Applying to higher education: comparisons of independent and state schools

Abstract

This paper reports on research into the ways that schools engage in university application processes. Questionnaire and interview data were collected from 1400 Year 13 students from 18 independent and state schools in England and 15 in-depth interviews were carried out with school teacher higher education (HE) advisors. The analysis compares independent and state schools with respect to: the types of higher education institutions (HEIs) that students applied for; the way the HE application process was managed in their schools; and how teacher advisors explained and managed the processes and outcomes for their students. Informed by Bourdieu's relational sociology, our discussion focuses on how schools in the two sectors mobilise different forms of capital in the competitive processes of university application. We also use the notion of doxa to explore how these micro-institutional processes and teacher advice relate to observed differences between state and independent sector students' HE destinations.

Keywords:

• English higher education
• choice
• organizational culture
• entering university
• social class

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the participating schools and colleges, the Year 13 students and their teacher advisors for the time and attention they willingly gave to this research. We also acknowledge the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills who commissioned the wider study that provided us with the opportunity to develop this paper. Finally, we are also grateful to the reviewers for their input and in particular to Dr Barbara Crossouard for her constructive critical comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Notes

1. While our sample included Year 13 students and HE advisors in both schools and sixth-form colleges, we will refer to all of them as schools both for ease of reference and to distinguish them from third-level education providers that might offer degree level courses.

2. The UCAS process requires students who want to attend a HEI in the UK to complete and submit a form and supplementary documents. It is a centralised system in which the submissions are circulated to up to five universities and course choices listed on the form by student applicants in preference order. It is a competitive process through which HEIs select and offer places to students based on their application and dependent on the achievement of examination points. Stronger competition for higher status HEIs generally means that they require higher quality applications, more examination points and they may not consider applications in which they are not among the first of the five choices made by an applicant. Students who fail to secure the offer of a place in one of their listed HEIs or to achieve the required points are passed back to UCAS and their applications are circulated to other HEIs through a clearing process. For more information refer to http://www.ucas.ac.uk/.

3. The top 10 UK universities are Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College, University College London, King's College London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Bristol, London School of Economics and Warwick (Times Higher Education, 9 October 2008).