Bath suffers 'very significant' drop in student applications

I think the reason is that not many want to get a degree from a place called bath....

Would appreciate it if you could expound on how a TSR adding game has a bearing on student financing?

No there's no funding cap, except for medicine (and that's an NHS cap not SFE).

And how many EU students actually come to the UK for their first degree? As a proportion of the total student body? Answer, less than 10%. Also, compared to home students EU borrowers are much more likely to repay in full.

Don't forget that Bath is comparing itself with universities that have med schools - so will have early applications from thousands of wannabe medics alongside their oxbridge applicants.

tbh I'd be dubious of any admissions head reporting at this level of detail at this point in the cycle - it smacks of not understanding how admissions stats work and getting in a panic over UCASs crappy freebee reports.

Im not talking about default rates.

There is funding available for x amount of students, if a place goes to a EU student, that means a UK student looses out.

Unlike Health care, EU nationals home country doesnt pay for it.

Also alot of students will never earn enough to pay the loan back, which is fine if your a UK student as youve lived here your entire life. Your parents paid tax, you will pay income tax, VAT

But seems unfair to give the same deal to someone who will only be in the UK for 3 years.

Fair enough - seems like you've made a reasoned decision. I'm not particuarly familiar with the banking sector so I can only assume you are correctly informed.

Fair enough - seems like you've made a reasoned decision. I'm not particuarly familiar with the banking sector so I can only assume you are correctly informed.

Who pays for the funding ? the UK tax payer.
10% is still alot, more likely sure, but still not certain. Once you include VAT and Income Tax paid by someone who spends his adult life working in the UK, the difference is immense.

Pretty sure that people who work in university admissions

As someone applying to unis this year, I was considering Bath. However there were simply better, more established unis out there that required the same grades.

What an obnoxious and arrogant thing for you to say. Pretty sure that people who work in university admissions have a cause for concern and will have insider knowledge on trends of the industry and the university itself.

All of the excuses used above to try and explain why Bath has suffered a drop in applications are not plausible.

Like PQ.

I'll look forward to seeing PQ's response to you from her perspective inside university admissions, but I'll make a point on each of your bullets:

1. It is relevant. If the medical applications are level and Bath is not exposed to them (as is the case) it might explain why Bath's applications might be down at the same stage (with a disproportionate exposure to non-medical subjects).

2. What does historical world ranking have to do with current year applications?

3. If the figures are to be believed, not at Bath. Hence the discussion.

Yes, but do they work for Bath University's admission department? Every university is not the same.

I am countering the excuses previous posters have used to explain why Bath is seeing a fall in applications.

1. so what's changed since last year? all non-medical subjects seeing a decline in applications?
2. it's the excuse used by people to explain the 15-20% drop in International applications. My point is that there has been no change in Bath's world ranking so this has not been a factor causing international applications to not apply.
3. 'if the figures are to be believed', yes an internal admissions email which was leaked has reason to be false.

Bath was established as an independent university at roughly the same time as Warwick and its history goes back almost a hundred years before that. Do you challenge Warwick as not being established long enough?

I'd have thought Bath was to be applauded for ensuring its students are at a decent minimum standard (which must be better for its students), rather than joining in the current dive to the bottom.

Warwick's maths and economics departments are world class and they have great links to employers especially in finance but also other areas too. Warwick does suffer in that it's fairly new but it seems to have a drive for ambition to keep getting better. This maybe why warwick has a better brand name overall which is definitely important to A*/A grade students. The undermining and mocking of Warwick is really just a tsr thing

I think it's really to do with the fact that we only have 5 choices, and Bath has very high grade requirements which for most students is either inaccessible or there are better unis they can apply to with the same choices.

Maths at Bath A*AA (2 in STEP)
Maths at Warwick A*A*A (1 in STEP) with variations all of which are v high.

My take on it (although with no evidence)...

There could be multiple reasons why Bath can't compare itself to other universities like Loughborough or Birmingham, even on a year by year basis.

Degree subjects will increase/decrease in popularity. At times of uncertainity (like we are seeing now), more people will probably apply for "safer" or more "well-respected" courses, like medicine and law, and Bath doesn't have either. It also has a much narrower set of courses outside of big hitters like UCL or Birmingham. A diverse range of subjects probably minimises your risk being on the wrong end of trends.

Maybe the 18 year old population in Bath has taken a bigger hit than it has in the West Midlands. If there has been a 10-15% decrease in 18 year olds in and around Bath but an increase in the West Midlands, this will affect applications and admissions.

Bath's student population is much smaller than the other universities listed. If they have a drop in applications, as a proportion it is going to seem like a bigger hit (and probably cause more panic) than it is UCL (16,500 vs 36,000) but ultimately the numbers are going to be much smaller (I am sure the Maths people can explain this better than I am currently doing).

I might be wrong, but if I remember correctly there are also no key courses like English, Politics, History. They are some pretty mainstream courses that are missing that means their portfolio of courses will be much narrower than other universities they are comparing themselves to.

And that's just lazy journalism for you (shame on you, The Times, I would expect it from the Daily Mail)!

Bath has been in the news recently with its VC receiving a controversial £451k pay packet, but the university's director of student admissions says he's confident applications will pick up as the 15th January deadline approaches.
...
So is the VCs pay really a factor for the drop? Or is it just a blip and it will get back on track by January?

They do have a big Humanities dept. but not History or English - Politics, yes, also Economics and Psychology and Sport (sport is a big thing at Bath).

But that hasn't changed this year - so that's the puzzle...