Promoting equity in undergraduate admissions

We’ve shown that personal statements reduce fairness in admissions to university. We’re now evaluating alternative approaches and seeking to make the admissions process fairer for all applicants.

Impact highlights

  • The UCAS personal statement is completed by over half a million university applicants every year.
  • University of Manchester research showed that the personal statement strongly favoured applicants from private schools.
  • UCAS will reform the personal statement to a series of structured questions for applications in 2025/26.

To apply for higher education courses in the UK, prospective students are required to submit a 4,000 character personal statement. The free-form nature of this process creates inequalities and is incompatible with Universities UK and GuildHE’s own Fair admissions code of practice. Researchers at The University of Manchester evidenced the challenges to influence major changes to the admissions process.

Professor Steve Jones

Professor Steve Jones

Steve Jones is a Professor of Higher Education in the School of Environment, Education and Development.

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Led by Professor Steve Jones, the pioneering study of the way in which equal-attainment university applicants construct their ‘personal statement’ – has impacted more than 20,000 non-traditional university applicants. It has shifted practice among teachers, careers advisors and other practitioners, and raised awareness of access gaps among sector representatives, policy-makers and the wider public. Sustained collaborations with multiple independent partners have led to high-participation, evidence-based initiatives, such as the Academic Apprenticeship, now part of the Sutton Trust’s summer school, and the Online System for Completing Applications & References (OSCAR).

Publicity and debate about the research has generated substantial awareness-raising impact. The Russell Group, Universities UK, and several individual universities issued press statements in response to the findings. Following the publication of Professor Jones’ Sutton Trust reports, he was interviewed on the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, addressed the Sunday Times Festival of Education and was interviewed on the BBC News channel.

This awareness-raising work has been central to driving a wider public conversation about fairness in university admissions and has facilitated direct communication of the research to policy-makers at HM Treasury (2014), the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (2014), the All-Party Parliamentary University Group alongside the incumbent Minister for Universities and Science, and the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) annual conference.

The research also triggered interventions by a range of other organisations, including local initiatives that focused on access to university from young people within a particular region. Now in its seventh year, an intervention based in Cumbria involves seven universities, and the number of students attending the annual ‘conference’ has increased from 35 to 150.

Research by Dr Tom Fryer and Prof Steven Jones has influenced UCAS’s policy in this area. A novel dataset was used to highlight the challenges that students from under-represented backgrounds face with the UCAS personal statement, and advocated reforming the personal statement to a series of short questions. Further, the first overview of the way UCAS personal statements are used in university admissions decisions was provided.

This work supported UCAS’s decision to consult on reforming the personal statement in January 2023 from a long-form essay to six short questions. Dr Fryer and Prof Jones’ research has also informed this consultation, and seeks to influence the direction of the reform, which is expected to be implemented for September 2026 entries.

Through influencing policy, Dr Fryer and Prof Jones seek to bring about a university application system that promotes greater equity and will continue to monitor the progress: is the new style personal statement enabling applicants to make their case more clearly? Are admissions trends changing as a result?

Prof Steven Jones said: “The UCAS personal statement was mandatory for all applicants in the UK, but no-one really knew what universities did with the statements. It was therefore difficult to gauge whether they increased or decreased fairness in the application process.

Our research showed that the personal statement was problematic in all kinds of ways. Some students found it very stressful because they didn’t have lots of work experience to talk about and weren’t able to access help with writing their statement from family networks or careers advisor. Universities didn’t say much about how they assessed the statements, and practices were inconsistent.

The old format has now been replaced by three questions. We think that’s a step in the right direction, but will be continuing to monitor the impact of the change on who gets into selective universities.”

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