What happens between an application being sent from a school to UCAS, and a decision being returned to a student? In this episode I delve inside the black box of UK university admissions with Paul Teulon, Director of Admissions & Registry Services at King's College, London.
What happens between an application being sent from a school to UCAS, and a decision being returned to a student? In this episode I delve inside the black box of UK university admissions with Paul Teulon, Director of Admissions & Registry Services at King's College, London.
hello, welcome university guide podcast with me for this episode. I'm looking at the topic to do with UK universities for many students both in the UK and internationally and also parents and counselors. The process by which UK universities make admissions decisions can seem unclear.
Speaker 3:Understanding how a British university takes now application that survives from ucass or perhaps another source and then work it through into giving offers of admission or rejection back to a students is an important part of this process. In order to get full insight into this, there really was only one person who I wanted to speak with.
Speaker 4:So today I'm chatting with Paul too. Paul, thank you for your time. Thanks David. So Paul, would you mind introducing yourself and a little bit of your biography?
Speaker 5:So, so my name's Paul[inaudible]. I'm the director of admissions and registry services at King's College London. I've worked in the higher education sector for around 17 years now. I'm having originally graduated from Cambridge in economics. Uh, I stayed on to work for the university, uh, in the admissions office before they intervene, turns to the dark side and the University of Oxford where I went for further eight years. During that time I actually was working much more in the area of student recruitment, both in the UK, Europe, and internationally. Um, I, I know so in widening participation, so encouraging students from non traditional backgrounds to aspire to the world's best universities. And certainly that was my journey to university myself. I'm about seven years ago, I joined a king's College London, which is a university right at the very center of London, uh, offering a wide range of disciplines. Everything from medicine, dentistry, uh, the arts, humanities, social science, uh, and indeed at our famous Dickson Poon score, school of law. And we have around 30,000 students studying with us at any one time, uh, and we recruit undergraduate level around about five and a half thousand students a year of which typically around about 1200 of them would be a international fee payers. And then probably around about another thousand would be a EU students. So a really vibrant university with a diverse mix of students.
Speaker 4:Great. So the purpose of having a chat today is to try and shed some light on sometimes the mystical process by which the university receives an application and at some point later decisions are made. So just to start off on the kind of process either as Paul, you know, students that makes their application through that school to Yukon and then at some points it lands in your system at King's, London. What happens next?
Speaker 5:Sure. So I guess for UK universities there, there are a number of different ways at which, uh, an application might arrive at the admissions office in and we'll certainly talk predominantly about the ucas route. Obviously some universities do allow students to apply direct to them, a undergraduate level and some universities at undergraduate level are using agents three which students apply. And indeed some students would already be within their university system having a maybe taken and completed a foundation program. And then there are limited numbers of universities who are trialing and using the common APP, American system. But by far, the most popular, perhaps simplest and most routine way, um, is applying through UCAS. Um, obviously applications come through to rates. Um, so we have a number of students who will be applying directly as, as individuals. Um, and then we'll have large numbers who are applying at through a eucast center at the university. So obviously the, the application gets completed in school and then it winds its way overtake you cast, which is based in the town of Cheltonham, uh, in England and will often take somewhere between 24 and 48 hours away. You Cassa performing a number of verification checks, etc. To make sure that the application is, is, is complete, is credible, etc. So one Thing to note is a particularly at key deadlines. That's just the 15th of October and the 15th of January. I'm actually, there can be a little bit of a delay. I'm not much but between arrived but leaving the school and arriving with universities and, and obviously we're doing often overnight processes. So sometimes students a panic because a, they sent the application but it's not yet with the university. So what happens in terms of the next step? Well, for many universities now we have some form of admissions portal and in kings his case, this is a thing called king's apply and basically what this is, is a communication tool so that we can talk directly to the, to the student. Um, and um, you know, some universities will still use plain old email, but most universities will send students a logan detail, um, to uh, their, their portal is really important that students look out for these emails and particularly directly after having submitted a ucas application that they check their spam folders to make sure that the login hasn't unfortunately fallen into that trap and is hidden there because it could well be that the student applying to five different universities through ucas, we'll have five of these logins, one for each of the university. And it's really important, um, that the, the, they keep a track of what the university may be asking or telling them at different times. Now normally when