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.

Lonicera: I am delighted that your DD wants healthcare of some sort. She is more or less guaranteed a job due to a high level of vacancies and shrinking numbers coming from abroad. Therefore she can look forward to a lifetime of work, part time in the future if she wants it, with a nice big pension at the end. It’s not like that for many who cannot get grad jobs because the employment opportunities are not great for every grad. This is why there is competition amongst arts grads for the best courses and universities. You could train for healthcare or nursing or medicine anywhere and still walk into a grad job.

Bubbles she has thought it through and worked backwards to decide what subjects she needed at A level and then degree level, unlike many of her peers who are choosing a subject they enjoy without a thought for what they might do afterwards.

pennycarbonara if the league tables are to be taken with a large pinch of salt and a degree of cynicism how do you establish how good a university is? What websites should I be looking at?

The problem is Lonicera, is that scientists and healthcare grads will nearly always get jobs. So that’s not a hard decision if you are a scientist. It’s not much good working it all out, deciding you want to be a doctor, but actually you are not so hot at sciences and maths so you have to look at arts or humanities subjects. It’s very wrong to think that every young person can think of a course at university that leads directly to a well paid job for life. It simply isn’t possible. It is very privileged to be able to do sciences and head towards a career in health.

What would you have advised if your DD was thinking about, as I think you described it, a non competitive History or Geography course? Or even Sociology or Media? What would you do if her best subjects were not going to get her onto a science course? It’s a bit mean to suggest these are all easy to get into and not worthwhile.

Years ago, we valued all grads for their intelligence, whether it was arts or sciences. Now we don’t. We only value scientists and think others are making a mistake if they do arts or humanities because they might not have a career in mind. They may well find the one they want but it might take a bit longer.

The universities you mentioned for your DD are great Lonicera.

I agree. "DD wants to work in healthcare of some sort. She isn't entirely sure exactly what, but is considering orthoptics, diagnostic radiography and other degrees that require biology and chemistry". "Universities like Nottingham, York, Liverpool and Newcastle ".
Those sound fine. I would put it in the order of York, Nottingham, Newcastle, Liverpool but I bet there is no much in it and I am from Newcastle and can certainly say that is a great place to live.

Thank you Xenia. I think it might well come down to the course. She loved Nottingham and Newcastle. She has an offer for a course at Nottingham, but it is based in Derby. The accommodation is in Derby as well. She really wanted to be based in Nottingham, but all the medical caourses are in Derby except for undergraduate medicine. She wasn't fussed about York, and has never been to Liverpool, but Liverpool is one of the few RG universities that does orthoptics.

Sorry to derail the thread for my own (and DD's) benefit BTW.

Xenia, why that order?

I am no expert but:

1. Historically Nottingham used to be strong in chemistry/pharmaceuticals as that is where the Boots research was centred.

1. Red-bricks historically have had large science and engineering departments and this remains the case with places like Manchester, and quite possibly Liverpool. Sciences are expensive to teach so "newer" or perhaps, expanding Universities, like Exeter (Warwick is an exception because of early research links with the midlands car industry and there will be places like Southbank who have traditionally offered good engineering), have tended to focus on social science and humanities.

The caveat being that I am no expert and this is bassed on science rather than healthcare per se. But my guess would be Nottingham followed by Liverpool. And a lot depends on the course and whether it suits. Who knows, for more vocational courses somewhere like UCLan, might be the right fit. It is a case of research and taking a step away from a preconceived notion of the "best" universities. Oxford Brooks, say, seems to have carved out a good reputation for Physiotherapy with placements in central London teaching hospitals.

In my view (limited - DD1 is just graduating now with Bio Chem) the devil is in the detail.

There are huge developments taking place in diagnostics. As a result jobs are changing. I think the jobs involved in routine testing are going as technology takes over.

I am certainly not an expert and I would never deride Manchester which is where I went. My sons' friends who are doing science this year - quite a few went to various of the good London ones which I think are good for science. My father's first degree - physics was at Durham.

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?

A student still needs to know where to look and which information is reliable.

I'm supply so don't get to know most students inside out but on a long term placement I did have a student say she wanted to be a vet and to have her own vet practice.

Because of this she was going to take A level Chemistry and Business studies and was choosing between biology and another subject.

I really really tried to dissuade her from business studies.

From the school's point of view her continuing into VI form was an assett and her A Level results would be too. Her ambition being quashed wasn't a consideration.

Her parents had not been to uni, the school was in an area with high immigration, I'm not bashing immigration but it did mean that a lot of her cohort had parents educated outside the UK so were limited in their knowledge of English Education and Universities.

I did pull up the entry requirements for veterinary medicine at Cambridge and asked her to look at other universities to see the kind of offer she would get.

Had my job / pay depended on her being in VI form the next year would I have given her the same advice?

Why wouldn't she have stayed at your 6th form and continued with the correct subjects? I do not get why giving her the correct advice was likely to be detrimental to you unless she wasn't really good enough to get the grades needed for the course and would have got better grades with Business Studies? Also, there is Foundation Vet Med Course at Nottingham for those who have the "wrong" sciences. Did you know that?

I still maintain that for a specialist medical degree, not offered everywhere, it really won't matter if it is any of the ones you mention. I agree Derby is less appealing than Nottingham but I think my choice would be the course with the best links to a medical school offering a broad spectrum of the profession and work contacts.

sashh I agree

Many prospective first time HE entrants get no advice or get advised by people who mean well but have no experience (doesn’t stop them advising though).

If unis at the top end of the Times list want to attract the most able students from non-traditional sources (eg low attaining schools and FE colleges) they really do need to look at how they go about this. The obstacles, motivations and uncertainties which these students face will not necessarily be the same as those from traditional sources. This is not about hand-holding through their studies but helping students to have the confidence to apply and to accept offers.

