Image copyright Chris Ison

Scotland's top universities have been urged to be upfront with students and teachers about their admissions policy.

The call comes from the Sutton Trust which wants poorer students given better access to higher education.

The charity called for "contextualised admissions" where universities admitted poorer students with lower grades.

It said that although some institutions were operating a similar policy, many were not making it clear to potential applicants.

Young Scots from disadvantaged areas are about four times less likely to go to university than those from wealthy backgrounds, according to the latest research.

Care responsibilities

The Scottish government want to have students from the 20% most deprived backgrounds representing 20% of entrants to higher education by 2030.

In its latest report, Admissions in Context, the Sutton Trust looked at universities across the UK, including Glasgow, Edinburgh, St Andrews and Strathclyde.

It found that all the universities would give consideration to applicants who had spent time in care.

Other factors such as whether applicants had long-term care responsibilities or were refugees or asylum seekers were considered as relevant by some but not others.

The authors found that attempts to widen access through greater use of contextual data was hampered by a lack of information available to applicants.

Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption Glasgow University considers whether potential students have come from a low income family

The report said: "This lack of transparency is a barrier to access, as potentially eligible students - often those with fewer networks and least access to information - might be unaware that they would benefit from contextual admissions processes."

The Sutton Trust said that by reducing entry offers by two grades, universities could potentially increase the number of students eligible for free school meals who are admitted to the top universities by about 50%.

Conor Ryan, director of research at the trust said: "Scottish universities are already looking at imaginative ways to improve access, and they have nothing to fear from contextual admissions or the minimum threshold proposed by the commission on widening access.

"What's important is that they are upfront with students and teachers about their policies. Contextual admissions can help access particularly to the ancients."

Universities Scotland, which represents Scotland's 19 higher education institutions, said it welcomed the report.

Director Alastair Sim said the findings chimed with recommendations from Scotland's own commission on improving access, which is due to be published in the next few weeks.

He said: "We're very pleased to see the Sutton Trust attach so much importance to greater consistency and transparency in the way universities contextualise admissions."

He added: "Scotland's universities have been focused on this and we intend to take bold new steps on the consistency, transparency and promotion of our contextualised admissions in the next few weeks."