School differences on whether and where students apply to university

Figures & data

Table 1. Application rates by student characteristics for applying to any university, applying to at least one Russell Group university or three or more Russell Group universities.

		All students	Conditional on applying to any university
		Applied to university	Applied to at least one Russell Group university	Applied to three or more Russell Group universities
Sex/gender	Male	70.8	72.7	42.0
	Female	73.4	70.0	38.5
Ethnicity	White	68.8	68.9	39.4
	Black	82.5	71.7	35.0
	Asian	83.5	76.0	41.3
	Chinese	84.4	88.6	65.3
	Mixed	74.8	75.2	45.4
	Other	80.3	77.5	43.5
	Unclassified	73.9	73.4	44.3
FSM	Non-FSM	72.3	71.1	40.5
	FSM	71.1	67.0	32.2
EAL	Not EAL	70.6	70.3	40.3
	EAL	80.7	73.8	39.1
SEN	No SEN	72.6	71.2	40.3
	SEN	65.3	64.8	34.7
Deprivation	Q5—Highest IDACI	73.6	69.6	34.6
	Q4—IDACI	71.7	68.5	36.0
	Q3—IDACI	70.9	69.7	39.1
	Q2—IDACI	70.6	71.1	42.0
	Q1—Lowest IDACI	74.5	75.5	48.4
GCSE score	Q5—Highest GCSE	88.0	96.6	81.5
	Q4—GCSE	80.0	85.4	51.2
	Q3—GCSE	73.0	69.2	28.5
	Q2—GCSE	65.8	51.3	13.4
	Q1—Lowest GCSE	54.6	34.9	5.4
Facilitating subjects taken	3+	85.4	91.4	68.1
	2	81.3	80.8	48.9
	1	68.1	61.3	25.7
	0	54.4	39.9	9.0

FSM: free school meals; EAL: English as an additional language; SEN: special educational needs.

Note: All student sample is 145,179 students, the sample conditional on applying to any university is 104,858 students.

Table 3. School and student variances, percentage of total variance at the school-level, and percentage change in school-level variance from the previous model for making any application to university, to at least one Russell Group university and three or more Russell Group universities.

		Applied to university		Applied to at least one Russell Group university		Applied to three or more Russell Group universities
		Est.	SE	Est.	SE	Est.	SE
Model 1: Unadjusted	School variance	0.015	0.001	0.025	0.001	0.033	0.001
	Student variance	0.187	0.001	0.183	0.001	0.201	0.001
	% School-level	7.5%		12.1%		13.9%
	% Change	–		–		–
Model 2: Socio-demographics	School variance	0.012	0.001	0.024	0.001	0.031	0.001
	Student variance	0.185	0.001	0.182	0.001	0.2	0.001
	% School-level	6.3%		11.5%		13.3%
	% Change	−20.0%		−4.0%		−6.1%
Model 3: Prior achievement and facilitating subjects	School variance	0.009	0.000	0.008	0.000	0.009	0.000
	Student variance	0.173	0.001	0.146	0.001	0.147	0.001
	% School-level	4.7%		5.4%		5.7%
	% Change	−25.0%		−66.7%		−71.0%
Model 4: School characteristics	School variance	0.008	0.000	0.006	0.000	0.007	0.000
	Student variance	0.173	0.001	0.146	0.001	0.147	0.001
	% School-level	4.2%		4.1%		4.6%
	% Change	−11.1%		−25.0%		−22.2%

Note: All student sample is 145,179 students, the sample conditional on applying to any university is 104,858 students.

Table 2. Application rates by school characteristics for applying to any university, applying to at least one Russell Group university or three or more Russell Group universities.

		All students	Conditional on applying to any university
		Applied to university	Applied to at least one Russell Group university	Applied to three or more Russell Group universities
School region	London	76.4	77.6	46.2
	North East	67.3	77.5	44.8
	North West	66.9	76.4	48.8
	Yorkshire and the Humber	74.0	70.6	40.3
	East Midlands	73.8	62.2	32.2
	West Midlands	77.0	70.1	35.5
	East of England	70.1	65.3	35.6
	South East	72.1	67.3	37.1
	South West	66.1	71.9	41.8
School type	Academies	72.3	70.2	39.8
	Comprehensives	69.6	68.7	35.8
	Selective	82.4	85.6	59.2
	Sixth Form	74.2	68.4	35.2
	FE/Tertiary	76.3	71.1	42.1
	Other	71.8	73.7	39.9

FE: further education.

Note: All student sample is 145,179 students, the sample conditional on applying to any university is 104,858 students.

Figure 1. School-level histograms of the percentage of students applying to university overall (top), to at least one Russell Group university (middle), and to three or more Russell Group universities (bottom) within schools.

Figure 2. Predicted percentage rates of application for schools in rank order for models unadjusted (Model 1, left) and adjusted for student sociodemographics, prior achievement, and facilitating subjects taken (Model 3, right) for applying to university overall (top), applying to at least one Russell Group university (middle), and applying to three or more Russell Group universities (bottom).