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Are RG2 universities trollers ?

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Reply 20
Original post by BarackObama
Yeah, that's my question too. Do you mean "second-rate" RG unis?


Uh huh ....
Original post by Origami Bullets
Most universities have struggled to accurately recruit this year, due to a number of changes, including
- ABB+ student number controls making it far harder to plan
- grade deflation meaning more students are missing their offers
- fewer applicants due to fee rises
- fewer applicants because there are fewer 18 year olds around

The fact that we have seen many RG unis in Clearing this year is not an indication that they are in some way trying to annoy applicants. They've simply found that they have spare places due to the above factors.




Although Zenomorph is annoying with his tedious made up classification, I suspect he is rather near the truth. Universities, or at least leading ones, have been a sellers' market for many years. The polite terms have been selective and recruiting institutions.

At the end of this cycle, how many universities can be truly described as selective? How many universities have more people wanting to go there who achieved the required grades than they had places available?

I think inevitably asking grades will drop next year. There is very little point in turning down people in December who want to attend your university only to pick up people with the same grades in August who didn't.

The Russell Group are very good at acting cohesively and protecting their own patch. They killed off metrics regarding teaching quality when they didn't like the results. I think this now does mean the death knell for the UCAS points system. Including entrants' total UCAS points in league tables has favoured RG universities for many years. It doesn't do so when grades are dropping. The problem is that a BTEC DDD is worth 360 points, most students do something else on top of a BTEC and BTECs tend to be done by people who are not attracted by the courses run by RG universities irrespective of grades. The RG will no longer want entrance qualifications to form part of league tables and the way to stop that is to kill off comparability by abolishing UCAS points.

I think we will see many more unconditional offers to pre-A level students next year. Most universities will now be recruiting over a range of A level results (as they did in the good old days). If you have someone predicted A*AA what is their chance of missing ABB? Why not give them an unconditional. That way the can't go into adjustment.
Reply 22
Original post by nulli tertius
I think we will see many more unconditional offers to pre-A level students next year. Most universities will now be recruiting over a range of A level results (as they did in the good old days). If you have someone predicted A*AA what is their chance of missing ABB? Why not give them an unconditional. That way the can't go into adjustment.
Interesting idea. Clearly we need to see the numbers for this year, but while I doubt that the significant increase in numbers transferring through Adjustment last year compared with the year before was wholly unconnected with the AAB (now ABB) issue, we are still talking a tiny percentage of total 'accepts' - 1329 out of nearly 465,000.

I think the issue is that people missing their firm AAA or AAB by a grade have been more likely to get their place, which is a striking change from, say, 2010, where we had lots of people who lost out having missed their offers by one or two UMS. I've never seen as many posts along the lines of "I missed my offer by two grades but still got my place - must be some mistake". I was also fascinated to find Leeds in Clearing this year for History V100, which I've never seen in all the time I've been doing this. Lancaster may have had its usual wide range of courses in Clearing on Day 1 - but they had filled everything by the end of Friday, the earliest I've seen that happen for them.

All in all, I don't accept the OP's premise that unis are cynically setting high baseline entry requirements to maintain some of kind of 'status'. I agree with you that we shall see some changes, but there are risks attached to issuing unconditional offers to people without existing A level or equivalent qualifications. Unis are required to ensure that minimum matriculation requirements (ie 2 A levels or equivalent) are met - as I understand it, that is a national requirement, although the "equivalent" bit does seem to be open to wider interpretation for mature students.

Those unis that have had their fingers burned this year by significant migration from usual patterns (and not all of them are RG, of course) will no doubt be exhaustively reviewing what's happened and considering how to avoid a repeat next year.

In the long run, I think we will see a reduction in the numbers of universities (more 'mergers' perhaps?) and also minority interest courses going to the wall unless these are in the science and technology sector so beloved of government - whose lack of interest in the humanities is best summed up as "knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing".
Original post by Minerva
Interesting idea. Clearly we need to see the numbers for this year, but while I doubt that the significant increase in numbers transferring through Adjustment last year compared with the year before was wholly unconnected with the AAB (now ABB) issue, we are still talking a tiny percentage of total 'accepts' - 1329 out of nearly 465,000.


I am sure the adjustment numbers will rise, although it will remain very much a minority sport. However, like all minority sports, it is likely to be concentrated in a few places. I think certain VCs will have been shocked to see the numbers drop as they were trying to recruit.


