Joanna Gray
Joanna Gray is a writer and confidence coach.
’Tis the season of social engineering, otherwise known as UCAS applications. Universities are readying themselves to meet their EDI commitments by making contextual offers based on information provided by UCAS, and increasing numbers of middle-class parents are thinking of clever social engineering additions to the application in the hope their offspring will receive lower grade offers.
UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) is a charity (non-profit) that handles the applications of almost three million applicants. In the application process there is a hefty Diversity and Inclusion section, all of which is optional. UCAS states clearly that:
Nothing in this section is used to decide if you will be placed at your university it is purely to make everyone aware of any additional support you may need.
But if this is the case, why include it at all? Why allow students and parents to game the system, and universities to use the information to select on ethnicity, religion, financial and social background? The system is open to abuse by both woke universities and sharp elbowed parents.
UCAS applicants are encouraged to include details concerning:
- Ethnicity
- Religious beliefs
- Sexual orientation
- Care support information
- Parental information, such as their education level and occupation
- Mental health conditions or long-term illnesses
- Estranged from parents
- Caring responsibilities
- Parenting responsibilities
- Refugee status
- Parent or carer who serves in the armed forces
- Whether you’ve served in the armed forces
- If you’re in receipt of free school meals
Universities are boastful of their efforts of admitting students who may not otherwise get good enough grades. The University of Oxford for example states unambiguously:
We know that factors such as socioeconomic disadvantage and school performance can make it difficult for you to access your full potential before applying to university. Therefore, we use a range of contextual data to help us to better understand your achievements in the context of your individual background. For UK students applying for an undergraduate course, we look at:Information about your school Information about your neighbourhoodAny experience in the care systemEligibility for Free School Meals (FSM) since age 11Additional Widening Participation (WP) information
While initial intentions could be interpreted as being laudable, unfairness rapidly sets in. The furore over disgraced former Oxford Union President-Elect George Abaraonye’s acceptance to Oxford to study PPE with ABB, rather than a three or four A*s at A level, is only the most recently egregious example. Long gone are the days when I, a state school student at late 1990s Christ Church, asked my history tutor if I was simply there to make up a quota. I have never forgotten his reply: “A comprehensive you say? I had no idea. However, you’re as hopeless as the rest of your year. After extending the franchise, academic standards have barely improved since the aristos used to spend their time throwing sofas out of Peckwater windows.”
Rather than being exasperated by rock bottom academic standards, academics today seem to embrace them. Students are encouraged by UCAS to “Let us know about any extra supporting information you’d like to include on your application.” From the young people I know and work with, the range of “supporting information” added on to applications is truly impressive: a broken ankle, colour-blindness and ‘generalised anxiety’, for instance. One mother included a letter from her local MP explaining how utterly useless her daughter’s sixth form college was. Students are encouraged to list all the medications they are taking and include illnesses their parents and even grandparents have suffered from during GCSE exam season or year 12.
Aiming for a contextual offer is the new ‘receiving extra time in exams’: it makes for good middle-class dinner party conversation. Does the death of a pet count? Does having one non-British grandparent count? Moving house?
Even when no additional needs are shared, universities use personal details supplied via UCAS to make contextual (i.e., lower) offers. The daughter of a medic I know, who attended one of London’s smartest schools and received a string of 9s (A**) at GCSE, received two contextual offers from top-flight universities. The only explanation was that her large Georgian house shares a postcode with the KuKu gang.
Our middle son has recently filled in his UCAS form, and only after he sent it off did we realise he hadn’t properly gamed the system. Having changed jobs at the time of application my husband was technically unemployed. If our son included such information would this have made a more compelling application to highly competitive drama conservatoires? Damn. He’ll have to get by on talent alone.
This article was originally published by the Daily Sceptic.
