Clearing Archives - Johnny Rich

University admissions: what’s the real problem?

Johnny Rich — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 21:58:02 +0000

This slide, presented by UCAS’s Chief Executive Clare Marchant at a recent event hosted by Wonkhe on higher education admissions, shows starkly the correlation between clearing and drop-out that I have been banging on about since the 1990s.

Image: UCAS

In actual fact, it doesn’t quite show that.

What it does show is a clear link between those students who drop-out and those students who arrive at university specifically through the ‘direct to clearing’ (DTC) route. This is an unusual pathway, often used by students other than your typical decent-grades-18-year-old school-leaver. So there would be nothing surprising if their outcomes in terms of drop-out weren’t the same as other students. In other words, it is conceivable that the correlation between clearing and drop-out is peculiar to (or more pronounced among) DTC applicants.

I don’t think so and I have good evidence for thinking otherwise. For several years around the turn of the millennium, Push published data showing that what we called ‘flunk rates’ (the percentage who drop-out or fail) and the proportion of students that each HEI admitted through clearing (using data that the universities themselves supplied). The two datasets had a correlation coefficient of 0.91 – in other words, they were close to identical lists.

The media was understandably very interested and I did the media rounds trying to let the figures speak for themselves.

Most universities, even those who had provided their clearing data to Push, dismissed or denied any meaningful link. There were some notable exceptions – vice-chancellors who, rather than blame the messenger, recognised that there may be a problem here.

All I was trying to say was that the data suggested that hasty choices might lead to regret and students without their hoped-for grades should be cautious if looking for clearing options and should consider reapplying instead.

Meanwhile, UCAS itself was also disputing the connection, promoting the line that clearing was the best way to get a university place if you hadn’t made your grades. To be fair, they were relying on data that was even less complete than mine.

Push had surveyed the universities themselves, asking them to self-declare the proportion accepted through clearing. Around two-thirds responded and the numbers that were being reported to us were, on average about 75% higher than UCAS’s data suggested. Bearing in mind that one might imagine that those universities with the highest clearing rates might be the least likely to share their data, it appeared that the official clearing process was recording perhaps less than half the numbers accepted through that route.

What’s more, the proportion entering through clearing appears to have grown since then (as student numbers have continued to rise), although even that growth may merely be the true scale of clearing being more accurately recorded. Even now though, there is what Mark Corver (DataHE‘s admissions number-cruncher extraordinaire) calls a “twilight zone of UCAS data” – the RPAs or ‘record of prior acceptance’ students – and that number is also growing. If the number of students entering through clearing really is rising, it may mean the proportion of students who end up dropping out will rise too.

At this point, let me make it absolutely clear: correlation is not causation and I’m not claiming it is.

It is perfectly possible that arriving through clearing is not the reason why students drop out. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say that, even if it is a reason, it is not the only one. Maybe, for example, clearing gets you into universities whose drop-out rate is higher for an unrelated reason; maybe those who more likely to drop-out are more likely to opt to enter through clearing; or maybe clearing and drop-out share a separate unconnected cause, such as being less well advised.

That said, it didn’t take a genius to see that rash choices were being made by students and universities alike and that there were (and still are) a lot of poor matches arising from the chaos of clearing.

This has really important repercussions as we consider switching to a system of post-qualifications admissions (PQA).

Drop-out is only ever the tip of the iceberg. Most students battle on regardless. After all, let’s remember what drop-out means: you’ve got the student debts, you’ve probably blown your chance of being state-funded throughout a degree, and yet you’ve got nothing to show for it. Worse that that, you have a black hole in your CV which employers might (unfairly) look on as a mark of failure.

Behind the drop-out data, there are thousands of stories of hopes shattered and opportunities dashed. And for every person that drops out, there are many more for whom higher education has been so much less than it could or should have been.

That’s why the admissions system must deliver good matches between students and unis.

It is also why the Department for Education’s unequivocal support for PQA is ill-thought out. The last time the government was beguiled into thinking PQA was a good idea (in 2011), at least they had the sense to announce an investigation first rather than preempting any consideration of the practicalities. This time, the Secretary of State announced a consultation would be launched in advance of the introduction of PQA (betraying either a misunderstanding or contempt for the point of consultations).

PQA does look very attractive in principle because it is assumed to mean an end to predicted grades and clearing. However, in practice it probably means an end to neither – and, while failing to make anything better, it might make other matters far worse.

Teachers would still need to use predicted grades to ‘guide’ students to consider applying to HEIs that might accept them – which would need to be done in advance of actual grades so that students could visit them in order to make an informed choice.

While that means HEIs would not be using predictions to make offers, students would still be using them to make applications. The supposed unfairness and lack of reliability of predictions would still be a big factor, but they’d be even less transparent and harder to mitigate. In any case, as Mark Corver (again) has effectively argued, predicted grades are perhaps no less imperfect that actual grades and any bias may not be quite as Gill Wyness, among others, has argued.

Furthermore, unless you shift the date that grades are published and/or the academic year start by months, you’d be compressing application activity into a matter of a few weeks. In other words, rather than no clearing, everyone would be in clearing.

Not only would clearing have to sort about eight times as many applicants, but they would have to go through the whole application system without the support and guidance of their schools and colleges which, by then, the students would have left.

There are ways that PQA could be made to work (I’ve written on this blog about this), but, unsurprisingly, it’s neither as simple nor as attractive as Gavin Williamson’s announcement seemed to assume it to be. It would take more far more fundamental and far-reaching changes to post-16 education. (We can chalk this up to the long list of reasons why radical reform might be a good idea, even though no government is ever likely to grasp those nettles and use them to make nettle pyjamas.)

