Applications, Offers and Admissions to Research Led Universities

Report Overview

A joint report by the Sutton Trust and the Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills on applications, offers and admissions to research leading universities.

Key Findings

• The single most important factor determining the probability that students obtained a place on one of the most academically demanding degree courses was the student’s own A level (or equivalent) results.
• Beyond this, the differences, by type of school or college, in participation rates on the most academically demanding courses can be largely explained by differences in the number and patterns of applications from different types of school or college.
• Therefore, it appears that young people with similar attainment who applied to one of the most academically demanding degree courses, were around as likely to get an offer, regardless of the type of school or college they attended.
• Pupils from independent schools in the top fifth of schools according to average A level attainment, on average made twice as many applications to ‘Sutton 13’ universities than their peers from comprehensive schools with similar overall levels of attainment.
• As a consequence, a student with the equivalent of ABB at A level (including at least one ‘core academic’ A level) who attended an independent school had a 79% chance of entering one of the 500 most selective degree courses, compared with 70% for a similar student attending a state maintained school.
• Application rates from FE colleges to ‘Sutton 13’ universities were less than half of those from other types of schools, even when account is taken of the differences in average overall levels of A level attainment of the schools or colleges.
  • As such students from the FE sector were less likely to study the most selective HE
  courses than students with similar A levels from other types of educational establishment.
• If FE sector students had the same participation rates as those in selective state schools with similar “academic” A level attainment we would have expected over 1,000 extra students from the FE sector (including FE and sixth form colleges) to enter the 500 courses with the highest average entry qualifications by age 193.
• About a third of applications to ‘Sutton 13′ universities from those in the comprehensive schools with the lowest attainment result in offers, but only a fifth of those from FE colleges with similar overall levels of attainment do so. However, this finding needs some caution as it may still reflect differences in individual students’ levels of achievement.