Monitoring undergraduate applications
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Monitoring undergraduate applications Past patterns of applications can be used to predict total applications early ¡n the admissions cycle.
Carole Roberts This article describes a system for monitoring and predicting total applications to an undergraduate degree course early in the admissions cycle. lt was used by the author whilst an admissions tutor for a degree programme attracting large numbers of applicants yet offering relatively small numbers of available places. The system was found
to be useful especially ¡n that it provided a framework within which a flexible policy on marginal candidates could be implemented.
The admissions tutor's task of recruiting sufficient suitably
qualified students is becoming an increasingly difficult one. Pressure to admit a greater number of students
onto degree programmes grows along with the number of courses available for potential students to choose from.
at grade C or better. Clearly this analysis was specific to the applicants for the particular degree course addressed
but they were in broad agreement with the work of
Murphy. However, with the advent of GCSE it would be timely to investigate if relationships between performance at GCSE and A-level are changing.
Edwards and Bader's investigation into predicting student performance was made as part of the construction of an expert system to help the admissions tutor for the Aston course. Mar Molinero and Qing (1990) later described a decision support system developed to administer undergraduate applications, forecast enrolment and do market analysis in the Faculty of Social Sciences of Southampton University. This made use of the frequent and goodquality data provided by the central admissions clearing
house, UCCA, which as the authors pointed out, has
There are several factors which influence the final outturn of the admissions process: the number of applicants, the percentage of these applicants who receive an offer, the number who accept a conditional offer either as their first or second choice and the numbers who accept a conditional offer either as their first or second choice and the
potential which is not normally realised.
meet the conditions of the offer and take up a place.
than is the case now. The importance of non-A-level
proportion of those who have accepted who ultimately
The admissions tutor can find in the literature some assistance on certain aspects of the admissions process. For example Murphy (1979, 1981) looked at the prediction of A-level results from 0-level performance in the same subject and from teachers' predictions. He found only what he described as 'moderate' correlations in both
cases. The correlation coefficients between A and 0level results ranged between 0.34 and 0.58 with teachers' predictions recording slightly higher correlations, subject
for subject, between 0.47 and 0.69. More recently Edwards and Bader (1988) undertook an analysis of
applications to a degree course in Managerial and Admin-
Many admissions tutors however are operating in an environment where a we
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