there's a sort of change in status or a university wants to ask a question, they'll also get an email prompt as well. Um, but it's really important to keep on top, particularly with your best choices, the ones who are most keen on, but also perhaps those backup choices as well to make sure that you're doing everything that's being required of that. So we sent some details to the student to help them enter into that communication dialogue. So the next thing that will happen is the application is, is with the university and it's, you know, most universities are using a computer system so we will have a team of staff with the application on screen in front of them. So I guess the first question is sort of what are the different hurdles that might, the application might go through. And I gueSs the first one is the first check we will often do and these can be done in slightly different orders, but at some point there's definitely going to be a completeness check. So have we got all of the information and indeed, proof of qualifications, etc. That we need to make an offer. So often when an application comes in, um, there might be a sort of a viability check done. So for example, if the student is predicted three c's and the course requires three a's a in some ways there's probably not much point doing the viability it, there's no point doing all of the additional checks if actually actually the applicant, the application isn't viable. So these, would that be a human check or computer track? So it might be a mixture. It depends on, on, on the nature of it. So, um, for example, if there's a field is left blank, which is possible in the ucas system for certain fields, but that we need it. It might be that the computer will identify that and say we need to check that. Other examples might be if the student is particularly young, perhaps particularly if they're under the age of 16, there might be an additional process to make sure that we have the parents or consent for the student making the application, etc. IT could be that we are unclear from the documentation given that the student is either home eu or international fees and it also could be something such as english language proficiency, so the student has self declared that they met the english language requirements that perhaps we would like proof and through the, through a pdf being sent into the university to make sure that they have achieved the grades that they've said that they've achieved and particularly for in independent applicants. Um, quite often we have references that he perhaps using a google email address and, and normally we'd be looking for one from someone who's got an email address associated with an academic institution, you know, wherever possible. So what I'd say is there's a kind of a range of health care checks that we do to make sure that the application is complete and that we've got all of the documentation required.
Speaker 4:Right. So the application is alive. It's good to go. I think the next bit is the bit that is sometimes confusing, particularly for, for those people around the world who used to do maybe with an american admission system. Obviously I've had the privilege of sitting in the offices for king's missions and say kind of people processing this. Once it gets through that stage, then the, yes, this is a viable application. We've got all the pipe work, what is the next step that when people actually start considering the merits of the application.
Speaker 5:So, so then we start thinking about for most courses it's about the academic merits of the application and we'll be looking for a range of information. Um, obviously one of the most important ones is the predicted grades. And so one of the things that can be missing, particularly students or maybe just joined the course if they're doing a one year access to the course, often academics are in colleges, are not keen to, uh, to provide predicted grades within the first mOnth of the students start in the course and then they might ask to update that lighter. but particularly with counselors often in american curriculum, it may be that they are unfamiliar with providing predicted grades and universities will want to see them. You know, this is their best educated guess as to what students from previous years akin to the student in hand. I'm might be able to go on and do, so we'll be looking for predicted grades. Um, it may be in certain circumstances we're looking to see how students have done in the two years prior to their sort of final two years at school. So this might often be, um, maybe their myp grades on the ib or obviously gccs and ige cses. And what we'll be doing is performing checks to look at the academic standing of this individual. And I think here I'd like to draw it into three distinct groups because I think that would be, would be helpful. Um, firstly I would draw into the first group being where I'm application and uh, and the demand for places are broadly in equilibrium. Uh, and so we would describe that as a, as an, as a noncompetitive program. Now the students are still going to need to meet some very high grade requirements. But effectively application supply and demand is in equal level. At the second group is the opposite, where effectively the number of applications is exceeding and in many cases, far exceeding the number of prices and offers. And so there is going to be a level of selection in the admissions office. And the third group I would say is those programs for which an interview is required either for the academic program, uh, in the examples of, of universities like oxford or cambridge or more often because it's a healthcare program such as medicine and dentistry, nursing, etc. So those are the three groups I think it would be helpful to talk through.
Speaker 4:Yep. So as we go through the most obvious one is where there are x number of spaces and the number of africans is, is almost equal to x. How does that process work?
