Worst Offenders for Unconditional Offers

[BubblesBuddy]

Looking at The Times today, they quote the newly released UCAS data regarding which universites give the most unconditonal offers. Suffolk is a staggering 83.8%. Even the much lauded Lincoln is 53.7%. RG universities are topped by Birmingham 18.9% and Nottingham 11.4%. Other RG universities are fairly negligible by comparison. Nottingham says it is now ending this practice.

On Radio 4, the Vice Chancellor or Sheffield Hallam defended offering unconditionals to the brightest applicants. He seemed relunctant to take on board that this was, in effect, marketing in a buyers market place. He did also state that they take GCSE results as an indicator of likely A level grades and they read every Personal Statement to make their unconditional offers. This appears to be contrary to the widely held belief on MN that it is only predicted grades that count.

Is there now pressure on RG and other universities to end this practice? Should they?

• [Please note: title edited by MNHQ - originally said 'Conditional Offers']

Perhaps the outrage stems as usual from our reactions rather than the unconditional offer itself?

The U(iF) offer seems to be just another way to estimate and manage numbers. It is no different from say some med schools raising their offer from 3As to an A and 2As because they are sick of being the insurance choice - so they are saying we want a bit more certainty. Some med schools offer time-limited offers below 3As to those who happen to impress on the day. Is that any different from say some celebrated (meaning popular) place saying our offer is 3As plus entrance test, when provided you haven't fluffed the entrance test, 2Es will do because a new facility would be pretty handy and benefit thousands of other students when you join because we can't really say 2Es this day and age Or we like to collect Olympiad reps though that's generally worth less than a new facility so no more than a couple of grade drops. Just call around Results Day and we'll see...

Perhaps nobody is 'conned' who doesn't want something for nothing? And perhaps it says something about those who slam the less celebrated places while being silent about numbers management by the 'great and good'.

Obviously these days the better places don't make unconditionals.
What is sad is if these offers are going to people from areas with few teenagers going to university and that makes those pupils get lower A level grades the system designed to encourage them to aim high could mean they have worse A level results (as they stop trying ) and when it comes to very competitive high paid jobs they are in effect damaged for life by virtue of a scheme designed to improve their life chances.

Obviously these days the better places don't make unconditionals
Err ... yes they do. Please read the thread!

Boys, very few better places do. Birmingham being the only really good exception, and a couple of middle tiers, but in general the trend is real and very clear, UC offers come from the very lowest ranked unis

Unconditionals are given by higher ranking unis but it is definitely for less popular courses. A friend of DS received an unconditional from Nottingham and York last year for English Literature, her predicted grades were decent but not amazing. Funnily enough though she didn't take either and firmed Leeds on a conditional because she liked it best.
Top unis for STEM subjects tend to issue conditional offers, not just because they are popular courses but because they are demanding subjects and the unis need to know their students can handle the content.

There is quite a lot of information on the UCAS end of cycle report about Unconditional offers - its an interesting report.
www.ucas.com/data-and-analysis/undergraduate-statistics-and-reports/ucas-undergraduate-end-cycle-reports/2018-end-cycle-report

I still stand by my comment. Whilst Nottingham is good it was the worst and easiest to get into of my son's 5 choice and thus it was the only one to offer him an unconditional if firmed for his subject. Neither of my sons got unconditionals from places like Durham, Bristol, Exeter.

Dd is a bit annoyed her friends with lower predictions got unconditionals for Newcastle and she didn't, not that she was planning on accepting the offer - she has an offer for a better course elsewhere . There's not enough 18 year olds currently so universities are desperate.

That said my other dd got an unconditional but only because she already had a levels - the stats released do not take into account how many mature students institutions have.

The end of cycle report does have a section specifically on 18 year olds. This is the one that has been commented on in the press. Obviously mature students are a different category and an unconditional offer doesn’t affect their A levels or any other qualification if they already possess them.

I am not sure why the universities that are recruiting based on huge numbers of unconditionals cannot have a funding system similar to a university but charge less for the courses. They should perhaps offer the 2 year courses that have been talked about but accept that they are not full degrees. I know this sounds second class these days, but when we had HNDs they filled this slot. You could go on and get a degree afterwards and usually skip the first year. Maybe with an enhanced 2 year course, the qualification could be topped up to an honours degree at a university by just 18 months extra?

