Where Can I Access a Degree-Level Breakdown of Undergraduate Admissions?

FOI2016/205

Where can I access a degree-level breakdown of undergraduate admissions?

Specifically I am interested in:

• the averageUCASpoints or grades, per degree intake 2016/17
• the quantity of applications, and ratio to offers, per degree2016/17

Further clarification from the applicant included the following additional request:

Do you require the average tariff from the three highest A' Level grades / IB score, or do you want to see the average total tariff score including all tariff-bearing qualifications (AS Levels, music exams, etc)?

Please can I have, separately:

• themodeaverage forfor the top-3 A-Level/IB grades (e.g."Average grade of BA Politics students admitted and enrolled is ABB");
• themeanaverage for UCAS scores, for the top-3 A-Level/IB grades; and
• themeanaverage for UCAS scores,for all tariff-bearing qualifications,

for each undergraduate degree programme offered at SOAS.

Also, we are assuming that "per degree intake" relates to enrolled students. Please could you confirm that this is the information you require?

Yes, for enrolled students.

Data source:

Current application session(2016/17) data were sourced from the SOAS student record system (UNIT-e) by the Admissions Team.Tariff data were sourced from the same system via a separate report of MARVIN or UCAS StarJ results run on 15 December, 2016. These results were filtered for students with three or more GCE A-Levels or IB total points, and an equivalent tariff calculated in each case. Student enrolments include withdrawn, suspended, and live enrolments. These were sorted by degree, and the mode and mean calculated. This summary data was then cross-referenced to the application data, and is presented in the Data section below.

The HESA rounding policy has been applied to programmes to round applications and offers to the nearest multiple of 5.Note that due to the small number of offers and enrolments in many SOAS programmes, those with 1 or 2 offers have been excluded in order to protect the identity of students.

Furthermore, SOAS does not calculate verified tariffs for students other than those with 3 or more A-Levels or with an IB Total Score as received from UCAS in the current cycle. Consequently the tariff data represents only a subset of enrolments for the 2016-17 academic year.

Other tariff bearing qualifications are not able to be supplied to meet the third bullet point of the additional request above.

Parameters:

(i)Degree Name

All SOAS undergraduate degrees are listed: BA, BSc, and LLB, with a rounded offer result of 5 or above.

(ii)Rounded Apps

The total number of applicants for the 2016/17 year of entry have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 5.

(iii)Rounded Offers

The total number of offers made by SOAS for the 2016/17 year of entry have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 5.

(iv)Ratio Offers to Apps

The ratio of offer to applications has been calculated on the unrounded numbers by dividing the number of applications by the number of offers.

(v)Tariff Mode

Where a mode presented within the three A-Level grades for a degree, this is recorded. In many cases for smaller enrolment numbers, each student had a different combination of three A-Levels, or several combinations were equally represented, hence a mode could not be recorded.

(vi)Tariff Mean

The Tariff mean for a degree was calculated by converting and summing the three A-level grades and IB total grades into a score, which was divided by the number of students with tariffs enrolled in that degree. For many degrees, there are no enrolments with a tariff equivalent.

Rounding strategy

The data have been rounded using the same rounding methodology that is used by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). Their strategy is summarised below (sections on FTE and percentages not reproduced as not relevant):

Due to the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Human Rights Act 1998, HESA implements a strategy in published and released tabulations designed to prevent the disclosure of personal information about any individual. This strategy involves rounding all numbers to the nearest multiple of 5 and suppressing percentages and averages based on small populations.

HESA Services Standard Rounding Methodology:

• 0, 1, 2 are rounded to 0
• All other numbers are rounded to the nearest multiple of 5

Note that Totals are rounded separately, so the total will not always equal the sum of the row/column it represents.

1

Data

SOAS, University of London

19th December 2016

1