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Good Practice

Planning and Managing Admissions

Good Practice in setting entry criteria and offer-making

Defining your entry criteria and typical offers

Higher education providers should review their entry criteria, published typical offers and actual offer-making strategy well in advance of the admissions cycle. Although the distinction between these three may be clear to those working in admissions to HE it is not always clear to the public, particularly to applicants and their advisors, and may be perceived by them as an attempt by universities and colleges to obscure and confuse the issue. So it is worth clarifying the different meaning and usage of each. The following summaries may prove useful, although individual institutions will need to include additional information for their own specific use:

• Entry criteria
  Entry criteria are generally published a year or more ahead of the admissions cycle in which they will be applied and represent the normal requirements an applicant is expected to achieve in order to be considered for a place on the course. Academic qualifications form an important part of such criteria, but will not be the only requirement. Entry Profiles should be clear about the full range of academic and non-academic criteria that must be met and/or expected to be met during the admissions cycle in order to be considered. These criteria do not necessarily constitute the exact grades that will be requested in any offer made; merely the pre-requisites for making an offer.
  Some institutions may publish entry criteria indicating the absolute minimum required for consideration, based on the lowest matriculation requirements identified in the course validation (e.g. five GCSEs including English and Mathematics plus two A Levels). Others may set higher requirements based on agreed selective levels (e.g. ten GCSEs at grade A including English, Mathematics, a science subject and a foreign language, plus three A Levels grades ABB), or even publish the absolute maximum required as a guarantee to applicants that no offer will exceed it. All three approaches are intended to provide learners with a template of the achievement they need to aim towards in order to be eligible for consideration. Institutions should review whether or not their criteria are clear enough for learners to make informed progression planning and have reasonable confidence in their eligibility. Institutions should remember that potential students and their advisers may consult institution requirements several years in advance as part of their curriculum planning at school or college. However, it must be accepted that market forces, applicants' demand for places and restrictions on the available supply of places will have an effect after the publication of entry criteria, so although applicants who meet the entry requirements should be equally eligible for consideration, they may be in competition with one another for a limited number of offers.
• Typical/Standard offers
  Typical offers, also referred to as standard offers, refer to the offers an institution expects to normally make for applicants meeting the entry criteria. They are commonly published within the entry criteria themselves, but are subject to change closer to the start of the admissions cycle. They are usually based on historical data, on actual offers made in previous cycles, and are potentially moderated against predictors of future demand. However, typical offers are indicative only and do not represent a guarantee that all offers will be at that level. Institutions have the right to vary the offers made to individual applicants for a range of reasons such as: consideration of contextual factors or other indicators of potential; specific compact or progression agreements; and restrictions for late or clearing applications. Institutions may wish to clarify their grounds for varying offers or indeed if they pledge to stick to the typical offers published at the start of the admissions cycle. They should not, however, alter their published typical offers during any period of guaranteed equal consideration.
• Offers made
  The actual offer made should relate to the published entry requirements and typical offers and should not include extra requirements from those listed in the entry criteria. Adding completely new criteria, such as admissions tests, subject-specific qualifications, interviews or work experience, imposes covert barriers to entry and is unfair. Holistic assessment means that additional contextual factors are considered and that qualifications are only one element in the decision-making process. However, it is appropriate for institutions to vary grades or UCAS Tariff points within published required criteria, in line with any clear disclaimers published alongside their typical offer information and so long as any variation does not become 'typical'.

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Reviewed and updated: October 2010