I think the issue is that people missing their firm AAA or AAB by a grade have been more likely to get their place, which is a striking change from, say, 2010, where we had lots of people who lost out having missed their offers by one or two UMS. I've never seen as many posts along the lines of "I missed my offer by two grades but still got my place - must be some mistake". I was also fascinated to find Leeds in Clearing this year for History V100, which I've never seen in all the time I've been doing this. Lancaster may have had its usual wide range of courses in Clearing on Day 1 - but they had filled everything by the end of Friday, the earliest I've seen that happen for them.


I have a couple more remarkable than this.

Lincoln shut up shop for all courses except for internationals and AAB+ students at 5PM on results day.

Do they use nursing students as specimens in Nottingham's dissection classes? I can't think of another reason why Nottingham is still in clearing today for nursing at BCC and midwifery :eek: at BBB


All in all, I don't accept the OP's premise that unis are cynically setting high baseline entry requirements to maintain some of kind of 'status'.


I think some had been doing that for law for a few years.

In the long run, I think we will see a reduction in the numbers of universities (more 'mergers' perhaps?) and also minority interest courses going to the wall unless these are in the science and technology sector so beloved of government - whose lack of interest in the humanities is best summed up as "knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing".


There will be much gnashing of teeth as a few languages departments go to the wall this year; but if students won't enrol what do you do?

The Johnnie come latelies on the media and film band wagon will not be very happy either. A lot of money has been spent on kit for these courses.
Original post by nulli tertius

Do they use nursing students as specimens in Nottingham's dissection classes? I can't think of another reason why Nottingham is still in clearing today for nursing at BCC and midwifery :eek: at BBB


It's because they are interviewing all their candidates, so they haven't made any decisions yet despite having many applicants.

Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by Origami Bullets
It's because they are interviewing all their candidates, so they haven't made any decisions yet despite having many applicants.

Posted from TSR Mobile

It's still pretty shocking given that nursing commissioned numbers have been dropping for 3 years now.

It probably shows that notts were very slow to figure out how they were going to manage the migration to all degree nursing - most nursing schools have been shrinking adv dip and dip numbers for years and growing their degree provision ready for the closure. Notts seemed to be clinging on til the bitter end (with big jan intakes for both dip courses on the final year they were allowed to take them).

By leaving it so late they've ended up in a situation where they've got too many spaces, not done the work to bring in the applicants at the same time as the fees have shot up and the market for applicants was shifting under them.
Reply 26
Original post by nulli tertius
Although Zenomorph is annoying with his tedious made up classification, I suspect he is rather near the truth. Universities, or at least leading ones, have been a sellers' market for many years. The polite terms have been selective and recruiting institutions.

At the end of this cycle, how many universities can be truly described as selective? How many universities have more people wanting to go there who achieved the required grades than they had places available?

I think inevitably asking grades will drop next year. There is very little point in turning down people in December who want to attend your university only to pick up people with the same grades in August who didn't.

The Russell Group are very good at acting cohesively and protecting their own patch. They killed off metrics regarding teaching quality when they didn't like the results. I think this now does mean the death knell for the UCAS points system. Including entrants' total UCAS points in league tables has favoured RG universities for many years. It doesn't do so when grades are dropping. The problem is that a BTEC DDD is worth 360 points, most students do something else on top of a BTEC and BTECs tend to be done by people who are not attracted by the courses run by RG universities irrespective of grades. The RG will no longer want entrance qualifications to form part of league tables and the way to stop that is to kill off comparability by abolishing UCAS points.

I think we will see many more unconditional offers to pre-A level students next year. Most universities will now be recruiting over a range of A level results (as they did in the good old days). If you have someone predicted A*AA what is their chance of missing ABB? Why not give them an unconditional. That way the can't go into adjustment.


Hello Nullis,

Ohh , didn't relaise my labels on the lower half of the RG was annoying you but at least I can have a half meaningful conversation with you. So I shall quote mark my own labels from now on.

I agree with you that essentially intial entry grades for a lot of places if they are realistic will drop next year. Like you say it's really pointless to ask high grades when they don't enough high quality applicants, which leads to them having to go into clearing to get the same people who applied in this first place.

Call me paranoid if you like but it just seems to me that these places are just trying to pad out their reputaions at the expense of bona fide students and that should never be allowed to happen.

