Widening Participation/Contextual Admissions

[SometimesRavenSometimesParrot]

Hi all. I’ve seen quite a lot of posts lately where people seem a bit confused about different widening participation initiatives and contextual admissions, either how they work, why they work or why they’re even done... and some people asking questions about them and not getting anything resembling an accurate response.

I’ve worked in a WP team for seven years now (with a couple of short stints in admissions), so since I have often had excellent advice from Mumsnet and my questions answered, I thought I’d offer myself up to answer anything in this area someone might want to know.

I be name changed so I can be a bit more honest and I know there are several other posters who work or research in this area who might want to chip in!

Standard disclaimer of every uni works slightly different, so answers will be broad ranging - feel free to PM me if you’ve got a specific q!

[quote SometimesRavenSometimesParrot]@DelBocaVista is absolutely spot on![/quote]
Thank you.
I worked in WP for years and fair access to HE was the topic of my PhD so I'm very passionate about it!

Yes, but I am just not sure about adopted children. There are lots of things we could consider- alcoholic parent even if you are in a very wealthy home, father who beats you who is a Prince even - how we make things fair is never easy.

The contextualisation has to be broad brush. I suppose the school's comment on the UCAS form can mention anything unusual but relevant.

On the parents helping children get jobs I am middle class but I have no idea how you ask your child to get a job in a firm with graduate recruitment processes. Presumably if you try you are looked on like dirt, never given work by that client or connection ever again and they think you are desperate and they then put your child on the list of people not to be taken on. Of course there are exceptions.

I suspect areas like fashion which do not have the formal paid vacation schemes/internships of law etc might be more about you can get a place if your parent has a word with a friend.

On the parents helping children get jobs I am middle class but I have no idea how you ask your child to get a job in a firm with graduate recruitment processes.

But the chances are you know someone who could help and you possibly know people from a range of professions who can help with work experience.

I suspect areas like fashion which do not have the formal paid vacation schemes/internships of law etc might be more about you can get a place if your parent has a word with a friend.

Areas such as art, fashion, music etc cause real issues for those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds as the placements are often unpaid which means you need rich parents to support you!

@Xenia

Yes, but I am just not sure about adopted children. There are lots of things we could consider- alcoholic parent even if you are in a very wealthy home, father who beats you who is a Prince even - how we make things fair is never easy.

The contextualisation has to be broad brush. I suppose the school's comment on the UCAS form can mention anything unusual but relevant.

On the parents helping children get jobs I am middle class but I have no idea how you ask your child to get a job in a firm with graduate recruitment processes. Presumably if you try you are looked on like dirt, never given work by that client or connection ever again and they think you are desperate and they then put your child on the list of people not to be taken on. Of course there are exceptions.

I suspect areas like fashion which do not have the formal paid vacation schemes/internships of law etc might be more about you can get a place if your parent has a word with a friend.

While you might not be sure about adopted children, there is a wealth of research from people well experienced in this area that are sure.

You are exactly right with the UCAS reference - where there is a difficult home life, medical issues, mitigating circumstances etc, this can be mentioned here. But those are individual issues affecting smaller numbers. Widening access is trying to work with large cohorts and communities.

You’re also looking at things very black and white. No one is suggesting vast chunks of the middle class are ‘getting their children a job’. But the middle class can better prepare their children, provide a bit more support, potentially pay for relocation...all these more nebulous things that are barriers for disadvantaged students. Even things like a parent offering to do a practice interview with you - in a family where that parent has had a professional job throughout their life, that student has a small advantage over a student in a family with generations of unemployment or interviews for low skill jobs. It’s a small advantage but the point is all those small advantages, over years, really add up.

there is a wealth of research from people well experienced in this area that are sure
Absolutely!

This can be said for this whole area! WP, university access, career development, social mobility.........

Although I'm sure people on MN think we're just making it up as we go along!

Good points. I don't think I have got nor could get my sons any work experience. I have certainly told them you can apply for formal schemes and I think one has 100% failure rate applying for those which is presumably as bad as anyone deprived as you cannot do worse. (Bit like my 139 applications to law firms in 1981/82 and 25 interviews before finally application 139 interview 25 I got an offer).

Good point on practice interviews too although as I have to keep saying to my sons I have no idea what employers want to hear these days. Their sisters may be more useful as they are in their 30s. I have not had an interview since the 1990s nor interviewed anyone since then.

However I agree that even having a parent who works who can tell you about what clothes to wear to work, how to make sure you set an alarm clock to be on time - even stuff like that is not something all children benefit from if parents are not around, do not work etc.

Practice interviews - never done them with DDs. We are well off financially and I have paid for their relocation. Most of our MC friends simply do not have this level of money available. They are MC but their own housing needs cost them a lot! So their DC have to relocate themselves. And they do. It is not until grandparents die that there might some spare money available in larger amounts!

I found DDs did not need interview clothes advice. Maybe DS's do. Some of them anyway. I do think this should be part of careers and employment readiness at university. (Was Bristol Plus along these lines?) I do think the student with no role models has to catch up but there is help available, if they avail themselves of it. At the very least, copy everyone else re deadlines, applications, CV, clothes, reading the JD/Person spec etc.

