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Admissions Statistics by Disadvantge Metrics

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Dear University of Nottingham,

The Office for Students has a Access and Participation dashboard, which profiles student by different metrics who enter higher education https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/adv...

What it does not show, is admission statistics. Please could you provide numbers on how many UG applicants applied to the University of Nottingham, how many UG applicants were given an offer to study at the University of Nottingham and how many UG applicants accepted a place at the University of Nottingham by the following metrics for last five academic years, entry years 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.

- POLAR4 quintiles
- IMD quintiles
- Ethnicity
- Age (Mature/young)
- Disability (Disability reported/no disability reported) Please could these be numbers (or numerators, as the OfS dashboard calls them), not percentages.

Yours faithfully,

Matt Jaram

Nottingham University, University of Nottingham

 
 
 
Information request
Our reference: 533621

show quoted sections

Nottingham University, University of Nottingham

 
 
 
Information request
Our reference: 533621

show quoted sections

Nottingham University, University of Nottingham

2 Attachments

 
 
 
Information request
Our reference: 533621

show quoted sections

Dear Nottingham University,

Thank you for providing these admissions statistics. Would you please be able to clarifying the following...

- The data does not seem to co-relate to UCAS Undergraduate end of cycle data (https://www.ucas.com/data-and-analysis/u...)

As an example, the UCAS Undergraduate end of cycle data suggests there were 54170 applications for the 2020 cycle for the University of Nottingham, the dataset you provide says 62657. Would you advise the discrepency in over 8000 applications?

- The 'POLAR4 quint' has six quintiles, I would have expected there to have been 5. Could you clarify what the '0' refers to?
- On the age tab, there are three cateogires. What is your defination of 'young' and 'mature'? My understanding was anyone under 21 was 'young' and anyone 21 or over as 'mature'.
- On the disability tab, there is a letter coding system. But there doesnt appear to be any description of what the letters mean? Could you make this simpler and break it down by Disability reported/no disability reported only?
- On the IMD Decile, there are 11 deciles, I woud have expected there to have been 10. Could you clarify what the '0' refers to?

Whilst you have provided the number of applications, I also requested the number of Firms you offered and number of those who Accepted. Could the number of firms and accepts be included by the various metric breakdowns?

Yours sincerely,

Matt Jaram

Dear Nottingham University,

It has been 25 working days since I requested an internal review. I am concerned that you have not acknowledged this or given any indication when the internal review may be completed.

Please could you advise on the status of the internal review.

Yours sincerely,

Matt Jaram

Nottingham University, University of Nottingham

Dear Matt
 
I must apologise that you did not receive an acknowledgement for the email
containing your further questions.  I can see from the case file that your
email did arrive but, unfortunately, nobody was alerted to it and the case
didn't automatically re-open as it should have done.  The casework system
we are using was very new at the time and there were some teething
problems (especially with requests sent through WDTK) so I can only assume
some error occurred which has now been corrected.
 
I'm afraid, as nothing has yet been done, we will need to look at your
further questions as of today.  I will send them to the relevant team at
the University who will hopefully be able to answer them for you.
 
I am sorry for this error and the extra time which needs to be taken and
will get back to you as soon as I can.
 
Yours sincerely,
Karen Page

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Nottingham University,

It has been 25 working days since I requested an internal review. I am
concerned that you have not acknowledged this or given any indication when
the internal review may be completed.

Please could you advise on the status of the internal review.

Yours sincerely,

Matt Jaram

show quoted sections

Nottingham University, University of Nottingham

Dear Matt
 
I apologise once again that your email was missed when it was originally
sent to the University.  I have already received the further information
you requested in relation to our response and this is outlined below.
 
In answer to your queries:
 
- The data does not seem to co-relate to UCAS Undergraduate end of cycle
data
( [1]https://www.ucas.com/data-and-analysis/u...)

As an example, the UCAS Undergraduate end of cycle data suggests there
were 54170 applications for the 2020 cycle for the University of
Nottingham, the dataset you provide says 62657. Would you advise the
discrepency in over 8000 applications?

- The 'POLAR4 quint' has six quintiles, I would have expected there to
have been 5. Could you clarify what the '0' refers to?
- On the age tab, there are three cateogires. What is your defination of
'young' and 'mature'? My understanding was anyone under 21 was 'young' and
anyone 21 or over as 'mature'.
- On the disability tab, there is a letter coding system. But there doesnt
appear to be any description of what the letters mean? Could you make this
simpler and break it down by Disability reported/no disability reported
only?
- On the IMD Decile, there are 11 deciles, I woud have expected there to
have been 10. Could you clarify what the '0' refers to?

