UK's varsity admission system to be reviewed

Updated on: Monday, July 05, 2010

The UK's university admissions system is to be overhauled amid fears that the practice of scoring applicants' qualifications has become outdated, and is being wrongly used by employers to recruit graduates, writes Polly Curtis for The Guardian, according to a report in University World News.

The admissions service, Ucas, is to review the 'points-based' system, which uses a tariff to give every applicant a score, because it has become too crude to accommodate the modern diverse range of qualifications. There are also signs that with university places more competitive than ever, it is failing to give admissions tutors enough information when they are faced with dozens of candidates for every place.

The review could take up to two years and will not affect this year's record number of applicants. By some estimates nearly 100,000 more candidates are competing for a university place this year despite there being only 10,000 extra places. Last year more than 630,000 people applied for places with about 480,000 applicants successful in gaining places.

UK's varsity admission system to be reviewed

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