Speaker 5:Yeah. So I guess the key thing is it's not quite as simple as the number of applications is equal to number of places because of course not all students will end up picking, um, any university that they've applied to because they've got five choices and the ucas form and indeed might be applying to other countries as well. So at the start of the cycle, what we will be doing is looking at historic data to set up what I call my author target. So how many offers do I think I need to make in order to fill that course with students of the quality that I'd like to see on it. And there will be programs where the number of applications and the number of offers I'm targeting to make are in equilibrium and here in most are a most in those. In those courses. What I'm looking for in the application is do they or do they have the potential to meet the author that we would make them. So our course might require 35 and ib points and six, six, five on the high levels. And if a student's predicted to meet those grades and it's on one of these courses, they are very likely to get made an offer. However, we Just need to review the application to make sure that the personal statement is in line with what we'd expect, but I'm not necessarily, you know, find a tooth combing through it to make sure it's an outstanding personal statement. It's just needs to be broadly focused on, on the subject harrier have no calls for concerns. We would check the reference because sometimes we might learn about things in the reference which will be a, a note, but broadly these students are going to get an offer and I know this, you know, might come as a shock and the challenges that students will be applying to their five choices and they're going to probably therefore having their mix somewhere. It's going to be really competitive for them to get in and others where they're going to be applying at where it's been embroiled equilibrium. So they still need to work on that personal statement because they will have a mix within their five. But for me on the university side, everything's in equilibrium. The students predicted to do well or indeed has achieved already and done well and we're going to get an offer out to them as soon as, as soon as we can. And every university will have these courses pretty much. Um, uh, and some course and some universities will have a. We'll have a more more than others.
Speaker 4:Okay. When you're talking about the offer level that you're looking for, I'm assuming that that discussion as to where that should be, fat is not solely in your purview. It's done alongside program directors in particular degree courses who, who may need some, some capital handholding as you, you come to that process of making a decision as to where the level is, but they're the ones who were kind of say, no, this is what we need to see for students to be successful in our course.
Speaker 5:Yeah. So I, I would think that it's a mixture of academics are pragmatic as well, so they need to know the students will succeed. Um, but we also know that there's a, there's a market in place as well, so it's about trying to balance those two things. Um, you know, very carefully and obvIously we're looking in the public domain, other universities and their university prospectuses to see what other universities are suggesting is, is the, is the level as well. But yes, every year there's an annual review of all of our entry requirements to make sure that, uh, that they are appropriate and that's done in conjunction between the admissions tutor, um, and um, and staff in the, in the admissions office and we aim to change those, um, where we can so that they are certainly in the online prospectus and prior to the 1st of September where everyone starts applying. But ideally you get it into the paper one and if you can,
Speaker 4:right. And just for the sake of clarity might be coming to this completely new admissions to, to what you are. Meaning if someone whose, whose primary job is to be an academic at the university. So they may say be a physics professor who's teaching, doing research and who has been succonded to have an admission to all for a couple of years.
Speaker 5:That's right. So an admission sheets. It would be a full time academic researcher, teacher, lecturer, and will often have been given a bit like in schools where maybe if you've taken on responsibilities for sports, you don't have to teach quite as much. They will normally have been given a small element of their week, hand it over to, to assisting with the admissions process.
Speaker 4:Right. obviously the price of the kings, this is a relatively centralized one. I tell the university is actually that submissions to you too may end up having a much bigger role in terms of reading applications and making final decisions then it isn't necessarily the case in your system.
Speaker 5:Yeah. I, I think that the, the, the, the, the uh, the dominant method for, for applications now is the centralized admissions office. I think that I can think of perhaps four or five universities in the country that have a very decentralized, a method that doesn't mean that either is right or wrong. Um, but I've, I've a very simple mantra on this. I would rather that my admissions cheeses time is precious. Um, uh, he or she is a leading researcher and amazing teacher and I would rather that he or she spends 10 minutes reading the one application that needs attention rather than, you know, rather than 30 seconds looking at 19 applications that actually we can deal with very well in the office. We have the protocols in place to, to know, uh, who were selecting, um, and obviously with, with the courses we talked about in section one, there's non competitive group, um, or you know, where the entry requirements of being the selection tool. I'm actually that there's not a huge amount of selection needed and therefore, um, you know, the value would be lower in that case.
Speaker 4:So let's talk about your other two groups then weren't, I guess it's a little bit more complicated.