Work experience, and indeed work, is very much who you know in fashion. Media too. Acting has been problematic in recent times as well. It is not easy to break down generations of people who employ each others families and contacts. This is not new though. It has been going on for generations. Years ago there were families who speicialised in certain lines of work - dustmen, miners, farmers etc. It is just that shipyards, steelworks and mines have gone so people feel disadvantaged in that they find it difficult to break into other areas of work. And yes, it is very difficult, but it can be done with dedication and finding out what you need to do.

@PresentingPercy

Practice interviews - never done them with DDs. We are well off financially and I have paid for their relocation. Most of our MC friends simply do not have this level of money available. They are MC but their own housing needs cost them a lot! So their DC have to relocate themselves. And they do. It is not until grandparents die that there might some spare money available in larger amounts!

I found DDs did not need interview clothes advice. Maybe DS's do. Some of them anyway. I do think this should be part of careers and employment readiness at university. (Was Bristol Plus along these lines?) I do think the student with no role models has to catch up but there is help available, if they avail themselves of it. At the very least, copy everyone else re deadlines, applications, CV, clothes, reading the JD/Person spec etc.

Work experience, and indeed work, is very much who you know in fashion. Media too. Acting has been problematic in recent times as well. It is not easy to break down generations of people who employ each others families and contacts. This is not new though. It has been going on for generations. Years ago there were families who speicialised in certain lines of work - dustmen, miners, farmers etc. It is just that shipyards, steelworks and mines have gone so people feel disadvantaged in that they find it difficult to break into other areas of work. And yes, it is very difficult, but it can be done with dedication and finding out what you need to do.

If only it was this simple.

I guess you know better than my 20 years of research, working and teaching in this area??

How superior and sniffy of you! Why is it researchers always think they are better than the general public who might have valid observations to make? I wasn’t having a go at anyone but rudeness is endemic on HE threads. People just cannot help themselves. Research is always selective in nature and not always accurate. It’s a snapshot and cannot possibly cover all walks of life and experiences. Anyway. Definitely time to quit! I’ll leave you to your superiority.

@PresentingPercy

How superior and sniffy of you! Why is it researchers always think they are better than the general public who might have valid observations to make? I wasn’t having a go at anyone but rudeness is endemic on HE threads. People just cannot help themselves. Research is always selective in nature and not always accurate. It’s a snapshot and cannot possibly cover all walks of life and experiences. Anyway. Definitely time to quit! I’ll leave you to your superiority.

I wasn't intending to sound sniffy - I apologise. I've had a spectacularly bad day and I've been involved in too many threads where people thinthey know my job better than me despite never having worked at a university.

However, I am one of the UK's leading researchers on this particular subject so I do know what I'm talking about. I only wish it were as simple as you suggest.

Oh and just a minor point about research- mine is peer reviewed, subject to ethical approval and constantly reviewed and updated. It draws from a wide range of data sets and is used to inform government policy.
It's about as accurate as you can get on a subject like this!

@PresentingPercy

How superior and sniffy of you! Why is it researchers always think they are better than the general public who might have valid observations to make? I wasn’t having a go at anyone but rudeness is endemic on HE threads. People just cannot help themselves. Research is always selective in nature and not always accurate. It’s a snapshot and cannot possibly cover all walks of life and experiences. Anyway. Definitely time to quit! I’ll leave you to your superiority.

Are you an armchair epidemiologist on the side as well? Seeing as everyone seems to be an expert these days....

Believe it or not researchers generally DO know more than the general public.

Surely something that needs to be done in parallel to DO is to make as transparent as possible the rejection/acceptance criteria of the most competitive courses (e.g. Oxbridge). To some extent at least Oxbridge have interviews to differentiate candidates but for some universities it may be that you have increasing number of candidates with near immaculate grade profiles. How do you show a fair non discriminatory entrance policy.

Universities are reliant on predicted grades to decide applicants (I don't know many that use the personal statement in any real regard) so faced with a range is similarly graded applicants should priority be made to those of lower socio economic backgrounds?

I think we are just chatting on here and those of us who are lawyers etc trying t make a contribution are certainly not suggesting we know more than anyone else. However sometimes practising lawyers do know more about their own profession and recruitment than those who work more generally in universities..

mids good points - I think they do. Bristol for years where 3 of mine went have had their contextualisation and do give priority to the less well off homes in giving places for two candidates with identical grades or even different grades. It is hard to get the balance right between on the one hand China in the cultural revolution where if your father were elite you were off to shovel s hit literally for life in the countryside and systems where the intelligentsia or those endowing colleges get automatic places for their children however unintelligent. We have a reasonably fair system in the UK and I am glad there are no places for those good at sport as in the US - having just watched that documentary about the cheating scandal using that regime over there.

However sometimes practising lawyers do know more about their own profession and recruitment than those who work more generally in universities.

I wouldn't disagree but I've been researching the issues surrounding widening participation and social mobility for nearly 20 years which includes access to the professions. I also work very closely with university careers services and careers consultants who are experts in recruitment practices which gives me a pretty good overview of the landscape.

