UKC

My step-daughter is applying for university places. She has applied to four Russell Group universities and a former poly as a bit of insurance. 

She has had conditional offers from three so far including the ex poly and then today she got a letter from them saying that if she put them as her first choice it would be an unconditional offer and if she met the conditional offer (BBB) they would give her £500 for each year of study. The other offers are AAA and AAB.

I’ve already said to her not to let the money sway her, I’ll cover it, but the whole thing seems really unethical to me.

I don't see an ethical problem as such but it says a lot about the institution!

Not sure of my view, but offering scholarships for particular students the university wishes to attract is not unusual.

That said, I would agree with you not to let that sway her, because she'll get more money later from having a degree from a "better" Uni.  If she really looks like she'll go that way and won't be swayed, it might (if you can afford it) make sense for you to offer to match it yourself?

She isn’t taking it. It isn’t where she wants to go!

This seems to be The Way It Is nowadays: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/nov/29/one-third-18-year-old-uni...

As for ethics, I'm not really sure they come into it any more. When you thoroughly marketise education then students and parents become consumers, and institutions inevitably start to compete. But it does seem like a desperate move by the institution offering the money and might be an indication that they're one to avoid.

Unconditional offers are being widely abused in my opinion to act as an ego based marketing tool.  Recruitment by universities is highly competitive and this is just the latest in a recruitment arms race.

The only reasons I see to justify them are (1) an interview that evidences capabilities beyond the predicted grade and (2) medical grounds that it will reduce clinical stress/anxiety.  If neither of those grounds have been explored by the institution I’d ask “why are they needing to resort to this new trick?” - hint - the best departments don’t need to.

A number of universities are doing this kind of thing now, not just 'ex-polies'. Giving unconditional offers to pre-A level candidates is something that many of us involved in university admissions are uncomfortable with. There's some evidence to suggest that it's not particularly beneficial to the applicants in terms of their A level achievement and academic development, which isn't great when they're about to make the step up to university. These aren't the only tactics universities use, but unconditional offers are probably the one causing most concern.

If the grades are in the AAA / AAB region, your step-daughter's applying for a popular subject or a demanding one (or both!); depending on what it is, there may well be clearing opportunities at a range of universities, so the BBB offer may not have to be all she settles for (though obviously having a sure-fire insurance choice is quite a reassurance).

She should look at the course, the university and the location., and make her CF and CI choices on the bases of these things, not being given an unconditional offer and a small scholarship. If the BBB university is the best course for her, then she should go for it, but if not, she shouldn't let the offer sway her.

Probably the different universities'll have offer-holder open days after Christmas - going to these things is sensible if it's feasible: many departments put on teaching taster sessions with academic staff so it should be a good opportunity to get a feel for the sort of teaching. She should also take any opportunity to talk to the students. Although student ambassadors at open days are usually amongst the most engaged and positive, they'll give applicants a much more realistic idea of what it's like to be an undergrad than a member of academic staff!

Unconditional offers (or just low ones) are the bane of sixth-form teachers' lives. It takes an extraordinarily motivated student to keep working as hard as they should once their university has effectively told them that their results won't matter any more.

That's annoying because we're still judged against targets that assume students will have been trying their hardest but also because it's not doing the students themselves any favours in the long run. Hopefully if their degree goes well, their A-level results will become less significant but they'll still be putting them on their CVs for the rest of their lives.

I think the BBC had an article just recently on exactly this. I agree with Luke, I teach a lot of A level currently and it's more than a little unhelpful when some students get unconditionals. But then if some uni wants a student who still doesn't seem to get the difference between there, their and they're (as if they should even be using contractions in academic writing!) then on their heads (and degree results) be it. :-/

This topic was on the radio t'other day.
One point made about students giving up on their 'A's was, yes, they get an unconditional offer, then part way through their course, they want to change course and/or uni, and they haven't got the results to do so.

Buggered!

The money offer is interesting though - not heard that. Presumably that's 500 quid off the 9 grand she'll need to borrow each year just for fees?