Speaker 5:That's right. So the second group is, is, uh, you know, uh, where we have more applications and the number of offers that I'm planning to make. Um, and this will be very common in areas such as, uh, you know, law, business, psychology, economics, um, you know, areas like computer science or growing hugely at the moment at the moment. So we have more people applying than we can make offers to. If I made offers to everyone who was ever a good standard, then unfortunately we have people sitting in the aisles and the lecture theater and that's not a good student experience. So end date, end date. So here what we're trying to do is we're looking at a range of criteria, so, um, and, and things that universities will tend to look at might be a, you know, as follows. So I'm sort of going chronologically, the first thing we may do is look at a performance at gcse or equivalent level. And when we do this, we are, we, you know, it's not a problem if students haven't got gccs effectively, I siphon them off into two separate groups. One group were gccs or equivalent and one without. so it's a fair system, but it's very hard to ignore very rich data on how well the student has done a remembering. MoSt students will be applying with predicted grades for their high school, leaving qualifications. Actually, this is something that a student has gone out and, um, for themselves without any other influence and has achieved. Um, so we might look back at gcse performance and universities will have different metrics to see how they might score those up. Which could be an average point score. It could be the number of eyes, the number of eyes and a stars. And there are a number of different ways of doing it, but some kind of scoring in terms of the achievement at that level. The next area that might, that universities might look at is how well the student is predicted to have done or have done at the high school leaving qualification. So in this respect, one thing we do need to know is that on average students don't do well as their predicted. Um, so I do need to note if the student has already completed their high school leaving qualifications that if they've done well in that, the actually that is cast on, on paper, so, so we will look at those at those scores and we will also look at the predicted grades and universities will have normally have some kind of scoring mechanism for this as to how well have they done in this space. So someone who is exceeding significantly, um, the required levels may get some kind of a, of a boost in the scoring system for this. The next element that might be scored, um, would be any admissions tests that's been completed. Um, so obviously the major ones are things like the l nap for law, the uk cap and the bee map for, uh, for medicine and dentistry and quite commonly and in different ways. These are given some kind of scoring system that goes into, uh, into the, the mix. Um, uh, and then the final element that might be sort of scored or ranked is the personal statement. And now obviously the challenges are here is that different students who have had different levels of support around writing that personal statement. Um, but you know, in, in some areas, particularly areas like economics, business management, where we have large numbers of international students, there is no admissions test, there is no gcse data. So unless you used a personal statement in some kind of scored method, in effect, the only thing you have is a set of predicted grades which may or may not be accurate. And an ideally what you'd want to do is his twin point reference why you're doing a selection. So in this case, personal statements will be, will be read a, there'll be a criteria that the admissions office is using, which might be a, you know, the examples they're using, the quality of their writing, you know, there's different ways in which it can be done, but some kind of school will be placed upon, uh, upon their personal statement. So depending on the program you may now have for different students, a, one, two, three different bits of metric and then universities will be potentially combining those together, um, and, and, and helping develop some kind of ranking I would cite if universities do this in different ways. Some want some, so some universities may do this in a completely holistic way with someone reading the whole application ends, wind and placing a value out of 10 on it. So there are different ways of doing it. But ultimately you need to, in these cases, divide your students into some kind of ranking, you know, from students with the greatest potential and achievement record and those who are slightly weaker. What you'll tend to then fine. So what happens next with those groups of students? Well, these ones, it might take a little bit longer for the students to have a result. If you imagine all of the students sitting on, on a normal distribution curve, I'm the weakest ones. If they come in and they scored weekly, as in a poorly, um, then they may well get a rear rejection quite quickly. If a, they've done very well, then they'll get that offer again probably quite quickly. But as you can imagine with application quality and numbers very near on. Yeah, I'm, I'm moving in from either end towards that group where they might do, they might not depending on that year. So if last year the school to get an offer was say 13, um, I'm probably not going to be making any offers to people who've got 12 and 14 this year until we get very late in the process. But students below that and above that will move through the process quite quickly and receive their either offer or rejection.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Well that's the question I hear a lot from the families I work with know we've heard there's an advantage of applying early. And I said, well, you know, they've always wanted, in terms of you, you may hear back quickly the way I know it's obviously helped you focus on other aspects of what you're doing at school, but as you just described, you have a sense of what the criteria would be and that's going to apply potentially throughout the process.
