to participate in is Student Room - lots of message boards and well written articles with lots of advice and helpful hints.

The comment re research rankings is incorrect and blatantly rude to academic staff(I'm guessing you're an admin working in a central Admissions office -- that's not where the decisions on admissions are actually made usually). I've worked in several departments where we been top 10 in both research and student satisfaction. In the Humanities, quality of teaching and quality of research are generally closely linked.

As I have said to UCAS candidates in my HoD talk, they will be taught by the people who are writing the books they'll use for study in their courses. You can't beat being taught by people who are world leaders in their research areas.

Horrah your back Mrs bright thanks for the reply. Your response seems very logical cleared a few things up for dd. Her firm and insurance are high offer grades but not the same. She is working her socks off but also preparing a plan B if things go pear shaped. I'm assuming "high grade requirements = competitive course " so depends on what the rest of the cohort did too. Your feedback is very helpful.

I'm asking this question on behalf of someone else.

DC needs grades to meet a certain number of points to get into two university choices (former polys / the equivalent grades are BCC). However it is highly likely that this dc will fall short of these grades as dc's only sibling died last year.

Is it likely that the universities will take this into account? Or is their a time limit?

sorry - there

Username test

I'm an academic and have been Admissions Tutor for two big, popular science departments at a smaller university and a larger 1994 group university.

I had up to 800 UCAS forms some years and there is no way I could ever read even a small fraction of the personal statements. I had an admin person triage them by predicted grades, and then made offers based on those, reading the predictions more carefully in borderline cases.

Near misses DO depend on everyone else's grades but it was rare that I couldn't take at least some people who had a near miss. I also took into account the subjects (for example, we did not require A or AS Maths but found it very helpful for our students so if we had 10 places to give to Near Miss students and 30 with the same points but 10 of them had A level Maths we'd take those ones).

We read personal statements carefully for "mature" students but not to trip them up - more to get an idea of whether they knew what the course was about and to help understand their situation e.g. when was each part of their study, did they do A levels at school and then not study for 20 years, or did they leave with GCSEs and just spend two years out before doing an access course.

And some of the criteria (ie. research funding to that Dept or 'how many journal articles each Professor wrote last year') will have NO bearing on the 'quality' of the course or the Uni.

Not necessarily true. Staff:student ratios tend to be associated with "quality" of research, and committed researchers have a passion for their research and want to pass that on to students. Students will learn more about the meerkats of outer Mongolia or symbolism in Winnie the Pooh from a specialist who spends their life being a geek about those topics, but they will also learn the latest on meerkats and symbolism in general from someone who is an active researcher on those topics, than someone who hasn't really done much research since their own PhD 20 years ago.

Don't apply on the basis that you MUST be taught the specialist module on meerkats, though, as the lecturer whose specialism it is may be off in Outer Mongolia on sabbatical when you get to 3rd year. And the league tables themselves are probably not that helpful (at least, beyond "top third" etc.) because the universities will publicise the one out of 10 tables where they are in the top 10.

But in general, more research active staff will be more up to date. It is worth checking the department has a general good spread of expertise e.g. if going for Geography, that there are not 25 research stars in physical geography and 5 new lecturers in human geography, which implies that human geography is taught by non-experts who are overworked, and physical geography teaching is not usually taught by the professors because they are too busy and important (I didn't apply for jobs in departments like this where I would have been in the human geography equivalent, because I knew I'd be stretched thin on teaching and have no time to do research).

They use silly pretentious words/phrases like 'enthrall', 'piqued my interest' etc. If you wouldn't use that word in ordinary speech, please don't put it in a PS.

Be a bit careful with this one, MrsBright, won't you? My DS has Asperger's and writes as he talks -- like something out of a rather strange 1950s public information film.

Littleham

Sorry to sound harsh but probably not, unless it's a single grade (in which case they'd fall under the "we usually have space for those who miss by a single grade and we give the spaces to those most likely to succeed" criterion).
This is usually something that universities expect exam boards to take into account and also something that families may decide warrants time out.
For this type of student, we'd suggest resitting one or two subjects to get them up to scratch.

Normally, we don't like "collecting" A level grades because at university you have to study and pass everything at once but this would be the allowance that we'd make. This is what we've done for students who

However I'm not at a post-92 institution so they may think differently.

Very sorry about the sibling, too.

Thanks namechange. I'm very grateful for your helpful clear reply. I'll pass on this information so the Mum knows what to expect. I'll keep watching in case anyone from the post 92 universities have anything to add.

I'm hoping so much that it turns out ok.

Qn: does the "widening participation" drive extend to students applying from outside the UK?

In their personal statements, French students I advise LOVE to talk about how prestigious/selective/academic their PRIVATE schools are... I advise them to go easy here (for the same reasons an applicant from the UK would not want to highlight that he was enrolled at Eton or Westminster).

So if I get a student from a provincial, unheard-of state school... is that worth mentioning (either in PS or reference)?

Thanks!

I don't think UK universities would have any way to gauge the differences between non-UK schools, though they might count non-UK students under "first in family to go to university".

I'm a little out of date on that one having stopped being Admissions Tutor when I had DC1 (now aged 3).

