UCAS 2023 Mandatory Application Qns

[portico]

Hi
The new UCAS 2023 has mandatory qns over and above the obligatory did you parents go to university. It is a dangerous piece of social engineering designed to deter middle class applicant of getting offers. Here is a snapshot:

“There are questions specifically for UK students – these are about your ethnic origin, national identity, and occupational background. These are mandatory questions used for monitoring purposes. This information will only be shared with universities and colleges after you have secured a place and will not influence any decision regarding your application.”

A good article breaks it down here:

www.advancingaccess.ac.uk/blog/a-guide-to-the-new-ucas-questions-for-2023-entry-onwards

A lot of this isn't actually about lower entry scores, it's about the context in which scores have been achieved. Someone hitting ABB in my local comp in a 1st quintile area has achieved far greater things than someone hitting the same grades in a lovely leafy area with wealthy university-educated parents and excellent facilities. That's why context matters. And there's nothing unfair about looking at it.

@Yarnasaurus thank you, I got sidetracked by domestic issues involving ladders.

They may be mandatory questions, but "prefer not to say" is likely to be one of the reply options.

My main concern about the "did your parents go to university" is that there is no mechanism to determine whether somebody is answering truthfully - no checks are made. The question is used for lots of things other than ucas - I've seen it on application forms for selective state schools, summer schools, maths enrichment programmes etc, for which it gives priority admission, yet there is no way to check the answer is truthful.

It is a dangerous piece of social engineering designed to deter middle class applicant of getting offers.

The Sutton Trust has been doing research on the links between socio-economic disadvantage and educational achievement. Sadly, the links between these are real.

Or look at it another way: educational advantage maps pretty closely onto socio-economic advantage. I remember reading somewhere (again, Sutton Trust, I think - a department I was HoD of used to work closely with them) that this could be worth overall a grade up in all A Levels.

A lot of this isn't actually about lower entry scores, it's about the context in which scores have been achieved. Someone hitting ABB in my local comp in a 1st quintile area has achieved far greater things than someone hitting the same grades in a lovely leafy area with wealthy university-educated parents and excellent facilities. That's why context matters. And there's nothing unfair about looking at it.

Exactly @pointythings

Those of us who work in universities know this - we see it in our students all the time ...

I’m glad they do contextual offers now. As someone who grew up on a quintile 1 council estate very poor indeed, working jobs to survive I wish I’d had this acknowledged in some way in my outcomes. We now live in a quintile 5 area and my daughter has had every advantage inc independent school and on track for 4A* next year. Our struggles have been very different.

Congratulations @OddsandSods both for your own life, and the achievements of your DD. Your post is a good example of the educational differences mapped onto socio-economic circumstances.

Ah, thanks @LuftBalloons . I would certainly have aimed higher if I’d had more help, that’s for sure. Luckily I’ve been able to gift a better start in life to my DD. She is of course much more advantaged than a child sitting exams from the sort of circumstances I grew up in. These children’s exam achievements should be ‘uplifted’ to reflect this discrepancy. Anyone who doesn’t agree hasn’t got a clue about what it is to grow up with everything pitted against you. The lack of confidence persists into adulthood for most of us.

I come from a very educationally privileged background @OddsandSods but my parents were so full of liberal upper middle class guilt (and probably a mild trauma response to their own experiences at two of the UK's "top" public schools) that I went to the local comprehensive - aspirational working class with a smattering of unaspirational & poverty-stricken underclass. So I saw both sides, as it were - and I saw the attitudes of "Oh that sort of thing isn't for us" - a mix of the harmfully deferential "knowing one's place" and just the sort of incomprehension about wider prospects beyond managing to pay the electric that week.

Do you think your daughter will be impacted (adversely) by these measures?

What’s your point? I’m sorry, I don’t get it.

Your post is missing a cogent and conclusive denouement.🤔

Basically, whatever school or quintile you are applying from, what top unis such as Oxbridge are looking for is whether they have made use of the opportunities available to them and exceeded expectations if their school cohort.

So take a course at Cambridge where the minimum entry requirement is A star, A, A. A student from a selective school where that kind of grade profile is the norm, will not have a cat in hell's chance with A star, A, A. They realistically will need to get three A stars to get a look in. Probably also they will have also done loads of super curricular things on top and an EPQ and more. The bar will be higher, essentially, On the other hand, a student applying from a school where the average grade profile is C,D,D must have put a lot more in to get that A star, A, A because the teaching and / or expectations of teachers is likely to have been very different and they may have had no other similar peers to compare themselves to. So that student might get in with "only" A star, A, A. But it is fair because both students have gone above and beyond the cohorts and opportunities they were exposed to.

I think it’s really key to understand that levelling the playing field so that those in privileged positions are not advantaged as much as they have historically been is not the same as objectively disadvantaging them.

In the vast majority of cases the grade requirements for all people made offers will be exactly the same, the children from the disadvantaged backgrounds will not get a lower offer. But if there are two children who are of a similar level and the choice has to be made between them, the child from the disadvantaged background will be given the offer.

