Back from my holidays, into the process of UCAS clearing. It is the first time I’ve experienced it, as I’m now a programme leader, which means that I now get some input into the relative rankings of different potential students.
Chatting with one of my colleagues at lunch today, we discussed the different systems as experienced by us. In Belgium, some courses have an entrance examination, but otherwise, on successful completion of secondary level you are qualified to enter a degree course. This slightly fills me with worry, as there must be some fierce logistical issues with having “no limits” to your potential student numbers, especially for some courses that require access to labs.
In Ireland, the system administered by the Central Applications Office [CAO] gives universities the ability to set minimum requirements in specific subjects and the total number of students that they want to recruit for a particular course. Once that process is complete, the universities essentially have no further input (there are some minor exceptions). Instead the magic of the Irish predilection for preference based systems comes into its own. Just considering the direct entry into degree level, Irish students get to rank their top 10 degree programmes. For the setting of the tariff is completely out of the hands of the universities – it is a complete supply / demand situation that governs the equivalent of the tariff attached to the courses. Provisional offers are only made for those on non-traditional entry routes, otherwise everything comes down to the students meeting the minimum requirements, the entrance examinations [for Medicine] and then allocating the number of spaces (let’s call that X) available in a manner like this:
- Look at all applicants who gave your course a rank.
- See who passes the minimum requirements.
- Offer a place to the X best students. The lowest of them sets the “points” total.
- Some students may decline their offer (for any number of reasons), even if students accept an offer, they you may receive an offer from higher up your original preference list, but not lower down your preferences…
- Thus there can be many rounds of offers…
The important thing is that it is based on your results; not your personal statement, nor your personal reference, or any subjective input from people like me…
To be decided 