Just who are admissions tutors anyway?

This newsletter is all about you making better university choices, and of course, making a great application. But what of the universities? They make decisions too, and most specifically they’ll decide whether to accept your application and offer you a place!

In this article, I’ll give you a bit of insight into how universities make decisions, who makes the decisions, and the processes they use.

What really drives university admissions?

Admissions targets; it’s all about the money!

Make no mistake, universities are large, corporate organisations, and while their business is knowledge and education, they need money to run. For all universities, student tuition fees make up a large chunk of their income. So what really drives student admissions is money. 

Some budgets in a university are co-ordinated at the centre (things like spending on libraries, IT, buildings, administration etc.), but other budgets (things like direct spending on courses and academic staff) will be co-ordinated by Faculties or Departments. And at most universities, tuition fee income is budgeted for at Departmental or Faculty level. This means that in most universities, a Department or a Faculty will decide how many students they think they need to bring in to meet their financial plans, BUT they will need to agree these plans with the central university administration, so that the whole university can survive and thrive too! 

The number of students required to bring in the right level of income is known as an admissions or intake target. Once each Department or Faculty has agreed its student intake target with the central administration, then Admissions, Marketing and the individual Departments work together to meet those targets.

League tables

As well as attempting to hit financial targets, many universities will also be looking to do well in league table positions. One of the key measures in every UK university league table is entry standards. Given the importance of league tables in steering student choice, universities will always want to raise their entry standards (i.e. the A-level and other grades achieved by students they admit).

As with the setting of financial targets, the mechanisms for setting entry grades will differ from university to university. You will typically find that at the more selective universities, this again takes place at departmental level, while at less selective universities, decisions on minimum entry standards will normally be taken by a central team.

For many years, I helped set the entry grades for the University of Leicester, researching competitor grades, and preparing proposals. But these proposals were always then agreed by negotiation with the departmental admissions tutors.

Teaching students who want to learn and grow

A lot of courses nowadays are filled relatively mechanistically, by which I mean that if you have the right predicted grades in the right subjects, you will get a place. However, for many courses, this is not the case, and ultimately the academic staff who teach at university want more than anything to teach students who want to learn and grow.

Where you have a course that is competitive for entry, whether it is an academic course at a prestigious university, or a professional or creative course at any university, you will find that the overriding motivation they will have for admitting one student over the next will be exactly this: they want students who will learn and grow. Their admissions methods, practices and processes will be designed to find this. And their academic teaching staff will be involved right at the centre of this.

So, who exactly is involved in making decisions?

Broadly speaking, there are two types of people who might be involved in making decisions on your application: academics and administrators.

Academics

Many courses have admissions that are led by the academics from the department you’ll be studying. In some cases they will be fresh to the process, perhaps new staff who have just been given the job of admissions (when maybe they didn’t really want it!). In other cases they will be senior staff, who take the job very seriously, having maybe done the role for years (in some cases decades!).

Either way, they will want to admit students who they would like to teach, and they will be super-keen to see that you are informed about their subject, and are motivated to learn. They have devoted their lives to their studies, and while they won’t necessarily expect that level of commitment from you quite yet, the last thing they want is someone in their class who isn’t really bothered, who will slack off when the going gets tough.

But, they will never-the-less read your application quickly, as the one thing that academics don’t typically have is a load of spare time.

Administrators

Other courses have admissions processes that are led by administrators. They may be fairly junior staff, perhaps recent graduates, who are trained to look for specific things in applications. Or they may be highly skilled professionals with years of experience in admissions, trusted by the university or the department to make good judgements.

What’s their motivation? Well, normally they’ll simply be matching your application to a list of agreed criteria, in which case their motivation is to be fair, to ensure they treat all applicants the same, and to make decisions swiftly but without mistakes. And just like academics, they will read your application quickly as they may well have hundreds to read. 