Thus I call them the ' the RG2 ' .
Reply 27
Surely it depends on the course in question I know that physics at birmingham didn't have any clearing places and most people on my course have above the AAA entry requirements. However I do know that in other subjects there were a lot of places left but I think mainly because the university didn't plan well for the changing circumstances.

However I do see where your coming from that what you would call the "RG1" haven't had to go through clearing. I'm not quite sure which unis you would say make up this category but I guess you would say Oxbridge, imperial, LSE?

I can see where you are coming from and I too think there should be a movement of entry requirements in the coming years especially if there is a continuing grade deflation. However I do still stand by the fact that there are still fully subscribed courses at your "RG2" unis. Possibly because they have a more diverse range of degrees some not as popular as others.
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by Zenomorph
Hello Nullis,

Ohh , didn't relaise my labels on the lower half of the RG was annoying you but at least I can have a half meaningful conversation with you. So I shall quote mark my own labels from now on.

I agree with you that essentially intial entry grades for a lot of places if they are realistic will drop next year. Like you say it's really pointless to ask high grades when they don't enough high quality applicants, which leads to them having to go into clearing to get the same people who applied in this first place.

Call me paranoid if you like but it just seems to me that these places are just trying to pad out their reputaions at the expense of bona fide students and that should never be allowed to happen.

Thus I call them the ' the RG2 ' .


You will be interested in a leader in Wednesday's Times. It thinks it has found a British Ivy League though it appears not to understand either what the Ivy League is, nor the forces at work at the top end of undergraduate recruitment in British universities. Indeed it also appears not to have noticed that Imperial College exists.
Reply 29
Original post by nulli tertius
You will be interested in a leader in Wednesday's Times. It thinks it has found a British Ivy League though it appears not to understand either what the Ivy League is, nor the forces at work at the top end of undergraduate recruitment in British universities. Indeed it also appears not to have noticed that Imperial College exists.


Endless sporting fixtures against each other with only the rowing being of really high quality?

Don't we already have some of those? :tongue:
Reply 30
Original post by nulli tertius
You will be interested in a leader in Wednesday's Times. It thinks it has found a British Ivy League though it appears not to understand either what the Ivy League is, nor the forces at work at the top end of undergraduate recruitment in British universities. Indeed it also appears not to have noticed that Imperial College exists.


Err I don't know about that.

I don't think that concept works in UK. We have Oxbridge which are way ahead of the pack and then a large gap to imperial then a gap to LSE then another gap to UCL/ StAndrews then a gap to Durham and so on.

There is no such equivalent to a leading pack of unis as in the US where you have
H /P/Y/ MIT/ Stanford/ Chicago/Penn/ Cornell/ Duke/ Berkeley all within touching distance of the top.
Reply 31
Original post by Zenomorph
Err I don't know about that.

I don't think that concept works in UK. We have Oxbridge which are way ahead of the pack and then a large gap to imperial then a gap to LSE then another gap to UCL/ StAndrews then a gap to Durham and so on.

There is no such equivalent to a leading pack of unis as in the US where you have
H /P/Y/ MIT/ Stanford/ Chicago/Penn/ Cornell/ Duke/ Berkeley all within touching distance of the top.


Nor do we have any unis which offer massive sporting scholarships so elite athletes can attend uni pretty much irrespective of their academic abilities, which is what the the Ivy League is all about, the 'student-athlete' at its most pure :rolleyes:
Original post by roh
Nor do we have any unis which offer massive sporting scholarships so elite athletes can attend uni pretty much irrespective of their academic abilities, which is what the the Ivy League is all about, the 'student-athlete' at its most pure :rolleyes:


The Ivy League prohibits athletic scholarships. It is the exception to the rest of US collegiate sport.
Reply 33
Original post by nulli tertius
The Ivy League prohibits athletic scholarships. It is the exception to the rest of US collegiate sport.


Yeah, sorry, that was badly written, by the 'student athlete at it's most pure' I meant the Ivy League being Div. I without scholarships (along with Patriot League maybe?) and that being what bands together the 8 colleges, not anything academic.

