University ‘free for all’ to sign up students
Fears over standards as unconditional offers double at leading institutions
UNIVERSITIES have been accused of allowing admissions to descend into a “free for all” after it emerged that students are increasingly being offered places regardless of their exam results.
Figures obtained by The Daily Telegraph show that unconditional offers to study at some of Britain’s leading institutions have more than doubled over the past five years.
There is fierce competition among universities, with institutions preparing to lower their entry grades drastically to entice students during the clearing process after A-level results are released next week.
The lifting of number controls in England in 2015 gave universities free rein to recruit as many undergraduates as they see fit but the move has led to accusations that they now act like businesses, seeking to maximise their revenue by recruiting as many as possible.
Experts have warned that the rise in unconditional offers at Britain’s leading institutions could lead to an erosion of standards.
Alan Smithers, director of the centre of education and employment at Buckingham University, said that attempts by higher-education institutions to lure in as many students as possible through unconditional offers may backfire if it leads to a diminishing of teaching quality. “They feel they can maximise their income by expanding places,” he said. “But if they overexpand, the risk is that it will damage the quality of what is on offer. It has developed into a bit of a free for all.”
Admissions figures, obtained by this newspaper under a series of freedom of information requests, reveal that there has been a surge in the number of unconditional places offered by several Russell Group universities.
Birmingham handed out 1,003 unconditional offers to British students in 2012-13, which had more than doubled to 2,471 by 2016-17.
Meanwhile, Edinburgh’s unconditional offers almost trebled, from 125 to 350 over the same period of time.
In recent weeks, some sixth-formers have been told their conditional offers – those which apply if the student meets grade expectations – will be “upgraded” to unconditional if they confirm the university as their first-choice destination. The number of upgraded offers at several leading institutions has also shot up in recent years, figures show.
Helena Crossland, a 20-year-old politics and international relations student at Bath, was given an unconditional offer to study at Birmingham.
“Birmingham’s grade requirements were ABB and I was predicted AAA,” she said. “I actually ended up putting [Birmingham] as my second choice and Bath and my first. They wanted AAA. In the end I got AAC. Both accepted me anyway though.”
The figures show that there has been an increase in unconditional offers at nine of the leading Russell Group universities, including King’s College London, Warwick and Manchester.
A recent report by Ucas, the university admissions service, warned that unconditional offers were partly to blame for a fall in the number of students achieving their predicted grades at A-levels between 2010 and 2015.
“Applicants holding unconditional firm choices were more likely to miss their predicted attainment by two or more grades, compared to applicants holding conditional firm choices,” the report said.
David Palfreyman, director of Oxford University’s centre for higher education policy studies, said high student fees were driving the competition.
“They want to fill up and make sure they’ve got all their £9,000,” he said.
“But there is a risk that they get it wrong and the student flunks their Alevels. Does that ripple through to lower grades of degree awards?”
A Russell Group spokesman said: “All offers are based on a detailed assessment of an applicant’s academic record and whether admissions teams feel they will be able to meet the demands of a particular programme of study.”