I once had lectures from a guy who was a Nobel prize nominee. This was in history (Cal Berkeley). He probably wrote a few well-known seminal textbooks.

There were 800 of us in the lecture hall. Nobody realistically got direct access to ask questions or feedback from Mr. NobelNominee.

Smaller Uni people who aren't world class but who have time for you? Was brilliant being taught by them.

Thanks, name. I thought this might be the case which is why I wonder if it's useful to have a mention of the type of school (especially if the school is an unremarkable state school from the provinces) somewhere in the application (usually the reference)?

Another qn following on from your reply, if you do get marked down as "first from family to go to university", does this give your application a slight edge?

what do you think of the rise in unconditional offers?

The "first in family to go to university" rubric does not apply to non-UK applicants.

It is useful for referees to include a paragraph about the school an overseas applicant attends. In the case of France, where a lycee is ranked nationally is an easy data point to obtain and may be helpful if the ranking is very poor.

name thank you for your insight on "near miss" dd feels a bit relived that not all admissions are as scary as she thought, in her mind she thought you guys would be rather blunt, cut throat and reject an app easily once they don't meet the conditions. In reality it looks like you would do your best if possible, to select a few quality applicants from those who slipped up slightly. so I guess that having a good grade on a 4th AS subject would be important factor when it comes to a near miss ?

How important are extra curricular things such as music achievements,d of e, young enterprise etc?

Thanks Bonsoir, that's v interesting and goes against the grain of many French kids who like to shout about it if they are coming from a high-ranking school but sweep it under the carpet if they are studying at "lycée lambda".

I think it's because the private academic hot-houses tend to mark down in the bulletins and also in their predictions, and students want to help unis interpret their predictions as highly conservative whenever that is the case. The distinction is lost on most UK universities of course...

The grade prediction thing is hard in France - IME you really have to spell out to French lycées that the grade culture in the UK is entirely different to the grade culture in France and that UCAS predictions have to veer towards the upper end of accurate if French applicants are to get offers for the universities/courses they deserve.

Can I ask what value the EPQ adds? If someone says on their UCAS app they're doing an EPQ essay on XYZ, how much does that register with your average admissions person?

Swedishedith - Unconditional Offers
I assume you mean the Unconditional offers being offered by some Unis to people still taking A levels? Yes, that is pretty much what it means - and why its a daft idea to accept one.

A level points matter - many graduate job schemes use UCAS points as a filter, so it doesnt matter how good your degree is, if your A level results dont muster much they wont be interested. Schools hate these offers as they too get judged on A level grades. With no incentive to get decent grades, many applicants holding these offers will just coast-in - not a great preparation for Uni.

And applicants should ONLY accept these silly offers if they would have gone to that Uni if they had got a standard Conditional offer - to go because you've got an Unconditional offer and no other reason is pretty much a guarantee that they'll realise two weeks in that the course doesnt interest them.

The drop out rate when Unis have tried this tactic (read 'bribery') in the past is very high. They do it because it locks applicants in - even if they exceed the grades that the Uni normally asks for for that course, they can't 'trade up' using Adjustment. And that is WHY the Unis make these offers. Be warned - it isnt the magic offer it seems as it comes with BIG consequences.

doglover - facilitating subjects at A level
This was a list devised by some 'top' Unis to avoid students taking academically weak subjects like Dance and Media Studies without the 'rigour' they were looking for. It was one stated problem with attempts to widen participation - that some applicants had been 'allowed' to take too many weak subjects and simply didnt have the academic strength in their academic profile.

HOWEVER, dont get hung up on this list. Look at the 'Admissions Requirements' for the course/subject your child wants to do (at a range of different Unis). They will clearly state 'required subjects' and 'preferred subjects'. If they only give two subjects (ie. AAB including Maths and Chemistry at grade A) then the 3rd A level can be any subject at B, unless they state that they prefer the 3rd subject to be 'essay based' or 'another science' etc.

If in any doubt about what a Uni is asking for, email them and ask. Dont take chances or 'assume'.

Hassled the EPQ has obviously come in since I was doing admissions but many places wouldn't make an offer that includes it, it's got a fairly low points offer.

Like these other things that are "marginal", if you and another students just missed your grades, it would be one of the things that was taken into account.

nowwearefour not very, really, for a fairly academic (not vocational) course that requires quite high grades. We offer AAB and as I say I didn't have time to look at the personal statements, let alone anything else. I have to say they would come lower than things like what subjects you were taking and additional qualifications taken in the A2 year, in fact lower than GCSEs.

However I know this is VERY different in some other subjects, some of which have very low numbers going in to each cohort so can take a much more, er, personal approach (seriously I had stickers printed with our standard offer due to the piles of forms), so where you can expect an interview, that might well be the kind of thing they ask about. We have interviewed "mature" candidates in the past and we asked about life experiences as well as academics.

coffee I'd be looking more at the subjects that were taken for A level, than at an AS level, which you don't have to do at the same time as the A levels.

MrsBright you can trade up... some of ours do each year - it's very silly to "make" someone come to a university they don't want to, they'll only leave!