There is lots of evidence that shows these lower universities don’t get many highly paid alumni and in fact there is evidence that not having a degree is a better pathway to success for some over and above a poor degree from a low end university. It just feels that some students are conned by the university sector and it should stop and there should be greater quality control.

When I read through the report I got the impression that the highest number of unconditional offers were made because a portfolio was deemed to be a better judgment of suitability for the course than A level predictions or GCSE results which I can fully understand to some extent...

There is lots of evidence that shows these lower universities don’t get many highly paid alumni and in fact there is evidence that not having a degree is a better pathway to success for some over and above a poor degree from a low end university.

Citation? Not sure that is true actually once you've adjusted for subject.

I'm not a fan of UiFs for non-portfolio courses, but abhor the idea that the type of offer should determine the funding system an institution is part of. Do you really think it would be fair for Birmingham to get less funding for offering a 3 x A star applicant a UiF, than a post-92 making an offer of 1 x E?

Foundation degrees and DipHEs are two year courses btw which can be topped up...

As a school governor, last year we had 30% of our students given unconditional offers with, in one case, the offer letter saying 'we would appreciate it if you would still complete your A-levels'.

From the school's POV, when they get measured on results for Ofsted and league tables, this sort of thing risks students not working as hard as they could to get their best results, which harms the school but also their own life chances. And yes, in most cases these are not highly rated institutions.

What is this dearth of 18 year olds everyone is talking about? Can someone explain?

There are currently fewer 18 year olds in the U.K. than before. Numbers do start increasing in a couple of years though.

www.statista.com/statistics/281981/live-births-in-the-united-kingdom-uk-1990/#0

Years 1990-2017
Number of live births

'00
679,029

'01
669,123

'02
668,777

'03
695,549

'04
715,996

I was a primary school governor when the shrinking cohorts were reaching that age. We had a very big fight with the council and DfE to keep our small, rural school open as the local birth date was shooting up and if the school had closed because of the falling number of 4-year-olds we would have had a major problem just a few years ahead.

Thanks for the information; very interesting.

The OfS are showing an interest in this area. Link below.

www.officeforstudents.org.uk/publications/unconditional-offers-serving-the-interests-of-students/

The Institute of Fiscal Studies has researched into pay resulting from courses and universities and reported their findings last year. They came to conclusions linking future earnings being related to male/female, course and quality of university. There were some courses after which, the grad would have been better off not doing it at all from a monetary point of view.

I tend to agree with Xenia but it will be interesting to see if Birmingham follows Nottingham's lead. One of my daughters had unconditional offers from both. Nottingham was easy to turn down, but Birmingham was her clear 2nd choice. She thought it was better for her course than either Durham and Bristol.

Also anyone with a teenager who thinks an unconditinoal means they can take their foot of the gas (lots of teenagers are quite lazy and nothing unusual about that and perfectly normal) do remember some employers look at A level grades as well as university and if you get a 2/1. Some jobs you need a minimum A level grades requirements plus degree etc. The A levels do not get written off by some employers once you go to university and those putting 3 A levels on their CV instead of subject and grade are advertising, in effect, that they got bad grades.

My son (8 A stars at GCSE, predicted 3 A stars, made the Cambridge pool this year) has a UIF from Birmingham. At Christmas they wrote and told him that if he firmed it they would give him £3000!

He's using it as his insurance and firming Warwick.

Some unconditional offers come with financial incentive to reach the normal offer grades, or above even. I don't know if this does help in general to keep grades up, but my daughter was very glad of her handout

And saying "good" unis don't give unconditionals - Bristol give loads of contextual offers, which are not an uncomplicated good thing imo. My son is a contextual offer from them this year of two grades below their standard offer - based purely on postcode, not any greater context of his life or education. And tbh giving an ABB offer to someone predicted three A stars isn't much different to giving an unconditional!

Nearly all universities are hoping for financial security for their institutions and their staff. I'm not going to condemn them for it. Caveat emptor

Lancaster seem to do a few for the schools they link with.