DfE imagines that what needs fixing about admissions is the unconditional offers and unreliability of predictions. In fact, the more serious problems are those connected with poor choices about what and where to study. These build higher hidden hurdles for the disadvantaged. All applicants need to be able to make well informed, supported choices over time.

The post University admissions: what’s the real problem? appeared first on Johnny Rich.

Why PQA should not be PDQ

Johnny Rich — Thu, 09 May 2013 19:46:04 +0000

How solving a small problem like clearing could help solve a big one like youth unemployment: This is an article I wrote some time ago for a publication which never used it because, while it was waiting to be published, UCAS announced the results of its consultation on its proposals for a post-qualification application process. That consultation – quite rightly – dismissed those proposals as effectively not removing the clearing process, but putting everyone into it. PQA was off the table and my modest proposal below never saw the light of day.

Outside of old people’s homes and Daily Mail editorial meetings, it’s not that fashionable these days to call for a return of National Service, but that’s just what I’m going to do. Sort of. Bear with me.

It all starts with university clearing. Who is exactly is it supposed to help? Universities? Students? UCAS? Because it isn’t working.

During clearing, wannabe students who haven’t found places through the usual admissions system make rash choices about courses and institutions. The correlation between the proportion a uni accepts through clearing and their flunk rate suggests strongly that these are decisions the students – or possibly the universities – come to regret.

Poor choices don’t help universities either. Sure, they put bums on seats, keeping undersubscribed courses ticking over till the next year of unwilling students land in front of an increasingly demoralised lecturer. But universities know deep down that they should be making their offering available to the students for whom it is most suited, not those left on the shelf by the admissions system.

Even UCAS – normally a well oiled machine (or at least a reliable clockwork automaton) – has its cogs stressed by the disorderly panic of students without places and places without students. It can descend into chaos. A couple of years ago a student told me he had been offered a place during clearing at a university that shall remain nameless after failing the A level in his chosen degree subject. The university told him, “Well, at least you failed in the right subject”.

Clearing is like a jumble sale: a lot of people get hurt in the crush to buy something most people wouldn’t want.

I’m not saying there are no bargains to be had. Many of the courses on offer during clearing are well taught courses which would benefit certain students greatly in developing themselves and their employability. However, clearing is not the best way for those niche students and niche courses to find each other.

And who does it hurt most? The students who are most desperate and least well advised. The ones for who the cost of going to university is challenging enough already and the prospect of extra fees because they have dropped out of a course will be disastrous. In other words, it’s those same students from deprived or non-traditional backgrounds who are constantly disenfranchised by the system.

So what can we do instead? The Government and UCAS have been absolutely right to explore the possibility of a post-qualification admissions system (PQA), but UCAS’s current plan runs the risk of making matters worse by effectively shoving everyone into “New Improved Clearing (now with added weeks!)” rather than taking anyone out of it.

There is no way around the problem that A levels take time to teach and can only be fully assessed at the end of teaching, that assessment takes time and a well considered admissions process also takes time. There’s just not enough time in the system before the start of the university year in Autumn.

So, how about we start the year at, well, the start of the year? Or how about different institutions offer different start times? Some might even offer a choice of starting points. Whenever the year starts, the admissions process runs from August (when results are published) to December and you start university as soon after that as the institution offers a starting date.

But hold on, what do we do with all these errant youths who’ll now have nothing better to do with themselves but tear up our streets while they wait for term to begin? That’s where National Service comes in.

I’m not suggesting military service nor even a compulsory conscription into any activity. I’m suggesting that it would be good to introduce a period when young people have the explicit opportunity to improve either themselves, their society or both. Similar National Social Service schemes already operate in many countries including, very successfully, in Germany.

This particular stone could slaughter many birds. Employers bemoan the lack of employment skills and work experience among graduates. Academics grumble about their inability to spell or speak clearly. In this mini-gap year, students could play catch-up on these skills (or learn a language or improve their computer wizardry). They could do voluntary work, travel (if they can afford it) or just get a job for a while. The point is that they would be free to focus on what will make them more rounded, employable people.

In order to work, the Government would have to establish a programme of opportunities – with funding. Certain activities, depending on their social benefit or potential for personal development would attract a small grant for the school leaver. So, for example, for doing a six-month course in business skills, working as an unpaid trainee in a crèche or volunteering for an environmental charity, a school leaver might get £40 a week, say (not perhaps so different from the EMA that the Government possibly now regrets despatching so hastily).

Everyone (including those who have no intention of going to university) would have the opportunity to do up to six months of such activities during their year after leaving school. And if they choose activities that aren’t on the Government’s list of supported schemes, but rather swan off backpacking in the Punjab or doing other Gap Yah jollies, then that’s fine, but they’re not entitled to the grant.

As a scheme this is intended not merely to slice up the Clearing problem, but also to fry some much bigger fish in the process: the skills gap and the (supposed) lack of engagement in society among our young people. It would involve a willingness to embrace change on the part of our universities (but possibly only among those who suffer at the hands of the clearing system).

It would also need money from the public purse. However, the costs would not be as high as all that and when compared with the savings and the investment (the flunking students, the dole pay-outs, the better qualified workforce, the free work done on social projects, etc), it looks like a good deal. What’s more, it’s got Big Society written all over it and simply the words ‘National Service’ might raise the pulses of Tory vote-wranglers, so, who knows? Maybe the Government could get behind it.

The post Why PQA should not be PDQ appeared first on Johnny Rich.