Unconditional offers

[GnomeDePlume]

Is the expansion of unconditional offers distorting not just entry to higher education but also A level results themselves?

Fully admit this thought is totally based on a limited amount of anecdata.

In DD2's year 13 large numbers of students have been offered and accepted unconditional offers on a range of uni courses. As a result according to DD2 these students all 'took the foot off the gas' in terms of studies and then revision/preparation for exams. Less attentiveness to studies, less commitment to revision, willingness to go to parties in the run up to exams.

These are students DD2 has known all through school so has a good understanding of their attitudes to learning before the uni application process started.

As a result of the reduced intensity of study, these students are likely to perform less well at A level than they would have otherwise done.

If this picture were repeated across the country will this potentially impact on grade boundaries?

While this may be good for individual students is it bad for education as a whole?

Just musing on a Sunday morning but would be interested if other people had a view.

It is a short term view- but in a few years, the number of 18 year olds will start to rise again, and they will probably hope long term that uni funding will change/improve. If the economy gets worse, you may get more mature applicants again as well.

At the moment, if everyone at their level is giving out unconditional offers, and they aren't, they will fear losing out on students. Where else do they recruit students from? Recruiting students to fill places via clearing, for example, also leads to the same concerns- students will drop out as they haven't built a long term relationship with the uni, and they made the decision in a rush.

If the students fail, they will usually be allowed to repeat a year at least once- this actually means extra funds for the uni.

Unis may also aim to overfill courses slightly at the start of first year to account for students who drop out.

(Lonicera, Nottingham is quite good and one of my children went there but it slightly below some of the others and of course you can see the evidence in that - it was the only want dishing out the unconditional offer)

I work at a university, we started issuing some unconditional offers last year and it’s increasing. So many other universities are doing it that I think it was felt that we had to as to not lose students.

Also getting lower EU applicants in the last couple of years, obviously, which doesn’t help.

I think it depends on courses at Nottingham. Getting in for vet science there is hardly lowering yourself. I think universities do look at where they think an applicant might apply to as well as that university. There must be some process on who to give an unconditional to. They have looked at DC and thought “we are probably the bottom of his pile”. Hence the unconditional.

I don’t think there’s much evidence of unconditional offer holders leaving/failing and not being good enough. They are mostly at the lower ranked universities with, probably, much more teaching input than top level RG. They get their hands held a bit more so are probably ok. Nottingham probably knows a student won’t let up on work if they are applying to even higher ranked universities so it’s no risk for them at all.

Secondary school teacher here and yes I have seen an increase in unconditional offers and also an increase in students downing tools as soon as they receive them. Thanks universities
Every single student at my school who has received an unconditional has suddenly turned into a student who no longer bothers, turns up to school/lessons on time and has an arrogant ‘air’ about them and takes their foot off the peddle.
Every teacher I know hates unconditionals, as we know the results will hit us from students who don’t work as hard and ultimately our pay is affected through no fault of our own.
Maybe it is all universities’ way of getting their own back on secondary schools...

Nottingham probably knows a student won’t let up on work if they are applying to even higher ranked universities so it’s no risk for them at all.

It is a risk if the offer is accepted and that's the point. Most of the unconditionals I have seen have been 'unconditional if firm'.

I wonder if there has been any actual research into the performance of 'unconditional' students. I'm not sure how easy it would be to gather the information by an independent body as the unconditional offers I have seen have not gone through UCAS

Once a student has accepted an unconditional as firm why on earth would they not take the foot off the gas if they arent aware that there may be consequences for poor A levels further down the track?

It may only be at the margin - not doing the extra hour of revision, not checking work as closely. Not being prepared to sweat for results. Of course it may be more significant as RolyRocks described.

For the first time student, without good advice from home/school, having a bit of a Y13 wobble, being gnawed by the self-doubt of imposter syndrome, an unconditional offer might be just the thing to turn them away from risking a conditional offer at a higher ranked university. I have seen evidence of this amongst DD2's friends.

I wonder if there has been any actual research into the performance of 'unconditional' students. I'm not sure how easy it would be to gather the information by an independent body as the unconditional offers I have seen have not gone through UCAS

www.ucas.com/file/140406/download?token=pfzLAKRe from P18 gives a breakdown of unconditional offers; some interesting regional variations.

Impact on actual grades achieved www.ucas.com/file/71796/download?token=D4uuSzur It found that found that applicants holding such offers were 23% more likely to fall short of their predicted grades than students with conditional offers. Of course the number of unconditionals has increased again since that study undertaken

This is interesting from the link above. So do those regions get more conditionals because the teenagers get lower grades and apply to lower grade institutions or are the bettet universities very keen to recruit people from areas where they do not get many applicants to ensure diversity hence unconditionals to those in those areas?