Speaker 5:Yeah. So I think there are certainly advantages in terms of applying away from the deadlines. Um, we will receive something like 10,000 applications in the three days before the january deadline. So then the numbers are if you apply for days before that deadline and they're all in a stack, you are now 10,000 places further up the q, a before we get to your application. So there are some practicalities there, there is something that because of the nature of the courses in some of the universities with earlier deadlines that are on average, better quality students apply earlier. And therefore there's maths tells you that students who apply earlier are more likely to get offers. But it's because the quality of the applicant on average is hard.
Speaker 4:You got an application that comes in on October 13th, you know, it's going to be high quality because of the kings as well as some very other highly regarded,
Speaker 5:absolutely. But also if someone applies on the 13th of October with three c's, they're going to get a rejection and then, uh, as much as they would do on the 15th of January. So that's the second group. So just to summarize, it will be coming into the university at doing the health checks, some kind of scoring ranking system will be applied and then we'll be seeing based on last year's data, at that stage are they do an offer and as we go through the cycle and we have a greater level of clarity over volumes and quality will be, uh, making those, those, those final offers. So then we have the, we have the third group, which is students who are going to need some kind of interview. I'm now effectively these students also go through that second method in terms of ranking, but wet there, we're not ranking for an offer. We're ranking to decide whether to invite to interview. Um, so, uh, we'll do that, we'll do that ranking method that will then lead to an invitation to an interview. Um, uh, and then obviously the interview process will take place, um, interviews then our led primarily by the academic community and there are different forms of interviews and no doubt you'll have another great podcast on forms of interviews and how that works through, um, but students will come to the interviews and the interviews will be scored a, you know, often if it's a multi mini interview, each station will be scored individually and the results of that will be, uh, will be noted. So once the interview days over in, the students returned back to their school, will then be looking at those results again here, different universities might do things in slightly different ways. So some universities will compare and, uh, the score given to them pre interview with the score at interview to give them a new overall score. And other universities will say, well, we've already done the academic scoring to know that they're good enough academically. So how did they do on the interview? But effectively either Way a new score is applied to that student and placed on that file and again will then be ranking all the candidates to see how well that they, uh, that they have performed and particularly in these because often either through some government cap, um, or because of physical space constraints and potent that we make the right number of offers on some of these programs. And kings is the largest dental teaching school in the uk, about 50 percent of all dentists in the uk trained at king's college london. Um, but dentist needs a chair and they need patients. So it's really important that we get exactly or as close to it as we can, the right number of dentists. So here, in terms of offer making student might experience something slightly unusual. Effectively we will be sending out offers for medicine and dentistry from january through to the end of march. But at that point, uh, uh, kings, we then take a pause and I paused to let some of those students decide where the kings is there from option or another university and try and get some of the trend data for this current year before making a final group of offers and rejections in the first week in may, um, just before the uk or the eu ucas response deadline. And this is not me being cruel and unusual to the students. Um, but I need to feather the number of offers very gently to make sure we get exactly, exactly the right number of offers, the right number of firms, and therefore the right number of well qualified and doctors and dentists at that, at that stage. So that process can take a, you know, a longer period. And I think when you've got students in a classroom, one applying for english, uh, they apply on the 12th of October. And by perhaps, uh, you know, uh, well certainly early january, but perhaps even by early november, they have all of their five offers lined up and annual medic is still waiting for an interview in january at any of their choices. Um, in march they've got a couple of offers and a couple of rejections and one no decision and it's only by may that they actually get all five of their results back. So the speed at which things are done are appropriate for those programs. But it can seem a little bit tough if you're the medic, you know, on the receiving end.
Speaker 4:Well I guess that's obviously very countercultural who used to a us model where there isn't a day on which decisions are released regardless of what kind of. Even if you are applying to a particular major, what you might have specified. And I think the way you've talked about three points really helps people understand that. Can I just asK them on that kind of the process whereby a decision is made through a scoring system with or without the involvement of academics and interviews. In my head, what I'm thinking is where you are then given say a ranking of students from say one to 100 in terms of the order of which they performed on that score, the decision that is less luck to you and your team as to depending on the numbers and the trends got cycled, how far down that list you would go.
