Three surprising ways the current admissions system helps students facing barriers
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Post-Qualification Admissions: How do we get it right in practice?
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PQA is back on the agenda. A flurry of recent announcements, from the DfE, UCAS, Universities UK, and a research paper from the Sutton Trust, have all nodded broadly in the same direction. In the coming months you’ll hear a lot about the reliance on flawed predicted grades in our current system, the rise in unconditional offers and particular concerns for high-attaining disadvantaged students. What you’ll hear less of are detailed proposals for how teachers will be supported to make any changes in the application process work in practice.
PQA could be transformative, but it could also end up being a disaster. We need to get this right and, as always, the devil will be in the detail. There are three vital questions we need to be asking now, to help steer us towards a system which delivers on the bold promises being made.
Read MoreAre you one of the 23% of teachers that includes the top piece of advice from admissions tutors when marking a personal statement?
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What is it about personal statement writing that makes students suddenly start to express themselves in such a strange yet entirely predictable way? The fiery language comes out; ‘passion’, ‘sparked’, and ‘ignited’ combined with connectives like ‘furthermore’, ‘moreover’ and ‘thus’ while the whole piece overflows with unbridled enthusiasm expressed with the help of Microsoft Word’s synonym finder. Anyone who regularly reviews personal statements will already be nodding. Here at Causeway we have been supporting students in state schools to write better personal statements for seven years, but now much of our focus is on supporting schools to truly understand what makes a good application.
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