Trying to strengthen your academic base with offers of grants isn't new at post grad level but I've not heard about it at undergrad before. I did my PhD at MMU because the one of the two professors in the UK who knew about what I wanted to study was there, but he then told me about funding opportunities the university had and then really went after a grant for me - which I will be forever grateful for. But I got the equivalent of an ESRC grant direct from the university, because the university was, as a former poly, still building its research base.

I wonder if something similar is happening now with trying to attract strong undergrads? Then again its so competitive now with unis needing paying students perhaps it's simply competition for 'paying customers'?

Way back when, in the 70s when I was applying for undergrad courses Oxbridge were (as far as I remember) the only universities to give unconditional offezrs (in fact it was two Es at A level as that was the mimimum to get a grant).  But it was expected that any students with such an offer would get something like 3 As (& amongst my acquaintances that happened).

When did this change start ?

I haven’t put my A-levels on my CV since I was 18.  

I’d always imagined for most people their employment history takes over by 30 but perhaps I’m out of touch?

When I was applying for physics in 2005 I was offered some grants of a similar order of magnitude. (I think they were conditional on getting good results, higher than the minimum offer the university was asking for)

This was in the final year before top up fees, so I just mention it to show that its not a brand new thing...

The aspect of getting someone to borrow 9 grand from a loan scheme specifically for student fees with specially attractive repayment conditions then returning 500 quid to the borrower as actual cash that can be spent on anything seems dubious at best and potentially fraudulent.

If they were giving 500 quid off the fees so the student only borrowed £8500 that would be reasonable: it's just a discount to persuade someone to go with a lower quality product.

That was also my experience in 90s (minus the grant). In fact, the Cambridge admissions tutor wrote to the school first to ask them if they thought the student would turn into an idle dosser if they were given an unconditional. However the tutor believed he was getting more responses of the “give them a conditional offer to keep them motivated” when league tables started coming in and becoming more important, so for a while he dropped writing to the school. 

Cambridge stopped doing this in the 2000s when the admissions tutor responsible retired. Can’t say about the newer wave.

Much more likely to be me that's out of touch. Job applications in teaching are quite different to most other sectors so I really have no idea. Jobs I've applied for never ask for a CV but the application forms always ask for details of A-levels. I just assumed that employers taking some slight continued interest in A-levels was normal. Perhaps not.

It appears to be cash. But we won’t be looking in to it in detail!

It is. 

It's bollocks and unethical assuming you assume that Universities stand for some kind of ethical standard.  However, that is a fantasy and since fees where introduced and the cap on numbers lifted it is a shocking greedy free for all. 

It's money off the fees without the University having to lower it's max fees policy (because that would be humiliating PR strife).

What's really unethical is the rampant grade inflation.  Seven times as many students go to University now and they are seven times more likely to get a first. Do you really think that in 20 years the number of first class students has go up nearly 50 fold? It's A-level inflation squared.

Have only skim read this thread.

Financial incentives aside, I never understood - even when I was 17 and doing my UCCA/PCAS applications - why universities were bothered about being your first choice. Who’s counting?

I had an interview at St Johns, Cambridge. I didn’t get an offer but I was “pooled” for a second interview and sent to Magdalene which had been my third choice of Cambridge college. The first question I was asked at Magdalen, quite aggressively, was “why were we a third choice?”. It went downhill from there.

I never experienced an unconditional offer, they seemed to be only for the students absolutely guaranteed to get top grades. I was predicted all A grade but not guaranteed. I was however attractive to many universities because the ERASMUS scheme of “science degree combined with a language skill and a year abroad as undergrad in a continental university” was still fresh and they needed to attract students. So I was offered a place at UMIST for just two A Levels, at B and C. And my Imperial College offer was lower than usual for that institution, at BCC.

In both cases it was because I was doing a language at A level alongside my science and maths . Students applying for the same ERASMUS thing but not doing an A Level language, did not get this treatment.

and so I relaxed my revision, didn’t get stressed out or overdo things, emphasised the “Pure mathematics” as that was my weaker point compared to the physics, chemistry and French, and lo and behold I got an A in maths, a shocking C in French, an expected C in Chemistry, and a disappointing C in Physics. But hey , A,C,C . One grade higher than my Imperial offer.

i went to Imperial 

they were oversubscribed on the ERASMUS course and needed to cull. I was thrown off it in my first week for only having a C in Physics.

