Getting into Varsity: Comparability, Convergence and Congruence ...

As seen at the beginning of this chapter, universities have been founded in batches over time, with the most recent significant ‘growth’ being the change in status of the remaining polytechnics to universities beginning in 1992. The Government's push towards 50% participation in higher education for 17- to 30-year-olds aims for more students to pass through the existing institutions rather than major expansion in the number of institutions.

Part of the Government's explicit policy for growth in the education sector is to broaden the range of social backgrounds from which universities and colleges draw their intakes. Although more children from lower socioeconomic groups are now going to university, the increase in the number of children from higher socioeconomic groups attending university has grown even faster, such that the gap between the proportions from each group is greater today than it was in the 1960s. Part of the problem of getting underprivileged children to university is getting them to stay in education long enough to take A-Levels. Currently, 19% of children with parents who are manual workers obtain two or more A-Levels by age 18, compared with 43% of children with parents in non-manual occupations. Improving this situation will require intervention much earlier in children's education; nonetheless, certain aspects of the admissions process have been criticised for presenting obstacles to social inclusion, including the influence of socioeconomic status on both A-Level performance and the accuracy of the estimated grades used for admissions.

Recent statistics released by UCAS show that, in a typical year, 45% of UCAS applicants receive accurate predicted grades. However, within this, 51% of applicants from the highest socioeconomic group receive accurate predictions, compared with 39% in the lowest socioeconomic group. Furthermore, although 47% of predicted grades are overestimated, applicants from the lowest socioeconomic group are more likely to receive underestimated grades than applicants from higher socioeconomic groups. The effect of overestimating predicted grades will depend on how risk-averse an applicant is. If he or she accepts offers—at least as a second choice—that require somewhat lower grades than were predicted, he or she may achieve the necessary grades and be unaffected