Why are some universities so ridiculously hard to get into?
Whether you are applying to university yourself, or are helping and advising students, you’ll have all heard the same stories: a student predicted A*A*A*, with an excellent Personal Statement and Reference gets rejected from a top university. Come A-level results day, some of these students will find themselves with no offers at all, and might even find themselves as a headline in the press.
But why is this? Why are amazing, talented students so frequently finding themselves rejected by universities, when there seems to be nothing wrong at all with their applications?
Well, to understand, we need to go back a few steps.
Some universities, you see, have insane levels of demand. Literally thousands of students applying for a handful of places.
If you look at the UCAS end of cycle statistics for 2023, you will find a highly prestigious institution in London who received more than 26,000 applications in the main UCAS cycle, for just 1,800 places. That’s 14.4 applications per place. Meanwhile, a perfectly respectable modern university in the midlands received just 16,000 applications, for 6,500 places. That’s just 2.5 applicants per place. And equally importantly, the applicants for the institution in London were almost certainly all holding predictions of AAA or better. While those to our university in the midlands were almost certainly not.
So why is this? Why do so many bright, intelligent students all want to study at the same place? I have a few ideas…
Universities in the UK, you see, are businesses; they are part of a market, but not a free one.
Universities used to be seen as public organisations. They, just like state schools, provided education in exchange for government funding; agreeing their student numbers on an annual basis with the funding agencies.
Over time that has changed. First with the introduction of low-level fees (initially £1,000) in 1997, and then with the introduction of much steeper fees (initially £9,000) in 2012. In 2013, the then Minister for Universities, David Willetts, made it clear that he regarded universities as being “in the private sector”.
But, importantly, universities in the UK aren’t part of a free market, where they can charge whatever they like for their courses. They are actually part of one of the most tightly controlled, highly regulated markets of all, each restricted to a maximum tuition fee of £9,250 per year. Yep, the maximum fees have gone up by less than 3% in more than a decade.
And yet, £9,250 per year is still an awful lot for you to consider paying for a year’s tuition. It means that you will graduate with a debt of nearly £30,000 (and that’s before you start looking at living costs or longer degree courses).
Now, I was working at the University of Leicester in 2010. We didn’t know for sure how much the next government would raise tuition fees by, and so we wanted to understand what would happen to demand if the government raised student tuition fees by differing amounts. We asked thousands of questions to thousands of students, giving them choices between different universities at different price points, with different levels of variation in terms of scholarships and bursaries.
What we found was fascinating.
If fees were raised to a fixed £9,000, students would very clearly start to choose the most prestigious universities. Essentially, if students were going to be forced to pay a lot for their university, they wanted to make sure it was a good one.
And so it turned out, when in 2012, the fees were introduced.
Why? Well, to use an analogy, imagine the car industry operated in one of the following three ways…
Cars are free: The result? Cars aren’t valued all that much, so on the whole people don’t mind if they get a Fiat or a BMW. Some people don’t want a car at all.
Cars vary in price, with BMWs being expensive and Fiats cheap: In this case, the market controls demand. Some people have money to spend, and choose to spend it on a BMW, perceiving it to have real value to them. Others don’t have money, or would rather spend it on something else, and so they buy a Fiat, or don’t buy a car at all!
Cars all cost £27,000, regardless of the brand: Guess what? Cars are expensive, so more people think they have value, and more people want one. In particular they want a BMW, ‘cause no-one wants to spend £27,000 on a Fiat.
And that, in a nutshell, is why so many students apply to the most prestigious universities. Because you know you are spending a lot of money, and you want to feel that you are spending it on something that has a good reputation and is a quality product.
Of course, there is more to it than this.
Universities spend millions on marketing, and the truth is, the larger, more successful universities are able to spend more.
The influence of the league tables and rankings are powerful (see my article all about those!).
There is a question mark about why successful universities don’t just expand? But the reality is that with fees capped at £9,250, many universities lose money on every UK student. They simply can’t afford to expand.
International student fees, of course, ARE uncapped, and while many universities maintain the same entry standards across UK and international students, some do not, which is why for some courses, it is easier for international applicants to get in.
But in essence, prestigious universities are so popular simply because if you are paying a lot of money for tuition fees regardless of where you go, you want assurances about quality.
Does that mean you should all continue to follow this trend, and apply to the most prestigious universities? Honestly, I understand why you may want to do this, but let’s remember: if you follow prestige, you are effectively following what everyone else thinks is important, not what you think is important.
There are so many better ways to find quality in your choice of university, and so I really hope you keep reading my newsletters and listening to my podcasts as I discuss all the other ways to make better university choices.
