Poorer/Ethnic minority Students

You are always reading about how universities are supposedly 'favouring' poorer students, or ones from ethnic minority backgrounds. What I was wondering is how can this be true? How do the Universities know your income or background? When I filled in my UCAS form on my parents employment background and ethnicity it said that this information will only be used privately by UCAS. Surely all the criticisms about university admissions must be groundless?

Reply 1

Gaz031

JakC

They know your address and the schools you've attended. Surely that's enough?

Reply 2

shyopstv

For income: Your school and area give a good indication
Ethnic background: Your name? And possibly your area too

Reply 3

Chris87

If a University interviews most of its applicants they can probably find out a lot more information than they put on the UCAS form. However, I applied to 7 Universities (6 originally and 1 through Extra). I got 1 rejection and 6 offers and none of my choices gave me an interview but then again I didn't apply for a very competitive subject.

Reply 4

dobbs

shyopstv

For income: Your school and area give a good indication
Ethnic background: Your name? And possibly your area too

They can't see your name. All they have is your UCAS Number - otherwise what if a friend of the family was the admissions secretary? They could go "Ohhh look it's John, yeah I'll let him in"

Infact, I'm wondering whether they even see what school you went to. I was under the impression the only things they got to see were past grades/expected grades, your personal statement, and your tutor's statement.

Not massively sure on the last point!

Reply 5

Gaz031

dobbs

They can't see your name. All they have is your UCAS Number - otherwise what if a friend of the family was the admissions secretary? They could go "Ohhh look it's John, yeah I'll let him in"

Why doesn't 'John' just tell his family friend his UCAS number? :smile:

Reply 6

shyopstv

Wasn't aware that they didn't know your name but thinking about it, its obvious why they shouldn't. They do see what school you went to though.

Reply 7

dobbs

Gaz031

Why doesn't 'John' just tell his family friend his UCAS number? :smile:

That's less likely to happen than someone just seeing your name though isn't it? John may be a friend of Fred the admissions secretary but if he asked Fred to let him in then Fred could be disappointed, saying that he would never do that.

So either John has to be VERY good friends with Fred, or he just has to know Fred if there were just names on, and not say anything, as Fred would just see his name and naturally would be biased (OK he wouldn't just say "Yes he's in!" but anyone would try to let someone who they knew in if they liked them)

Also....if Fred hated John, John wouldn't stand a chance (maybe)!

Reply 8

Gaz031

dobbs

Well reasoned :rolleyes:

This sounds like one of those logic puzzles.
However, when I went to Bristol they gave all visiting applicants a badge with their name and course on...

Reply 9

Tonight Matthew

They do see your name. And your school. Your reference even says what type of school you go to.

Reply 10

Colly

Course they see your name, they send letters to you so they'd be in trouble if they didn't know it.

Reply 11

dobbs

Colly

Course they see your name, they send letters to you so they'd be in trouble if they didn't know it.

The name is blanked out on the application form so that the people who are reading it to decide whether to accept you or not cannot be biased in any way.

Once decided, they give the UCAS numbers to the secretary people - who will have peoples names and addresses. Voila! :smile:

OK so I'm not massively sure of this, but it's what I've been told before! And if it's not like this, then I'd like it to change to be honest!

Reply 12

Colly

Fair enough, but I'm sure they'll know most names anyway, for example in the reference it doesn't say "UCAS no. 12345 is an excellent student" it says "Joe is an excellent student." They hardly blank that out as well.