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How should universities select students?

Anders, J; (2020) How should universities select students? (CEPEO Briefing Note Series 8). UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities: London, UK. Green open access

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Abstract

British universities select the students to whom they offer places, generally drawing on the following pieces of information: a 'personal statement', prior attainment, predicted grades, and contextual information about the applicant. A smaller group of institutions also use information based on aptitude tests and interviews. However, all such sources of information have the potential to be biased, including by factors such as gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. This raises the question of which of these sources of information universities should prioritise, and which they should use at all.Britain is almost unique in using predicted grades, as discussed in briefing note 7 (Wyness, 2020), but even beyond this different countries approaches differ substantially, for example the US relies far more extensively on aptitude testing than is the case in the UK, partly due to its lack of national terminal examinations. In this briefing note, we assess the evidence on the strengths and weaknesses of using these sources of information about students' suitability for different higher education courses.

Type: Working / discussion paper
Title: How should universities select students?
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Publisher version: https://econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucl:cepeob:8
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: university admissions; prior attainment; aptitude test; contextual admissions
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Learning and Leadership
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Learning and Leadership > Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10136576
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