Ucas says 23% of this year’s school leavers have had at least one unconditional offer

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The number of students receiving unconditional offers for university places has leapt again this year, prompting calls for an overhaul of the UK’s convoluted and unreliable university admissions process.

Ucas figures show that nearly one in four 18-year-olds applying from England, Wales and Northern Ireland have received an unconditional offer – meaning they can accept an undergraduate place without meeting the A-level or BTech grades predicted by their teachers.

According to Ucas, 23% of this year’s cohort have been made at least one unconditional offer. In 2016 the proportion was a little under 13%, and in 2013 it was just 1% – meaning the number of students benefiting has risen from 2,500 five years ago to 58,000 this year.

Policymakers attribute the sharp rise to changes made by the government since 2012, especially the lifting of a cap on student numbers at individual institutions and the rise in tuition fees to up to £9,000 a year, giving universities an incentive to recruit as many students as is practical.

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The University and College Union (UCU)called for an overhaul of university admissions to allow students to apply after receiving their exam results.



“The proliferation of unconditional offers is detrimental to the interests of students and it is time the UK joined the rest of the world in basing university offers on actual achievements instead on guesswork,” said Sally Hunt, UCU’s general secretary.

Sir Peter Lampl, founder of the Sutton Trust, said moving to post-exam applications would benefit students from disadvantaged families, whose grade predictions were often the least reliable.



“Having actual grades on application empowers the student. They can pick the right course at the right university with a high degree of certainty they are making the right choice,” Lampl said.



Sam Gyimah, the higher education minister, said the offers showed universities were more interested in “putting bums on seats” than helping students.

“Along with the Office for Students, I am closely monitoring the number being issued and fully expect the regulator to take appropriate action. The rise in unconditional offers is completely irresponsible to students and universities must start taking a lead by limiting the number they offer,” Gyimah said.



Prof Graham Galbraith, vice-chancellor of the University of Portsmouth, said his institution’s unconditional offers were part of a carefully designed programme allowing for earlier engagement with students.



“When mental health problems among the young are on the rise – as well as a substantial rise in ‘perfectionism’, the combination of excessively high personal standards and overly harsh self-criticism – we believe that the sense of security an unconditional offer provides can be extremely important,” Galbraith said.

There has been little research into the effect of unconditional offers, although a previous Ucas paper suggested students holding unconditional offers may have underperformed against their expected entry grades.

Galbraith said that at Portsmouth, students who took up unconditional offers and achieved their predicted grades were awarded a vice-chancellor’s scholarship worth up to £1,000.

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Alistair Jarvis, the chief executive of Universities UK, said unconditional offers made up only 7% of the 950,000 total offers to 250,000 school leavers this year, and it was “simply not in the interests of universities to take students without the potential to succeed”.

Nick Hillman, the head of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: “University autonomy means little if universities aren’t free to set their own admissions policies. Banning unconditional offers is therefore unwise as well as illiberal.

“It probably is time for a new debate on post-qualification admissions but if you were to ban unconditional offers and move to a post-qualification system, it would have the odd effect of putting excessive focus on exam results rather than candidates’ all-round potential.”

The controversy mainly affects school-leavers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland applying to UK universities. In Scotland, a majority of school-leavers applying have already been awarded SQA Highers and their data was excluded from the Ucas analysis.

Ucas said that unconditional offers were more common for older students who already held qualifications, to creative arts course applicants who submit portfolios or attend auditions, and for students with mental health difficulties.