Speaker 5:That's absolutely right. So you're trying to work on that bell curve where, where, where, where this year will be the cutoff line. And of course the really hard thing is that there'll be large numbers of very similarly qualified and quite similar numbers of students on either side of that, at that, at that line. Um, so that makes it, that makes it quite challenging.
Speaker 4:Great. Think confirmation and near misses and things as a subject for another podcast. But, but just to kind of finish off, I would like to talk to something which I know kings and sort of pioneered in recent years and that's the idea of the alternate offer. Um, did you want to just touching a little bit on how a student who might have applied for say, management might actually be offered a place on a slightly different course?
Speaker 5:Sure, absolutely. And so obviously, um, where you've got areas where you've got a good number of very well qualified students, sometimes even above the, uh, the, the grades that you state in your, in your perspective, you have two options. Number one is to simply reject them because they weren't quite good enough relative to the other applicants. And the other option is to make them an alternative offer. And just to be clear, this can happen in two stages during, during the process so that the first aid kit can happen is during the offer stage and the other stage at which it can happen is jerian confirmation. But I think we'll concentrate on the one, um, during, during the offer stage. So when we're reading an application, uh, and I already know that that program is probably going to be, well, it's definitely going to fail and feel with students, have great quality and I know that the student is interested in the course, but also kings as an institution. Um, and I feel that there's a duty on myself and my team to try and help them feel, feel that ambition. I also know that it's hard to know about all of the hundred and 50 programs that we have on offer at king's, let alone the 50,000 available on ucas. And so it may be that we have a course that might be even better suited or an alternative that we can provide to, to, to the student. Um, so some, some good examples might, might be, uh, we, uh, kings have a course called global health and social medicine. We're the only university pretty much in the country to offer it. It's an amazing course designed for people who want to perhaps work in the third sector, have an interest in healthcare and this and the health of the world, but don't want to become a clinician. And it may be that a program like that might be suitable to a whole range of students who've got a, in their personal statement. I'm talking about that kind of background. It may be that the international development degree is full that year. Um, but the student is studying high level geography, um, they've done the extended essay on a jew, a geography project, and it may be then that we make them an alternative offer for that other program. so what my staff will do routinely on those competitive programs is we will be marking them up as we go through. So as we're scoring them for their main program, we will be putting in the margins, could be a good student for program x, y, or zed. And then when it gets to the stage that they would ultimately be unsuccessful on their choice of program, we will then choose whether to enact an alternative offer. And so they will then have an offer from kings college, but from a slightly different program, so that could be, they've applied for business management, they've got real interested in french language, french culture, and we offer them a place on our french and management program. Obviously for the student, it's completely up to them whether they take that option and they may have been offered straight business at other universities, but at least it gives them a different choice. Uh, and you know, some students, uh, you know, um, take up the offer, others don't. And the really great thing is when students write back to me when they're in their first year and say, oh my god, I can't believe I nearly ended up studying x because this course is actually everything I always wanted. I just didn't know about it or see it in the perspectives. And so I think that's not an uncommon. But I guess my goal, and I think this is a change in the admissions office over the last decade or so. Um, and I, I know I tell my brand new staff, they said for every september when we, when we have a new new cohort staff joining the office and your job is not to be a gatekeeper, your job is not to keep people out of this university and your job is to maximize their chance of studying with us. Um, you know, within the appropriate boundaries of them, been good enough to, to, to excel in the course. So your job is to find them a chance to study with us and find them an alternative offer if we can't help them out and make them an offer on their, um, on their main, main program.
Speaker 4:I thought they pulled us out comprehensive, hopefully an insight to those people who haven't had the opportunity. I've had to sit and sing these processes working for you. So thank you for your time.
Speaker 5:That's great, david. Thanks.
Speaker 3:Whose expertise and clarity of thoughts. It was a really interesting insight into this. The hope all my listeners found his descriptions to be helpful every time. I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity to speak with paul or other directors of admissions at british universities. I come away with an increased admiration for how they manage such a complex process and how they keep applicants at the center of it. That's it
Speaker 2:for this episode. Please keep an eye open for future episodes and indeed if you have the need of some assistance with university applications to the uk. Oh, also the usa, Canada. Will you please do get in touch from my website is www.wilkinsglobaleducation.com.