Contextual offers - how do they work please?

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DD is just about to enter sixth form at our local school. She will be studying for A levels and hoping to be heading for university afterwards.

I have heard that some universities make slightly lower offers to students from some state schools.

Can anyone explain how contextual offers work and whether DD will need to apply for a contextual offer please?

Some universities make UC offers to applicants from all socio economic backgrounds.

It's a way to put bums on seats.

A number of universities have taken to offering unconditional offers (based on GCSE, AS and predicted A2 grades). It is again mostly a marketing strategy: universities are competing for the best students and unconditional offers encourage students (particularly women) to firm.

The unconditional offers are not only for kids from deprived areas, but in some cases unconditionals have been used to try to improve the numbers of students coming from deprived areas.

I don't know what student accommodation costs in other provincial locations, but DSS2 is costing a LOT more at UCL than DSS1 did at Bristol.

I think geography does play a big part. Bristol being a more expensive city than say eg Leeds or Sheffield for accomodation and living will make a difference to kids uni choices if they come from poor backgrounds. My DD is at Bristol through insurance didn't have a choice on accomodation so was £136. In sept it will £149. We have to subsidise her for definite for accomodation. It cost £68 return train ticket for her to come home. £200 for the annual bus pass to the uni from where she lives. These things would put off kids from poorer background as well as the inherent perception it has as being full of private schoolers only have to look at student room threads, there's loads asking wether it's true or not. I'm sure other uni's in affluent places eg Bath, Essex, Surrey etc suffer the same negative perception that may put some state kids off applying.

Meant Exeter not Essex

But Bristol is considerably more expensive than Exeter, Southampton and (I think) Bath which are in the same vicinity.

I think part of the problem in Bristol is that they get so many private school students that they have gotten away with providing highly priced privately owned halls.

Students from the SW will often look to stay reasonably local for university. Given the choice between Bristol and Southampton for a subject like Engineering (in which both universities are strong), Southampton may well win amongst less affluent kids because accommodation is cheaper and there are fewer private school kids at Southampton. BTW many students from the SW wouldn't even be looking at UCL or other London universities, as accommodation costs are so much higher again there, so comparing Bristol with UCL wouldn't really be relevant.

Bath DD firm choice halls was cheap but 2nd year accomodation was also very expensive. The prices of property in Bath is higher than Bristol so I guess landlords will want rent returns to reflect that. Haybot think you could be right on Bristol the ability to pay from affluent students have driven accomodation prices up. Not being able to afford to live in certain areas is going to be a basic fundamental hurdle regardless of contextual offers made etc as someone pointed up thread. A night out in Bristol is going to be more expensive then a night out in Nottingham or Leeds for a student, assuming this might be a important criteria for students

Haybot part of the joy of being part of the sandwich generation is that I spend a lot of time on the South Coast. Bristol's contextual offers seem to appeal, but the disadvantage is that Bristol is seen as inaccessible, either by road or train. Hence Southampton is often preferred, whilst Bath has an appeal for kids not used to being away from home and who want to avoid a large City. The local University is also surpisingly popular with kids who possibly "could do better" and whose parents could afford to pay. I suspect local smallbusiness people see the advantages in a vocational degree with good work experience, as these are the sorts of graduates they hire, and kids don't see the point of taking large loans simply to move away from home.

With the level of fees and living costs I think it is inevitable that fewer kids will want to travel far. This applies to London-based kids as well. Attempts there to recruit more state students from, say the north of England, are not really working. This is not helped by the fact that new private student accomodation in London is unbelievably expensive and clealy not aimed at British students. (I think The Mayor should consider demanding an "affordable" element to any new planning applicaiton as happens with standard housing.) I assume other cities suffer similar problems.

Bristol though is odd. DD has a place but is only aware of one other in her year who is going. A generation ago I think it would have been different. Somehow Bristol is no longer perceived as the Oxbridge fall-back in the way that London, Edinburgh and Durham are.

I think there are some slight inaccuracies about Bristol here. It is very much seen by independent school pupils as a popular destination. That is why there are so many of them there! This could put others off. It shouldn't because they are still a very high proportion of students there and there are plenty of friends to be made.

I agree Bristol is cheaper than London - having had DC at both. However most students go to
University Halls in Bristol and not the private halls which are nearer the city centre and the clubs! Eating out costs about the same as other university cities as do coffees. Clubs - cheap nights are available to students! That is the same everywhere. My DD who went to Bristol had a huge number of friends from London. They wanted to go to university away from home. I have not noticed that Edinburgh is any more desired than Bristol. I think Bristol does suit a certain type of student who is very at home there. But the same can be said for Edunburgh and Durham. The grades required to get in at Bristol for most courses remain high
so I don't think they are short of applicants.

Somehow Bristol is no longer perceived as the Oxbridge fall-back in the way that London, Edinburgh and Durham are.

But Bristol should not be an automatic Oxbridge fall back - Bristol is not high in the rankings (whether ranked by research or otherwise). Bristol is still trading on its reputation of 20 to 30 years ago, and on parents' perception that it is a top place. (Note that I'm not including medicine in this as medicine of course works differently to other subjects.)

I don't know why Bristol has gone down quite so rapidly (in the rankings).

Is it no longer seen as somewhere top academics want to work? It's a pretty nice city and attracts high ability students, no?

In STEM they have made a series of very poor hiring decisions - not invested in leading areas, kept recruiting in areas which are no longer productive. There are also serious management problems which have led good young staff to move on to other places.

From colleagues in humanities (history etc) I have heard they have similar issues there too?