Pretty brutal treatment for someone who’s just turned 18 and was predicted all A grades and exceeded the offer.

Fab advice Kate.

I'm still more on wintertree's side with regarding this as too often unethical. Toby A needs to read the Office for Student rules on where such payments may apply.  They are supposed to help social mobility but can easily be abused to help middle class kids from nominally poorer areas. Universities are getting really desperate this year and many have over the years almost completely removed most admissions from academic input. A worrying position.

You didn't know Imperial were brutal back then?

Yeah, universities can be brutal. I turned up at Cambridge after an unconditional offer with 6 As at A levels (well one was general studies, which doesn’t count, but the rest were STEM including Maths and Further Maths plus a language). It turned out that because I’d done modular maths, I did appallingly badly and  none of it made any sense whatsoever until I got reassigned to the ‘remedial maths for non-physical scientists’ group. Humbling for sure!

It was still in place in the early 80s but you had to have passed the entrance exam to get it (said to be the equivalent to those A's). Being from a Comp, my target was 3 A's, an S1 and an S2.

I was 17, from the sticks, and all built up to think I was  part of the elite!

in fairness to Imperial it must be said that even my 2:2 degree from there ensured that I never had to impress at interview for entry into my M.Sc, Ph.D (dropped out by choice), or any job so far...

Not unusual. Almost 20 years ago my wife had a similar offer from Swansea to turn down Oxford. Thankfully she didn't take them up on it.

I have no interest in being fair to Imperial from those days. They failed large numbers of top entry grade students who tried to cope. They were supposed to be a University, not an intellectual SAS selection camp.

Strikes me that there's not much that's ethical in the way that educational opportunity is configured in financial terms. This kind of reductionism significantly diverts from enabling bright & committed people from considering university (see the Sutton Trust stuff on this). Moreover, the market-led 'industry' has been out of control for some time. I feel rather ashamed that, as a higher education 'insider' (prof at a uni) I've had no impact on changing this direction of travel. Greater embarrassment because I was of that generation that benefited from a 'free' university education. I comes down ultimately, as in the case of health & social care, to where we (as a nation) opt to spend our money (via elected government).

Sorry that this is rantish & slightly away from your OP. In response to that, I'd be interested to know whether it was the 'former poly' (a soubriquet that is still unfortunately with us) that suggested the unconditional/cash offer? Irrespective, its a shabby approach and universities at large ought to get their houses in order. Hopes and dreams are openly being messed with in the current course-fee circus.

The widespread use of unconditional offers seems a bad development to me.  My daughter is applying for maths courses; she's got a bunch of perfectly fair offers from good universities - 3 As, generally, quite achievable but will keep her stretched.  But she's disgruntled because friends of hers are getting unconditionals.

I taught at a Cambridge college in the 90's - we did give out 2E offers, but very rarely (certainly no more than one a year) to candidates who were obviously so exceptionally talented and motivated that there would be no question that they'd do very well.  IIRC it was Birmingham that started the modern trend to use them as a marketing tool (in the Russell Group at least), a year or two after the numbers cap was lifted.  There was much disquiet at the time amongst other RG universities that this would cause a race to the bottom, which seems to be exactly what's happened.  

I agree 100%, my comment was tongue in cheek, maybe too subtle and an in-joke that I only could see. Aside from my not having been a top grade student, my own story matches your comment perfectly and I saw it happen to others. That’s why their degree class boundaries are 10% lower than the average (70% for a First, 60% for a 2nd, 50% for a 2:2, 40% for a Third and 30% for a “Pass”, yes they let you out with a degree if you have failed to understand 70% of your course!

And yes i got that 2:2 because I was so disheartened at my being dumped off my course in my first week, that I didn’t want to apply myself to my studies any more.

and yes it still opened doors for me , because other institutions and employers know that if you get out in one piece , you’re tough and tenacious!