"Largest increase in unconditional offer - making in the
North East , Yorkshire and the Humber and West Midlands regions of England" (page 27)

Also the predicted grade profile of those receiving an unconditional has shifted downward

Since 2015, the proportion of applicants with predicted profiles equivalent to AAB and below increased more rapidly than for applicants with predicted profiles of AAA or above. This meant that in 2017, applicants’ predicted grade profiles equivalent to BBB or ABB were more likely to receive an unconditional offer than those predicted AAA, which until this year, had been the most likely.

Although to maintain some degree of perspective some 95% of offers are still conditional.

If they end up with significant numbers of students on courses because they had an unconditional offer rather than because it was their genuine first choice don't they risk those students failing/dropping out and therefore losing funding for second year?

This is not seen in the data from Birmingham, which has been using unconditionals for high achievers for several years now.

Again, many universities simply feel they have no choice other than to take students they would rather not take, to avoid large holes in their finances.

Even if this is a short term fix, it gives time to decrease academic staff numbers (without forced redundancies), close and merge departments etc.

Some thoughts which struck me from the study:

• 'unconditional if firm' offers were not recognised as they are made direct by uni to student so bypass UCAS. Anecdotally these are the big growth area. Around 2/3 of DD2's group received this type of offer.

• the regional differences will reflect the regional profile of applicants to unconditional offering unis. Unis are not (yet) making unsolicited offers so can only make unconditional offers to applicants.

• historically unconditional offers were made to secure quality applicants. The shift is now to secure the quantity of applicants. Are unis now targeting the same group of students who traditionally entered uni on insurance or clearing and therefore the lower predicted grades for recipients of unconditional offers reflects that.

Schools have a part to play in explaining how to manage unconditional offers and to understand what they represent.

'unconditional if firm' offers were not recognised as they are made direct by uni to student so bypass UCAS. Anecdotally these are the big growth area. Around 2/3 of DD2's group received this type of offer.

But UCAS still sees this type of offer - it becomes unconditional long before results are known. UCAS data indicates that not much more than 5% of offers are unconditional around May/June. Your DD2's group is not representative.

Note also that very few high tariff ("Russell Group") universities are making unconditionals - Birmingham do for many subjects, and Nottingham do for a few subjects but most other higher tariff universities don't.

The main reason is clear: unconditionals are believed by academics to lower students' A level performance - which in turn lowers the average intake grades for the course, and thus affects league table positions (which use intake grades). Most of the high tariff universities balance the latter against potentially getting a few extra students, and reject this approach as a recruitment strategy.

They do however give contextual offers which, according to at least one poster on these threads, lowers the quality of the intake. I think this is a hugely unfair comment and, again, is it borne out by research?

I still think a young person aiming for Warwick, but puts down Nottingham for one choice, is not going to take their foot off the pedal. That's why Nottingham give the unconditional, they want the good prospective student. For other courses and universities, it's definitely bums on seats.

user2222018

From the study:
Some offers are confirmed as unconditional once an applicant has chosen the offer as their firm choice. This means the proportion of applicants reported as receiving an unconditional offer will be underestimated, and this will be more pronounced when estimating the proportion of applicants that received multiple unconditional offers.

BubblesBuddy I dont think contextual offers are comparable with unconditional offers. IME a contextual offer will be a single grade lower than the standard offer (eg AAA standard becomes AAB contextual). They also seem to be quite arbitrary in their application.

DD2 received a contextual offer from Bristol and standard from her other 4 unis followed by an 'unconditional if firm' from one uni which is now her insurance choice.

As I said upstream, students already unfamiliar with getting much choice in their education can find the array of choice at HE bewildering.

I am not relying on this specific study for my estimates - I am using UCAS data looking at conditional versus unconditional acceptances in mid May/June. It is a small minority of university places that are listed as unconditional (pre A levels or equivalent).

It absolutely infuriates schools. We spend years coaxing students through exams, and then they sit back. Also sometimes they accept the slightly lower tier universities, which skews our destinations data.

As I said upstream, students already unfamiliar with getting much choice in their education can find the array of choice at HE bewildering.

But there is plenty of information available online, for free. If a prospective student can't use this to make informed choices about HE, what does this say about their research and learning skills? Prospective students are turning 18 - they are adults. At the same age they would be expected to make their own informed choices about healthcare, finances and so on.

