Steve Minney, Swansea University

Fairness, Potential and Preparing for UCAS

Steve MinneySenior Student Recruitment Officer

www.swansea.ac.uk

Why Higher Education?

How does higher education benefit participants?

1. Develops capabilities

2. Provides credentials

3. Provides enjoyable experience and social network

4. Facilitates the intrinsic value of learning

5. Higher Education should equip students for life, not just to make a living

6. The highest achievers are not always those who will learn the most

www.swansea.ac.uk

Key Factors in HE Admissions

UCAS is a complicated nexus of achievement and potential.

Three principles for admission to Higher Education:

• Excellence: academic merit should be the sole standard of access

• Fair equality of opportunity: access mechanisms (contextual admissions, funding,

outreach, information) should correct for background social inequalities

• Social benefit: access should depend on what the students are likely to do with the

education they get

www.swansea.ac.uk

Excellence

Problems with Excellence:

• Excellence is partly undeserved – depends on birth/luck

• Conflation of High Scores with Merit/Talent

• Definitions of Talent/Potential are unreliable

• Distance travelled/Value Added usually lesser considerations

• Targeting high achievers may be socially wasteful

• In UK admissions potential is subliminally equated to likely degree

outcome and not much else

• Cultural capital is an invisible entry requirement

www.swansea.ac.uk

Fairness

In UK admissions “Fairness” usually refers to process not outcome.

“We will give equal consideration to each and every application.”

• Is it unfair that a student is rigorously taught in small groups whether via

scholarship funding, parental sacrifice , successful entrepreneurship,

inheritance or geography?

• Is it unfair that students are bullied for reading by their peers?

• Is it unfair that students can be divided into information haves and have

nots?

www.swansea.ac.uk

Fairness & Potential

The UCAS process cannot remedy 18 years of disadvantage.

Admitted students must be adequately prepared for the rigors of academic

life at selective universities

Beyond that, students are admitted who have the ability to:

• Take advantage of an institution’s intellectual and other resources, and to

contribute to the education of their peers

• Uphold institutional loyalties and traditions

• Augment campus diversity

• Make distinctive long-run contributions to the welfare of society

www.swansea.ac.uk

Fairness & Potential

The cynical, but likely accurate view

Selective Universities admit children from relatively privileged

backgrounds and prepare them to occupy relatively privileged positions in

society, increasing their chances in the competition for unequally

distributed social resources, using public funding inaccessible to children

who do not go to University.

www.swansea.ac.uk

Social Benefit

How much will the admitted students be likely to learn from the institution and each

other?

Are they likely to become:

bankers, or nurses?

marketeers or social work administrators?

philosophy professors or primary teachers?

Is a A*A*A* student who aspires to become a financial engineer more deserving than

a BBB first generation HE applicant who may inspire future cohorts?

www.swansea.ac.uk

Do applicants get what they deserve?

www.swansea.ac.uk

Do applicants get what they deserve?

Sutton Trust Study – Degrees of Success, 2011

Eton, Westminster, St Paul’s Boys, St Paul’s Girls, Hills Road Sixth Form College sent

946 pupils to Oxford and Cambridge between 2007 and 2009

2000 Schools with 2 or fewer Oxbridge entrants sent 927 pupils to Oxford and

Cambridge between 2007 and 2009

35,000 English pupils with 8 or more GCSEs A-C did not go on to post-16 study

60,000 English pupils who were at some point in the top 25% of their class do not go

on to high education

www.swansea.ac.uk

Preparing for UCAS – Year 1

•Early identification of those at risk of non-progression

•GSCE performance

•Post 16 subject choice

•HE Input to set scene for Year 12

•Compact Agreements

•Work experience

www.swansea.ac.uk


•Open Days

•UCAS Convention

•Regular input from HE

•Registration and preparation for admissions tests

•Formal UCAS programme – summer of year 12

•Summer Schools (Headstart, Reaching Wider, Sutton Trust)

www.swansea.ac.uk


•Predicted Grades (English students must declare AS)

•Personal Statement Workshops

•References

•Mock Interviews

•Post Application Interviews/Visits

•Firm/Insurance strategy

•UCAS Extra

•Clearing

www.swansea.ac.uk

UCAS – The Future

PQA consulation – emphatic NO from variety of sectorsClearing to be reformed :•Online applications only•Gap between confirmation and clearing•All CF/CI decisions final before clearingUCAS Extra to be reformed:•Applicants will be able to hold CF & CI via ExtraDefined offer deadlinesRelaxation of number controls >ABB

www.swansea.ac.uk

We can help…

[email protected] 01792 295889