The admissions process

So, how does the admissions process at universities actually work in practice? It’s worth stressing at this point that there is huge variation in universities. Some use very simple, basic manual processes, while others have set up expensive and slick IT systems. Some have stripped down the decisions to the absolute essentials and are able to ensure decisions are quick, seamless and largely transparent. Others apply a huge level of individual care and attention, applying personal judgement to every decision, meaning decision times can be lengthy, and understanding outcomes can be tricky. Despite the differences, there are some general principles that apply across most of the sector that I’ll attempt to describe here.

The first pass

Your UCAS form will be received by the university through their admissions IT system. The system will generate a list of new applications on a daily basis, and most likely a university administrator will be the first person to then bring up your application form and look at it for the first time. They could then be doing one of three things.

Firstly, they may simply be checking that the application is complete before forwarding it on to a decision-maker. If it is complete, they pass it on, if it’s not, they might get in touch with you.

Secondly, they could be making an initial decision, rejecting those who do not meet an agreed initial threshold, and passing the rest of the applications on for further consideration.

Thirdly, they could actually be not just the first, but also the final decision maker. They may accept, or reject your application themselves. Straight off. No further discussion needed.

The main decision

After the initial pass, there will in most cases be further decisions to take or processes to go through. Administrators are most likely to be involved in organising these, whether they be interviews, selection tests, or an academic decision, but while the administrators organise, very often academics will make the final decisions.

That decision could be based on a holistic examination of the form, qualifications, personal statement and reference. Or it could be based on all those other interviews, tests, auditions, portfolios etc. and could involve several different decision-makers. 

Once the decision is taken, it will be for the admissions administrators to put that decision into UCAS and to get in touch with you.

Monitoring the decisions, marketing, and checking the outcomes

Once decisions have been made, the admissions office, and each department, will watch nervously as the applicants (that's you!) make their decisions. They’ll be checking the offer numbers and the acceptances against previous years, potentially adjusting offer levels to take account of higher or lower than expected outcomes.

And of course, they’ll be getting in touch with you, inviting you to visit days and generally trying to persuade you to take up their offer!

When results day comes around, they will see whether they have more places available, and if so, they will decide whether to offer these additional places to those applicants who just missed their conditions, and/or whether to offer these places in clearing for brand new applicants.

Admissions policy and governance

All of the above activity will generally be overseen by some kind of a university committee which will be made up of academics from across the university plus senior recruitment and admissions staff, generally chaired by a member of the senior management team (probably a pro-vice-chancellor). They are responsible for upholding whatever regulations the university has in place for admissions, normally covering fairness, transparency and standards.

They will generally meet around 6 times a year, and will make decisions each year on entry grades (such as A-level grades and English Language requirements), monitor the admissions data, and decide whether any changes in targets or offers may be needed as each admissions cycle progresses. They may also take an interest in the recruitment activities of the university, such as open days, schools’ liaison and other marketing activities.

So… what can you take from all of this?

Admissions is complicated

And it’s not the same for each university or for each course. You won’t be able to find out everything there is to know about every course you are applying for, but you can certainly make it your business to find out the basics: What are the published entry grades? Is there an admissions test required? Will there be an interview or an audition? If so, who with, and what will be involved? Make sure you know the timelines for all of this. For admissions to universities, information really is power.

Admissions is ultimately a human endeavour

Understanding that a human being will look at your form (and especially your personal statement) is critical, as is having a little insight into their motivation. So make sure everything in your application is super-clear, and super-accurate. Don’t let your application fall at the first hurdle because some information is missing. And make sure that everything you know about the subject you are applying for is obvious, and your motivation to learn more literally jumps off the page. This way your application will appeal to both administrators and academics!

Universities take fairness seriously

That’s why they have policies and governance structures in place. But mistakes can and do happen. So if you think anything has happened to your application that wasn’t fair or right, and if you think the process has gone wrong, do not hesitate to reach out and ask what has happened. You will be taken seriously.

What next?

For more hints and tips on how to navigate the complex world of admissions, why not have a look at: Just how ambitious should you be with your initial five UCAS choices?