UCAS data reveals the numbers of men and women placed in over 150 higher education subjects

UCAS today completes the annual publication of its scheme-level data on admissions to full-time undergraduate higher education in the UK in 2015.
Posted Tue 5 January 2016 - 13:58

UCAS today completes the annual publication of its scheme-level data on admissions to full-time undergraduate higher education in the UK in 2015.

You can access and download the full 2015 end of cycle datasets here.

This data follows our analysis of trends and equality of access to higher education published in the End of Cycle Report on 17 December 2015.

The data resources enable anyone with an interest in those applying and being accepted to higher education to do their own research. They are published in downloadable .pdf and .csv format.

For effective comparison, where possible, the data sets range from 2015 to 2006, but in some cases the time-series is shorter.

In total over 1.5 million data points are freely available to download today, a slight increase on the number published in 2014.

Included in the data are the numbers of men and women accepted to over 150 higher education subjects, showing there are more women than men in two thirds of courses. UCAS showed last month that UK women are 35% more likely to go university than men – the sex-gap widening to a record level.

Mary Curnock Cook, UCAS' Chief Executive said today: "Girls are doing better throughout primary, secondary and higher education than boys; poor, white boys are the most disadvantaged group in entry to higher education and the gap is getting bigger.

"The focus on White working class boys in the Higher Education Green Paper as part of the wider aim to widen university participation from all under-represented groups is a really important signal of change.

“But no amount of outreach by universities will work if boys are still too far behind when they come out of secondary education.”

Today, we also publish information on how the attainment level and types of qualifications held by applicants choosing and progressing to university have changed over the years (A level, BTEC, SQA). 

The data focusing on applicants and acceptances (individuals, in both cases) to UK higher education include:

  • Age
  • Sex
  • Ethnic Group
  • UK country and English region
  • Students applying to UK HE through UCAS from around 100 countries of the world
  • Students with a declared disability
  • School type (Academy, Further Education, Grammar, Independent, State)
  • Acceptance Route (Firm Choice, Insurance Choice, Clearing, Extra, Adjustment)
  • Background (POLAR3 – An area-based measure of advantage/disadvantage) by UK country and by sex
  • Qualifications held (A Level, BTEC, SQA)
  • A Level points by background, sex, ethnic group and UK country.

The data on subjects is slightly different and includes applications (choices - one person can make up to five choices) and acceptances (individuals):

  • Country of university or college accepted/applied to (by age, sex, UK country, EU/non-EU region of domicile)
  • Detailed subject group accepted/applied to (by age, sex, UK country, EU/non-EU region of domicile).
  • Deferred entry

Acceptances and applications for specific universities and colleges will be published on 21 January this year. These will also be split by age, sex, ethnic group, subject group, qualification type, and region.

 

Notes to editors:

Scotland

For people living in England, Wales and Northern Ireland UCAS covers the overwhelming majority of full-time undergraduate provision so the statistics on acceptances or entry rates can be taken as being very close to all recruitment to full-time undergraduate higher education. In Scotland there is a substantial section of provision that is not included in UCAS' figures.

This is mostly full-time higher education provided in further education colleges which represents around one third of young full-time undergraduate study in Scotland, and this proportion varies by geography and background within Scotland. Accordingly, figures on entry rates or total recruitment in Scotland reflect only that part of full-time undergraduate study that uses UCAS.

There were also changes to the scope of the data recorded in UCAS scheme in 2015 for Scotland (including teacher training courses in Scotland moving from the dedicated UCAS Teacher Training Scheme into the main UCAS scheme) that are estimated to account for around 3,800 of the increase in total UK acceptances. This gives a like-for-like increase in placed applicants of 16,100 (3.1 per cent).

About UCAS

UCAS, the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, is a charity and the UK's shared admissions service for higher education. We manage applications from over 700,000 people each year for full-time undergraduate courses at over 370 providers across the UK.

UCAS Press Office contacts: 

communications@ucas.ac.uk

01242 545469.

ENDS

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