Based purely on "places I see lots of people applying" I'm thinking Warwick, Imperial, LSE, Edinburgh type places. I don't really know
anything about Nottingham, but I don't think York comes into that category. But I am just speculating really...
Yeah, at the Oxford open day yesterday the head of admissions was comparing Oxford to Edinburgh. He was basically saying that Edinburgh get about five times as many applicants for about the same number of places as Oxford do, but they Edinburgh give out about three times as many offers as they have places.
It would be fascinating to make some Freedom of Information requests regarding a) number applicants b) number offers c) number firms d) number insurances d) number of firms that end up coming e) number of insurances that end up going f) number of people who neither firmed or insuranced who end up going (e.g. clearing). I might actually do that
Although I suspect I'd have to go to each of the universities individually. Asking UCAS would be much easier, but I don't think they are covered by the FOI act.
Edit: UCAS are going to be included in FOI from October 2011! I might actually do this...
Edit 2: looks like that was just a proposal, not sure the October thing is actually legislated on
Edit 3: there is
a draft piece of legislationEdit 4: turns out of the people that apply to Bristol, only 10% end up going there (lower than all other universities, except for LSE and Edinburgh) -
source. This data doesn't tell us everything, but it does tell us something.