* The lack of correlation can be attributed to a number of factors:

* Duplication in our system
* Deferred entrants being included in figures from our system
* Direct undergraduate applications
* For 2020 specifically: the government's CAG reversal had an effect on
our systems

* For both POLAR4 and IMD, '0' indicates, that the applicant does not
have sufficient data in the system to categorise them (this is a
calculation based on a number of fields which not all applications
include; additionally, they do not apply to international students at
all).

* A disability code of 'A' indicates no disability. All others are codes
for specific disabilities. These can be totalled to get the desired
breakdown.

Whilst you have provided the number of applications, I also requested the
number of Firms you offered and number of those who Accepted. Could the
number of firms and accepts be included by the various metric breakdowns?

The University does not offer 'firms'; we make offers, to which applicants
then reply with either a firm acceptance, insurance acceptance, or
decline. 'Firms' and 'accepts' are therefore the same.

From your original request it appears that you were requesting
applications/offers/accepts.  If this is not what you meant, we would
consider a new request from you but do note that this would involve the
admissions data team re-building and re-extracting the dataset, sending it
to the widening participation team to run through the POLAR/IMD
calculation again, and then re-tabulating and summarising the data.  Due
to the amount of time required, it is highly likely to exceed the
appropriate 18 hour limit for collating the information and data checking
for discrepancies, in combination with the work already done on the
request. Additionally, this may well introduce further discrepancies due
to the nature of how the data exports from our systems (if certain
information is missing against an applicant, their data is not exported if
that information is included in the query).

The Act sets a maximum cost of £450 for public authorities responding to
requests for information (including the aggregation of requests in
relation to the same subject area) . This represents the estimated cost of
one person working for 3.5 days in determining whether the information is
held, locating it, and retrieving it. Under Section 12 of the Act the
University is not obliged to comply with a request that would exceed the
appropriate limit.
 
I hope this further information explains our response.
 
Yours sincerely,
Karen Page
 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Nottingham University,

Thank you for providing these admissions statistics. Would you please be
able to clarifying the following...

- The data does not seem to co-relate to UCAS Undergraduate end of cycle
data
(https://www.ucas.com/data-and-analysis/u...)

As an example, the UCAS Undergraduate end of cycle data suggests there
were 54170 applications for the 2020 cycle for the University of
Nottingham, the dataset you provide says 62657. Would you advise the
discrepency in over 8000 applications?

- The 'POLAR4 quint' has six quintiles, I would have expected there to
have been 5. Could you clarify what the '0' refers to?
- On the age tab, there are three cateogires. What is your defination of
'young' and 'mature'? My understanding was anyone under 21 was 'young' and
anyone 21 or over as 'mature'.
- On the disability tab, there is a letter coding system. But there doesnt
appear to be any description of what the letters mean? Could you make this
simpler and break it down by Disability reported/no disability reported
only?
- On the IMD Decile, there are 11 deciles, I woud have expected there to
have been 10. Could you clarify what the '0' refers to?

Whilst you have provided the number of applications, I also requested the
number of Firms you offered and number of those who Accepted. Could the
number of firms and accepts be included by the various metric breakdowns?

Yours sincerely,

Matt Jaram

show quoted sections

Dear Nottingham University,

Thank you for your detailed response, I accept your reasoning for refusing part of my request.

According to your Access and participation plan 2020-2025 (https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/externalrel...)

'Our application data suggests that underrepresented students follow the general pattern for offer and acceptance rates for the institution as a whole, implying our admissions processes are consistently fair.'

Does your widening particpation team distrubute a summary in PDF/article/power point form with some detail to your senior stakeholders that highlights your admissions processes are fair? Would it be possible to have a brief summary/figures previously used to support the statement in your access and participation plan 2020-2025?

Yours sincerely,

Matt Jaram

Nottingham University, University of Nottingham

 
 
 
Information request
Our reference: 637405

show quoted sections

Nottingham University, University of Nottingham

1 Attachment

 
 
 
Information request
Our reference: 637405

show quoted sections

We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Matt Jaram please sign in and let everyone know.