Lower ranking unis making unconditional offers can be very tempting to students who are worried about conditional offers. For first time students the risk of failure to meet the conditions may be perceived as far greater than it actually is. Students supported by people who have been there before them will be given a more realistic view of the risks involved.

BubblesBuddy possibly would depend on what was on offer in the school and what course combinations were possible. I know when DD1 was looking at A levels some hardly out of left field course combinations werent possible (eg MFL plus sciences was not possible).

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?

"A student still needs to know where to look and which information is reliable."

This ^^
It's all very well saying that, but I have been using the league tables as a guideline. Several posters are saying that what I think are the higly regarded universities are not. So where do they get that information from?

I have been looking at 3 or 4 university league tables, by place, subject, employment outcomes, student satisfaction etc. Where else should I be looking?

For specialist vocational courses like physiotherapy, many employers will know which courses are good (these won't always be at the most prestigious unis) and in any case as PPs said, most students who do these will get a job in the field. It's not worth worrying about a lot in that case. University prestige is more relevant where people are going into general graduate employment, whether that's because they do a non-vocational course or because they decide after graduating not to do the vocational career they studied for.

It can be difficult to quantify what you hear over the years from reading discussions about these things on a variety of sources online, hear from friends who have become senior enough to be involved in making recruiting decisions etc. Comparing tariff offers for the same subject at a range of different universities does seem to give some guide as to the universities' prestige, and is more concrete and less time consuming than reading lots of threads on TES, TSR etc, but that on its own won't show that a generally highly regarded university isn't that great for a particular subject.

As I think someone also mentioned, there is a move among some large commercial companies to blank out university name on applications: this may become more widespread and mean these concerns become more restricted to certain sectors and smaller companies run by people with degrees from RG universities who care about this sort of thing.

As I think someone also mentioned, there is a move among some large commercial companies to blank out university name on applications: this may become more widespread and mean these concerns become more restricted to certain sectors and smaller companies run by people with degrees from RG universities who care about this sort of thing.

I remember reading somewhere that one of the reasons for a particular (presumably well-known and top of the tree) firm in a certain sector mentioned several times on this thread only recruiting from a very restricted list of universities was that their US associates or whoever would only have confidence in their graduates as they were the only UK universities they had heard of. Not sure how they're going to cope with the spread of 'blind' recruiting - stop doing business with us altogether? Or grow up? Do UK firms actually say to US ones, We have no confidence in you, because we heard that one of your executives didn't get his law degree from Harvard?

I think I have read on these threads that even when you blank out the university and conduct all sorts of entry tests, you still end up with Oxbridge grads and a few others coming up trumps. It’s really not that difficult to see why. They are the high achievers. They have been selected by their universities, especially Oxbridge, to be the brightest of the bright. Why would removing the name of the university take every other attribute away from these candidates? It clearly won’t.

I think I can see why MFL and sciences might be tricky but maths and sciences for vet sci should be totally straightforward. Obviously Business Studies is ludicrous in that scenario. It’s hardly going to help set up a vet practice with the mega bucks that takes these days!

I think there are problems with the information that’s given about courses and universities where some aspects are over emphasised. Some top class universities don’t get whacking student satisfaction rates. At some universities, the complainers are more likely to complete the survey - we don’t know the sample size. Did the student have a great time in the union Bar? Who knows? Therefore definitely take this with a pinch of salt. Ditto teaching quality. Arts subjects at the best universities are really not taught for hour after hour every day of the week. Therefore when people moan about teaching contact hours, some of the best universities expect students to research. They are expected to hone their skills and not be spoon fed like school. Science subjects generally spend longer being taught or doing labs. Linguists spend longer learning speaking, listening and reading in the target languages.

If you are looking at Physiotherapy, then look for the best city with the best NHS opportunities or Private placements. Where are there lots of handy hospitals and clinics? Where are there teaching hospitals and good job prospects? What training is required post degree and is it available? What is career progression likely to look like? What experience do you want from university? I think tariff usually tells you where the competitive courses are. Also I believe universitues like Durham have two sites (one in Stockton I think) and you have to weigh up if these outlying campuses is a good idea or not.

I’m not sure Physiotherspy is offered at every prestigious university but it might be that there are opportunities at prestigious teaching hospitals.

I think for Physio and related courses, Birmingham and Southampton are worth looking at. There is also Kings College and St George’s in London. Oxford Brooke’s, Sheffield Hallam and Salford look worthwhile too. All are in large cities with a variety of teaching hospitals.

I have found this thread very interesting and helpful. TBH I have found out far more useful information about university here than anywhere else I have looked.

It isn't physio that DD is looking at Bubbles, but other medical related courses. However I have found your posts really useful - thank you.

Yes Bubbles it seems to be the case that so called blind recruiting leads to an even greater success rate among Oxbridge graduates. As you say, there's a good reason for this.

For Healthcare and vocational courses some of the ex-polys have better courses than RG universities because they traditionally catered for them and have long standing links with NHS trusts and industry. London Met and Leeds Met are good for healthcare while Derby university has a world class aeronautical engineering course with sponsorship from Rolls Royce. Manchester Met is good for business and marketing courses with excellent industrial placements which if you’re any good guarantees you a job. So look at the course see how long they,ve been doing it and their students, destinations.

Where are the reports / research showing that blind recruitment increases Oxbridge intake? Just tried a couple of searches and didn't see anything along those lines.

I know it from people working within several of the large organizations who've tried it - both in the public and private sector. I'm not a great fan of reports found on the internet. A lot of studies, or articles, can be very misleading. Anyhow, no links!