I don't quite get why they persist with it to be honest, it's not like it harms the academic reputation of Stanford, Vanderbilt, Duke, Notre Dame etc. that they have full athletic scholarships.
Reply 34
Because it's wasting money on pure jocks when it could be spent on other better things
Reply 35
Original post by Zenomorph
Because it's wasting money on pure jocks when it could be spent on other better things


But the NCAA system means that athletic departments of the big time football and basketball universities generate significant revenue for the university, which can then be ploughed into the academic side of things.

And there's no need to just take pure jocks, I'm not saying Harvard should become like Alabama, LSU or Florida, just offer those with a lot of sporting ability and brains that wouldn't be a million miles away from their normal acceptance levels. It works for places like Stanford (football, the olympic sports) and Duke (basketball, lacrosse), why would it not for the Ivies?
Reply 36
Original post by roh
But the NCAA system means that athletic departments of the big time football and basketball universities generate significant revenue for the university, which can then be ploughed into the academic side of things.

And there's no need to just take pure jocks, I'm not saying Harvard should become like Alabama, LSU or Florida, just offer those with a lot of sporting ability and brains that wouldn't be a million miles away from their normal acceptance levels. It works for places like Stanford (football, the olympic sports) and Duke (basketball, lacrosse), why would it not for the Ivies?


If the pure jock can come close to his competitors for a place at the Ivy then yes. But I doubt there would be too many cases like this, a person only has so much time. Either you excel in sports or studies.
Reply 37
Original post by Zenomorph
If the pure jock can come close to his competitors for a place at the Ivy then yes. But I doubt there would be too many cases like this, a person only has so much time. Either you excel in sports or studies.


Maybe, but the 25 hour rule means it's certainly possible. Just look at the GPA of pretty much any NFL QB (Luck and RG3 most recently) and many of the Academic All Americans are seriously good at their sport, Allison Schmitt (swimmer) was one in the same year she was also a 3 time gold medallist in London.
Reply 38
Original post by roh
Maybe, but the 25 hour rule means it's certainly possible. Just look at the GPA of pretty much any NFL QB (Luck and RG3 most recently) and many of the Academic All Americans are seriously good at their sport, Allison Schmitt (swimmer) was one in the same year she was also a 3 time gold medallist in London.


Can't comment further I'm not that familiar with the US system.

What I do feel is the behaviour of certain RG2s during application has a negative impact on genuine students and in effect is trollish.
Original post by Zenomorph

What I do feel is the behaviour of certain RG2s during application has a negative impact on genuine students and in effect is trollish.


I can remember when there was a 4 month waiting list for a landline phone and you might only be allowed a party line. I can remember when building societies would only grant you a mortgage if you had saved regularly with them for 2 years. I can remember towns where every pub sold the same brewer's beer and they were closed during the afternoon.I can remember when you needed a reference to join the local library. I can't remember, but I work with people who can, when there was a legal minimum price for conveyancing. Go back somewhat further and it used to be unlawful for shops to sell goods at below a price fixed by the manufacturer. In the case of books that only stopped in 1995.

In other words, it wasn't all that long ago, that large parts of the British economy were run in the interests of suppliers. Universities were a legacy of that. There were a fixed number of places created by the government. The suppliers, the universities, determined what courses they would offer, and since demand was greater than supply, applicants had to take what they could get.

What you are calling trolling, is universities rather clumsily adapting to a new world where there is no fixed supply. Just because a university offers a course doesn't mean there is a demand for it because there will now be a supply of what the applicant really wants to do elsewhere.

Courses and departments will have to find a demand or close. Next year grade boundaries will be much more closely aligned with demand.

The next stage will be easier course transfer. 17 year olds know very little about the jobs market. They know of the existence of a relatively few careers. Hitherto niche courses have been able to attract entrants by the controlled course supply and that has fed the professions to which they are allied.

How do you persuade 17 year olds to apply for fashion accessory design at Nottingham Trent when it has not occurred to them that designer handbags have designers? Hitherto, the university will have simply said that the fashion design course was full or the applicant didn't have the grades. Fashion accessory design becomes a consolation prize. However, in a world where there are enough places for everyone who wants to, to study fashion design; how do you get bums on seats to study handbags and belts.The 17 year old who thinks she will be the next Stella McCartney isn't going to apply if there are an infinite number of places to read fashion design. What you need is for people to be able to transfer in easily from related courses, once the penny has dropped that there are a surfeit of students reading for these popular courses with largely unattainable prospects and there are available alternative career niches requiring specialist skills.

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