Most graduates leave the grades off the CV unless they are consistently at A or A*. I don't do much graduate recruitment nowadays but it was always my policy to ask for the grades as I found it the most reliable indicator of intellectual capacity (better than degree grade or GCSE), along with the reputation of the university they attended and the "seriousness" of their course choice. All the more so since recent developments mean that every Tom Dick and Harry gets at least a 2:1.

After 30, or even 27, who cares?

On my computing courses less than 30% of the entry cohort end up with a 2.1 or higher. What happened to recruiting women?

Haven't read all the thread so apologies if following has been sad before.

My son is a teacher and tells me that if students get an unconditional offer many don't work hard thereafter as entry doesn't depend on their results. The school's  A level results rating drops and the students are less prepared for their uni course.

Birmingham being the first to exploit the use is common gossip but are there any publicly avialable stats to back this up. It would also be good to have a web source to look at the current breakdown of their use by instiitution and subject.

UCAS talk up the positives (some of these are real, especially for students with mental health problems) but this sort of argument  flies in the face of the scale of their growth.

https://www.ucas.com/data-and-analysis/undergraduate-statistics-and-reports...

I was amused rather when I retrained as a teacher at the start of my 40s and was required to put not just A level grades but GCSE grades on job applications - this being in addition to my first degree (an MA having studied in Scotland), a post grad MA, a PhD and the PGCE. Fortunately my Mum being both organised and seemingly quite proud of her kids, had all my original GCSE results slips from 1989!

Nothing public, but I was a PVC at another Russell Group uni at the time and it was the sort of thing we'd talk about at RG meetings.  I do accept that there can be positives to their use when tailored to individual circumstances; it's their wholesale deployment to generate firm acceptances early in the cycle that I think is problematic.

Thanks. I've seen several UCAS FoI requests rejected but there was some Russell Group details on a Times Higher Institutional FoI based report. I'd missed this which indicates some broader information might be available soon:

https://wonkhe.com/blogs/lets-stop-using-unconditional-offers-as-an-incenti...

Not all students do that. My stepdaughter got an unconditional offer from one university (a pretty good one at that) but she really wanted to do a particular course at another university which was extremely hard to get onto but she really worked really hard and got the grades to get in (we was well chuffed for her). I think it helped her knowing that she had a back stop in case she had a meltdown. It depends on the person (but I get the point that this can affect school ratings).

On the matter of the £ 500 I got the impression, at the time, that many universities whilst charging the full tuition grant "on paper" offered some kind of reduction as an "incentive". Maybe that situation has changed in the past couple of years.

This gives the details of what OfS require of institutional financial support; it should be aimed to promote equal opportunities.

https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/promoting-equal-op...

https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/promoting-equal-op...

Far less qualified than you (just a B.Sc and M.Sc) but I think had to dredge up GCSE grades for my application to the job I started 4 years ago despite it not even being a career change like yours (I remain in the industry that had already employed me gainfully for 12 years, with several years of postgrad study preceding THAT, including a successful patent application as an M.Sc student)

I believe this was just because it was via a recruitment agency though, so possibly a standard form for all applications regardless of level.

I’m not sure I even remember my O-level grades. Possibly not even the full 10 subjects I studied!

But I haven’t produced a CV either since I sought to leave my first job back in 1986!

Good to hear. You’ll be aware of the wider statistics however.

I’ve recruited as many good ones as I can find. Working in computers you should know that we haven’t enjoyed the opportunity nearly enough.

It is the ex-poly that have made this offer. Sorry if that wasn't clear in my original post.

My general question for this thread got a little bit buried.

Why does any university want so much to be an applicant's first choice? Does UCAS actually collate this data and distribute it so that institutions can use it in their marketing? It is the ONLY reason that I can think of. Clearly I have a mental block and am missing something. 

I'm not aware of any sector stats that show most computing students get a 2:1 or higher. Some institutions do meet that but normally graduate stats are provided, ignoring all the fails and withdrawls. Also on stats for every Tom, Dick and Harry there should be a Sue.

I’m not talking about computing students. Graduates from more traditional subjects are more interesting to us. And here’s your statistic

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/universities-biggest-shares-21s-a...