Think it's something to do with student satisfaction that national ranking institutes use. A higher percentage/proportion from the student survey is used as way to calculate the overall points. Many of the city located uni suffer badly from SS survey compared to campus based. Whereas in the world rankings where SS isn't included but measured by research impact and citations The city based uni fair loads better.

Borojo, my DC were at private schools and I had assumed Bristol would be seen as a preferred destination as it was in my day. But none of DS' friends went there and ditto none of DD's will be going. It seems to have more or less dropped off the radar other than as an insurance choice.

Haybot, even further off topic but what caused Bristol's fall in the rankings? I realise I should have included Warwick in the Oxbridge fall-back list, and others like Manchester/Sheffield for subjects like engineering and physics, especially for kids who don't want to go to London. From observation Exeter and York seem as, if not more, popular - quite a shift in rankings from a generation ago.

Does the widespread use of contexural offers add to the problem or the solution?

FWIW Bristol was DDs first choice. She will be there five years so location was important, as is sport, plus they seem to be strong in neuroscience. I tease her that she was applying a "Waitrose index" when selecting Universities, though to be fair it had more of a London vibe than other places she looked at. (And a large Waitrose just off campus.) Which I assume would be attractive to many, including overseas students who struggle to consider anything beyond the M25.

Sorry - cross post - Haybot seems to have answered my question. Thanks!

But, coffee, while NSS is a big problem for Bristol, Bristol fares relatively badly in research based rankings too.

(While universities which are slightly below MN radar based on UK undergraduate reputations are actually world class in research and do well in research based rankings e.g. KCL or Southampton for STEM, York for some humanities subjects.)

Student satisfaction can be an issue at Bristol. Interestingly my DD found the younger lecturers much better and engaging than the jaded older ones! There appeared to be plenty of younger ones in her department and one of her subjects is still 3rd in the UK. I also think there is an issue that some students want to be spoon fed, and when they are not, they fill in the questionnaire. Most students don't bother.

DD was there as insurance but that seemed rare. Bristol is not short of students! They still have the highest number of students who were privately educated so it is clearly not off the radar! It still appears popular with lots of London students. It has clearly not stopped DD being successful in her chosen career and it is difficult to see how she could have done better by going anywhere else and that includes Oxbridge.

She loved Bristol as a city and her life there. She had been to boarding school and is a self-starter. She did not want campus and league tables really do not tell the whole story about a university. Where you feel comfortable is an important factor in learning well. If potential candidates prefer Exeter and Bath, that is up to them, but there is a lot more life in Bristol and it is far less claustrophobic as it is a city university. DD felt Durham was a bit too small too and chose Bristol over Durham. Warwick was also too much on a campus and not really rated for her subjects. Being at Bristol as opposed to the other not Oxbridge universities has not made a jot of difference and no-one has ever asked why she went to Bristol and even less what topics she studied within her subjects. When she has been interviewed, it is her skills they want to know about. These can, of course, be personal attributes, but the difference between the best universities is totally marginal and most interviewers don't care that much. A lot of interviewers are of the generation when Bristol was considered excellent so are happy to recruit Bristol graduates. If students don't want to go there they are seriously missing out on an excellent experience.

These can, of course, be personal attributes, but the difference between the best universities is totally marginal.

Not for all subjects. Bristol is not comparable to Cambridge/Warwick for maths for example, and this does have a big effect for maths specific recruitment.

Thank you hay.

A friend of mine turned down a job there ( in humanities) but she was very discrete about her reasons.

Surely it depends on subject. DS wants to be an economist and so will probably have to take a Masters degree, and perhaps continue onto a PhD. It seems far easier to get onto the sort of Masters degree that keeps the door open for further research (either academic or in the City) if you have a good degree from one of a small number of Universities, effectively the Universities that demand A* in maths A level, and then have a high maths content within the degree.

In each field, employers/post grad admissions will know which degrees are delivering required content and standards.

need employers will know which universities that rate for degrees that are quite specific to their area, but not necessarily more generally.

So for example, my DH knows which universities he rates for law specifically but more than half of applicants looking for training contracts have UG degrees in other subjects. And he certainly wouldn't know the minutiae of which university was good for what outside law. So he would have a more broad view of universities ( possibly wrong in some respects).

That's quite an interesting list. There are a number of private schools on the 2016 list for contextual offers at Bristol. Just the ones that I've spotted glancing down it: Sherrardswood College, Wychwood School Oxford, Lansdowne College, Bath Academy (private re-take college?), More House Kensington, Austin Friars. That's just with a quick flick down.

I don't know those schools individually but I guess there will be quite a few private schools with relatively low A-level results because they focus on pastoral care or children with particular needs or because they are next to very academic schools so get the children who couldn't get in to those schools. Any list that focuses on attainment alone is going to risk advantaging children from those schools who are probably already quite advantaged.

haybott But, coffee, while NSS is a big problem for Bristol, Bristol fares relatively badly in research based rankings too. (your quote)

Are you talking about REF league table?
Bristol is ranked 11th in the research league table. I don't think that's really bad ranking though, it's improved from last time as well. What's wrong with it? Or you taliking about another research table?

In the research impact table it's ranked 10th. I'm not normally a league table sort of person. It's a bit trivial. But was compelled/ intrigued to find out how bad bristol is, as what has been expressed it's going down the plughole. Im sure there's tables to show that is doing pretty bad as well somewhere too.

I would consider REF the least reliable research table. Look at Times international rankings by subject, or Nature rankings.