When I was choosing HE (pre internet) one was much more reliant on advice from schools and sixth form colleges. Nowadays the information is available online - relevant information is given on universities' own websites and then there are unistats, league tables etc.

an unconditional offer might be just the thing to turn them away from risking a conditional offer at a higher ranked university.

It's very Mumsnet that it is taken for granted that conditional at "higher ranked" university is necessarily "better" than the unconditional offer.

League table positions change - and are gamed by universities. In the examples given above, Birmingham and Nottingham are not, for the vast majority of employers, viewed particularly differently than Bristol. (Actually they both outrank Bristol in a number of subjects.)

On the other hand if a student chooses an unconditional from a lower or mid tariff university over a conditional from a high tariff university the onus is partly on them to look at graduate prospects etc before doing so.

For some students, the decreased pressure from holding an unconditional offer may be really important, in terms of managing anxiety, dealing with family issues and so on. Of course the latter issues may well rear their heads later on - but this is not always the case, as sometimes the issues are transient.

Note that the UK HE system is very unusual in making almost all of its offers conditional. Most HE systems do give unconditionals, based on existing evidence of academic performance. It is not clear to me that the HE system moving to more unconditionals would be a bad thing.

And the issue of dropped A level grades affecting employment later - again this seems very MN. If grades are dropped substantially, this may well have some impact later. But getting ABB or AAB instead of AAA or AAA star really isn't going to affect future prospects, if the student goes on to get a 2:i or above at a respected university.

after all, what is the point of aiming at a higher tariff university with a conditional offer when you dont perceive it as different from the unconditional university?

The plethora of league tables these days must also be confusing for teenagers who aren't used to the culture around universities. One set of universities (Russell Group and a few others) are perceived as most prestigious by certain types of big employers, and receive stops on the milkround, yet these are often not the ones ranked at the top of tables which weight student satisfaction surveys heavily.

Information is available online but as pennycarbonara points out it isnt all consistent. Students, particularly first timers, do need support to understand the different information, even to signpost them to information. If you dont know the information exists or matters, how do you know to access it?

IME of a low achieving failing school the school was not good at taking advantage of the support available to it. eg Opportunities to send students to taster sessions specifically aimed at first time students were missed.

Advice from the school was limited to when the application deadlines were.

The Bristol contextual offer is open and transparent regarding qualification for it. I don’t know about other universities and it isn’t always one grade lower in one A level either. It can be a grade lower in two A levels. So you could argue that this could affect degree results, but does it? The unconditional is far more opaque. How much lower are the grades achieved by unconditional offer students?

Bristol is still a big supplier of grads in top grad schemes because of the type of student who goes there. The expectations of Bristol grads can be very high.

I think the teaching gold standard has made it even more difficult regarding choice. A poster whose DD wanted Cambridge also looked at a BBB tariff course because it was at a gold standard teaching university. One would think you wouldn’t need a BBB offer if you were good enough for Cambridge. The BBB could turn into an unconditional of course so not much work needed if the student jettisoned Cambridge - but she would be well advised not to do this for her subject and probably won’t.

I think some less good schools are populated by teachers from non RG universities and believe where they went is just as good. They don’t always see that others should aim higher than the local post 1992 and don’t always think about what’s best for the student’s future because their experience of life and work is limited. There clearly is a difference between the higher and lower ranked universities and many prospective students don’t get it. They also make choices based on where is near to home, what’s in the comfort zone and what appeals to them. Aiming high is vital for the best students in my view but they don’t always want to do it and many are risk averse.

My DN has been to taster sessions at a university in DN’s home city but it’s not where she should go. She probably will because they sold it to DN. So DN now wants a niche course at a mid ranked university which is way below her capabilities. This is all about getting good students and bums on seats. It’s not in DN’s interests to do this course at this university. But it’s convenient, live at home cheap and good enough. Probably will get an unconditional as DN is local. No one is talking about aiming high at the moment.

Interestingly, Liverpool has issued a statement about unconditional offers. They say that they will only make an unconditional offer to a student who already has their A level results (or equivalent). They will not make unconditional offers based on predictions.

Reading between the lines they want to protect their RG status.

my friends dd took an unconditional offer last year.
reasons being
it was a course she wanted
she got first pick of accomodation
she stresses hugely over exams

funnily enough, with the stress off she found the last 2 terms enjoyable and prob came out with better grades.

A good uni. near us is suffering, overseas numbers dropping. Lots of staff redundancies. As someone else said, it will right itself in time hopefully.

What is RG status?