As for Sue, you’re right of course and I already pointed out in my last post that we've taken as many good quality Harriets as we can. Why did you need to repeat the point?

I'm sure that knowing how many students want to attend helps with their planning and making offers.

Getting shirty with applicants who don't place them first is just petty, though. I'm sure I would have responded with something along the lines of 'because I don't think your course is as good'...

I'm not the admissions tutor but im on the team and this is my understanding (not as complete as Kates)

Students have can hold only 2 choices: Conditional Firm (CF 1st) and Conditional Insurance (CI 2nd) plus of course 'Adjustment' or Clearing which happens after results and allows you to look about for what's available (if you did better or worse)

You can (sic) hold a CI with higher/equal grades but if you get the grades for CF you cannot go to CI you are committed to CF (or Adjustment)

So Unis want to be CF.  We had to put our offer up to equal competitors, (now AAA) so we wouldn't be CI even though more suitable.  It matters being CF and we are all target driven.

To the OP: morals -hmm this is now business and the whole application system sucks IMHO. It's a game where we are trying hard to get the best students we can and meet our targets (hence we will accept students below AAA - or rather we have for last 5 years and see no reason for that to change).   Unis are trying to 'game' the system.

I'm with Kate, find out where you want to go for the many complex reasons and apply there. I tell students that on open days; if we are not right for you (wrong sort of Psychology) go where you will be happy.

Thanks! Yes! “You can (sic) hold a CI with higher/equal grades but if you get the grades for CF you cannot go to CI you are committed to CF (or Adjustment)”

that was the bit I’d been missing! Totally forgot it. The whole “did you get into your first choice”. Absolute minefield, having to play those strategies at 17

Yeah, from experience Birmingham have made more energetic use of the unconditional offer to pre-A level candidates than quite a few of the other RG universities. Mine has been accused of making lots of unconditional offers, but we don't make any to pre-A level candidates - we just have more post-A level candidates applying.

One of the things about wanting to get applicants to put you down as their CF (firm) offer is that stats indicate CFs are far more likely to go to your institution than CIs or applicants through clearing. Whilst in theory an institution could hang on to a CF student and refuse to release them to their CI institution, it's a buyer's (or applicant's) market out there and forcing students to come to your place isn't an approach that'll lead to happy, well-motivated students!

That is the proportions of awards to students who achieve honours degrees. It doesn't include Ordinary Degrees, other fallback awards (eg Dip HE for a year 2 pass) withdrawals, fails (final year direct entry who don't achieve enough credit points for an Ordinary or breach regulations preventing an award) or students who don't make it to the final year. It therefore gives a false impression of outcomes. I personally think the levels are too high but what do you expect in an artificial market where higher proportions of 'good degrees' end up pushing you higher on league tables.

On Harrietts, I just misread that part of your post (that it was an answer to that question).

Mmm - I thought that might be the case. I think that this kind of action does little to improve the public standing of post-1992 establishments.

The article doesn't make that distinction, but neither does it provide much granularity to the data:

"Eight out of 10 students got a first or a 2:1 at almost 50 UK universities last year, according to the latest figures on degree classifications.

At 10 institutions more than 90 per cent of students managed to attain the two highest degree classes, while at almost a quarter of the country’s universities at least 30 per cent of those graduating got a first."

You're better placed than me to know the full facts so I won't question your assertion.

No worries

It's just lazy wording. As an example in recent years less than 70% of students entering my department made it to the final year and of those who did about 90% achieved honours (some up to a year later), a few percent Ordinary a few percent Cert HE, a few percent withdrew and the odd student fail. We are a bit unusual in that we have a biggish entry  partnership with a UK based, overseas recruiting, private college, where until very recently there was a mismatch that made our progression and good degrees worse than we would like (standard UK entry progression to final year was more like 85% and good degrees about typical for the subject in a good post 92...still a good bit lower than those headline stats).

A degree is hard work and all sorts of personal problems, even for the brightest of students, can make high achievement in that a difficult task.

Thanks Kate and sorry that your first post on here was one of those I overlooked during skim-Reading prior to my first post.