I would dream of telling you how to do your job but I have lost count of the times people on similar threads to this one have made a concerted effort to discredit universities and university staff. We seem to be fair game at the moment!

(I'm not saying you personally are doing this but there are more than a few that are!)

That certainly sounds hard. I think people are very unhappy for all kinds of reasons at present not least the Cv19 legislation and restrictions so they lash out at others.

(Lawyers have found the same in the Legal section from time to time - people lashing out against the help given)

We are lucky experts come on MN and answer questions.

@DelBocaVista

However sometimes practising lawyers do know more about their own profession and recruitment than those who work more generally in universities.

I wouldn't disagree but I've been researching the issues surrounding widening participation and social mobility for nearly 20 years which includes access to the professions. I also work very closely with university careers services and careers consultants who are experts in recruitment practices which gives me a pretty good overview of the landscape.

I would dream of telling you how to do your job but I have lost count of the times people on similar threads to this one have made a concerted effort to discredit universities and university staff. We seem to be fair game at the moment!

(I'm not saying you personally are doing this but there are more than a few that are!)

I agree! Especially in WP - every member of staff, every programme and policy is trying to help. It’s disheartening that so many people seem either flatly against the whole enterprise or on the non Mumsnet flipside, not happy to accept any help.

Plus I think it’s worth pointing out by the time we can start to make contact with students and support them, we’re fighting against ALOT of existing issues. Poor GCSE results, poor readiness for A Levels and therefore university study, frankly awful careers guidance that derails students, parents who won’t support...

So a flat statement of ‘unis make lower offers to disadvantaged kids’ might not feel very fair, but when you drill down into the reasons for it being done it frankly doesn’t feel enough.

The issue that posters seem to be having is the grey area where students can benefit who don’t seem to be stereotypically or significantly disadvantaged. To which I’d say in any policy, there is a cut off point and people are either screwed over by it or benefit when they don’t expect to. We’re doing the best in the system we can.

@PresentingPercy still no response about the ‘black and deprived’ comment. The ignorance of people on here never ceases to amaze me.

And it’s on the thread for those rejected form Oxford that you chose to bring up contextual offers. Seems that you are upset that ‘black and deprive’ students got a place yet yours didn’t. I hope you did not pass on that sore loser attitude to your DC.

If the HE board is purely the realm of researchers and people up their own backsides that work for universities, is there any point whatsoever in making any contribution at all? After all, it is bound to be wrong! Half the threads that could be interesting are taken over by “experts” who seek to close down other views. It is so elitist! The joke is that the experts cannot see it. Anyway - my last word. I’m off to chat with ignoramuses like me.

@PresentingPercy

If the HE board is purely the realm of researchers and people up their own backsides that work for universities, is there any point whatsoever in making any contribution at all? After all, it is bound to be wrong! Half the threads that could be interesting are taken over by “experts” who seek to close down other views. It is so elitist! The joke is that the experts cannot see it. Anyway - my last word. I’m off to chat with ignoramuses like me.

Nice of you to acknowledge my apology......

I'm really not elitist ( laughing some much at that comment. I'm interested in WP because I was one of those disadvantaged students that got lucky) but I am an expert on this topic so will point out when people are wrong!
I value expert opinions on other topics and I'm grateful for their insight. However, there are a few posters who have a real issue with academics and research. It's bizarre.

Hopefully this thread can now return to a place for people interested in WP and the like to find out more if they’d like :)

Also laughing at the elitist comments, I was a disadvantaged student who benefited from WP work!

Plus I think it’s worth pointing out by the time we can start to make contact with students and support them, we’re fighting against ALOT of existing issues. Poor GCSE results, poor readiness for A Levels and therefore university study, frankly awful careers guidance that derails students, parents who won’t support...

So true....although there are a few of us who are working on the career guidance issue!! It is getting better :)

Percy, bit bizarre to say this thread has been 'taken over' by 'elitist experts' when it was literally started by an expert in the field of WP, offering to answer people's questions and provide helpful information.

'Govian' rants about experts are all a bit 2016, aren't they? I've personally never been so glad of experts as in the past year!

I think there might be a market for a software product online where parents can type in various contextualisation factors and see which universities come up as being the most generous in accepting lower grades eg you could key in the child's school or names of possible schools where they might do GCSEs and A levels, type in if in care etc.

I did compare the post code of my parents' house in Newcastle and my own here which was interesting. Here in outer London the possible advantage (or disadvantage) is most people are not white whereas in that part of Newcastle just about everyone is white. However houses cost more where I live in London than there and I am sure wages are less in Newcastle. It was an interesting comparison of those things called Polar or whatever it is.

On clothing help, potential lawyers can look at youtube to see what people wear but it can be a cost issue if you cannot afford a suit etc. One reason I bought my twins a new suit for their sister's church wedding last weekend is they might need it if they ever get any interviews - we are obviously so disadvantaged no one will employ them or something despite the new suits (laughing as I type but hopefully their luck will change).... they have another year of studying law left anyway. All will be well.

May be the contextualised admissions people can advise how white male private school educated graduates who cannot get jobs can get them! There are certainly lots out there trying to get jobs.