For students and schools/colleges

This page is for students who are planning to apply to a university or college in 2013-14, and for their parents, teachers and careers advisers.

It explains what the ‘high-grades’ policy is, and its implications for higher education applications.

Universities and colleges are autonomous organisations and judge all applications on their academic merit and potential. They should offer fair access to all applicants.

If you are a student, parent, teacher, or careers adviser who has concerns about the high-grades policy, please contact the HEFCE Learning and Teaching Policy team on snc@hefce.ac.uk.   

What is the ‘high-grades policy’?

The high-grades policy allows universities and colleges to recruit as many students with high grades at A-level and certain equivalent qualifications (broadly defined each year by government policy) as they wish, and are able to, outside of their student number control. We call this the ‘high-grades’ policy.

Otherwise, universities and colleges are given a ‘student number control’ for the maximum volume of students they may recruit whose achievement is below this ‘high-grades’ threshold.   

The government aim is to encourage greater freedom and competition between universities and colleges to recruit students. The intention is that popular and successful institutions can expand, and student choice is increased.

What is meant by ‘high grades’?

Students entering higher education in 2013-14 with ABB grades or above at A-level, or certain equivalent qualifications and grades, will have met the threshold at which universities and colleges can recruit in unlimited numbers. 

What does ‘certain equivalent qualifications’ mean?

We are responsible for putting the high-grades policy into practice for Government, and have developed a list of entry qualifications and grades which are exempt from the student number control. 

This ‘exemptions list’ does not include all qualifications in which a student may attain high grades.  It does not, for example, include combinations of different qualifications, or qualifications from all other EU countries, or make allowance for contextual factors in admissions decisions.   

Why doesn’t the exemptions list include other EU qualifications and combinations of qualifications?

Because we need to be able to estimate the numbers of students in the ‘uncontrolled’ student population as accurately as possible. This means that the Government is able to estimate and control the cost of providing fee and maintenance loans and grants to students. If we were to exempt all EU qualifications and combinations of qualifications from the student number control, it would be much more difficult to do this, and to work out the controlled numbers each institution has. 

How can universities and colleges be sure that their student number control limit will allow them to take the students that they wish to admit?

We believe that we are providing all universities and colleges with sufficient numbers in their student number control to enable them to admit high-achieving students with qualifications which are not on the exemptions list, and students with combinations of qualifications. This should also provide universities and colleges with the flexibility to make ‘contextual offers’ (offers that take into account the context, and social and economic circumstances in which the applicant is applying) to students that are under-represented in higher education, if they so wish.

We will work closely with universities and colleges to ensure that their student number control is set at a sufficient level. Any university or college which says it needs more places to continue to offer fair access to all applicants can appeal against its student number control. We will listen carefully to their concerns if we feel that there is any risk that students are not being treated fairly.

We also allocate additional student numbers to the most selective universities which tend to admit very high numbers of ‘high-achieving’ students, to ensure that they have a student number control limit sufficient to allow them to continue to provide fair access to students that do not meet our definition of ABB+ or equivalent. This includes those high-achieving students whose qualifications are not included in the ‘exemptions list’. Universities may still experience excess demand for places, and as in past years, not all applicants will be successful.

For the 2013-14 academic year, universities and colleges will also have more flexibility around their student number control allocation for 2013-14. They will have limited scope to exceed their student number control allocation by up to 3 per cent without incurring a reduction for over-recruitment.

Won’t applicants with qualifications which are not exempted from the student number control be disadvantaged because universities and colleges will not want to risk exceeding their student number control limit?

The exemptions list has been developed for the practical and limited purpose of implementing the Government’s student number control policy. It makes no judgement about academic achievement, and it is not a guide to help universities and colleges decide who to admit to their courses.

Universities and colleges are autonomous organisations. It is entirely up to them to decide the suitability of candidates. They have always admitted students on the basis of academic excellence and potential, and they should continue to do so. Whether or not a student’s qualifications appear on the list should not influence an institution’s decision to take the student, because they have the scope within their controlled numbers to take the students they most want.