This could be looked at in two ways. An attempt to level up. Or, actually, giving the offer to better candidate. Because a kid who manages a set of grades while working two jobs and caring for their mum and attending a poor school is objectively more capable than the kid who gets the same grades without facing any of those difficulties.

If you think about it like that you should see that it isn’t about your child being disadvantaged. If they really are the most capable candidate when everything is stripped back, they will get the offer.

If you can’t accept the above to be true, then actually you want your child to be given an unfair advantage because of their privilege.

Having said the above, widening participation can be a blunt tool - especially if quotas for certain demographics are starting to be taken from particular celebrated state schools such as Brampton Manor in East London (85 Oxbridge places this year). But what use is that in deprived areas of the NE, for instance, that don't have a version of Brampton Manor? It's just going to be the state school version of what Eton once was.

What sort of advantage are applicants from Brampton manor being given though? They attend a high achieving school and won't live in a low participation (polar) postcode. They'll probably be first in family - but the majority of 18 year olds are first in family because 25 years ago (when their parents were 18) only 20% went.

As I understand it, quite a high proportion at Brampton Manor are on free school meals. The sixth form is highly selective (no catchment?) and focused in all aspects of Oxbridge admissions from start to finish. So students will meet WP criteria the same as other students in the same demographic locally and nationally. But the educational advantages and uni support they will have had will be way superior to most of the U.K..

Perhaps the Brampton model will be rolled out in other areas, but I do think that certain unis perhaps come to know and 'trust' certain schools. In the past, a good reference from Eton etc might have stood you in good stead. But in their efforts to widen participation, unis need to make sure they don't just replicate their relationship / reliance on 'big names' in the independent sector with 'big names' in the state sector because this will achieve very little in terms of the national picture.

I've seen it on application forms for selective state schools

I do hope that you haven't, other than in the legitimate context of separate, anonymised data collection about the characteristics of those applying for places / obtaining a place at the school (which I believe is the subject of this thread wrt university applications?).

To quote the Admissions Code, para 1.9(f):

It is for admission authorities to formulate their admission arrangements, but they must not:...
...give priority to children according to the occupational, marital, financial, or educational status of parents applying. The exceptions to this are children of staff at the school and those eligible for the early years pupil premium, the pupil premium and the service premium who may be prioritised in the arrangements in accordance with paragraphs 1.39 – 1.42;
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1001050/School_admissions_code_2021.pdf

Possibly. But probably not. I just can’t see the number of applications being large enough from a very disadvantaged cohort.

do hope that you haven't, other than in the legitimate context of separate, anonymised data collection about the characteristics of those applying for places / obtaining a place at the school (which I believe is the subject of this thread wrt university applications?). T quote the Admissions Code, para 1.9(f):

@MarchingFrogs unfortunately, the Admissions Code doesn't apply to sixth form colleges, including the new selective sixth form colleges like King's Maths School. They take "widening participation" data into account in their admissions policy. Extract attached.

@MarchingFrogs also, see this online foi response which explains how King's Maths School scales its admissions test results before they are used to decide who gets through to interview: www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/633233/response/1521347/attach/html/2/Ben%20Appleby%20FoI%20response.pdf.html

Btw, my point is that, if contextual data is used to give priority access to education, then it needs to be verifiable, not wide open to fraud. The "Did parents go to university" question can't request proof for a negative answer.

Other data, such as FSM status can be verified more easily. I don't know whether UCAS requests any proof, but King's Maths School probably doesn't. Unlike an LA admissions service, they probably don't even have the resources to check that applicant addresses are genuine.

I'm actually a bit surprised that those "new" questions aren't asked already, because universities are certainly already using FSM and other contextual information in their admissions processes (e.g. see here for Oxford: www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying-to-oxford/decisions/contextual-data).

However, perhaps they have been relying on teachers including it in the school's reference. If so, it is probably a good thing to also ask for it on the form, to level the playing field for those students whose teachers are less experienced at writing references.

But what use is that in deprived areas of the NE, for instance, that don't have a version of Brampton Manor?

@sevenwonder the DfE are encouraging the expansion of selective sixth forms into the north and Midlands, e.g. see this article: www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/eton-plan-three-selective-sixth-form-schools-north-and-midlands

Hopefully this link will work better: www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying-to-oxford/decisions/contextual-data

Btw, note that they take home postcode into account. They may be naively unaware of the widespread address fraud that takes place in school admissions processes, and the extensive checks that Local Authorities have to undertake to tackle it. Families with a grandparent or rental property in a low socio-economic area might be tempted to apply to UCAS from that address instead of their own.

How I wished there were contextual offers when I was at school. I went to an inner city comprehensive in a very socially deprived area. Standards of teaching were very low at A level, I worked incredibly hard and was seen as a shining star with CDD one of the top results in my year. I went to a Poly and on a full grant. My DF's are now at independent schools and the education and aspirations blow my mind. We are not rich, live in rented accommodation, don't have holidays but my DF's are indeed privileged in the opportunities open to them.