Good Practice
Offer-making
Much of SPA's work concerns the decision-making and offer-making process and existing recommendations of good practice on our website contribute to professional practice in this area (e.g. on admissions policies; entry profiles; interviews; admissions tests). Institutions frequently discuss this issue with us and our offer-making seminars, jointly offered with UCAS, were extremely popular.
However, we have also received a number of requests from institutions concerning the impact the need for increased selectivity is having on their offer-making strategies this year, given the unprecedented demand for places (UCAS applications received by the January deadline were up 22.9% in 2010). This unprecedented demand has also resulted in even more media and schools interest in how higher education providers consider applications and make offers.
The following links are therefore intended to supplement SPA's good practice statements and briefings and provide timely guidance for staff in admissions, marketing, planning and in academic departments to review their strategies for managing student intake.
- 2010 Entry - an exceptional year
- Defining your entry criteria and typical offers
- Recommendations for setting entry criteria
- Recommendations for offer-making
- FAQs
- 2010 Confirmation Action Plan
Further information will be added as the admissions cycle progresses. We welcome your comments, concerns and suggestions, particularly if you have, or are in the process of, changing your offer-making strategy. Please contact Dan Shaffer, SPA Senior Project Officer, at d.shaffer@spa.ac.uk or any other member of the SPA Team
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Reviewed and updated: June 2010