but all 5 of the unis I applied to insisted on an interview of one kind or another, ranging from an informal chat during an open day to a formal interview where we worked through problems on a board.
I suspect you went to university in the helicon 'John Lewis' era. We have now passed into the age of the 'Home Bargains' institutions. I guess we get what we pay for.
There's probably a paper written somewhere proving that if the goal is attracting enough undergrads who are capable of lasting the 3 or 4 years of the course so they can pay their fee (when you are also in charge of the goal posts that impact on their survival), interviewing candidates does not make enough difference to justify the time taken to do the interviewing.
The solution is, as others have said, is for universities to interview everyone.
What's so good about interviews? They're heavily subjective and vibes-based. Also, you couldn't interview every single applicant or even every candidate with grades above AAB (or whatever), could you? You have to cut down the numbers somehow
I suspect you went to university in the helicon 'John Lewis' era. We have now passed into the age of the 'Home Bargains' institutions. I guess we get what we pay for.
Nope, I was fee-paying era.
Nope, I was fee-paying era.
How long ago - last 15 years?
What's so good about interviews? They're heavily subjective and vibes-based.
They've always been important, but will soon be the only way to be exposed to a candidate without them filtering their application through a LLM. Written applications are going to be increasingly useless.
but all 5 of the unis I applied to insisted on an interview of one kind or another, ranging from an informal chat during an open day to a formal interview where we worked through problems on a board.
I suspect you went to university in the helicon 'John Lewis' era. We have now passed into the age of the 'Home Bargains' institutions. I guess we get what we pay for.
There's probably a paper written somewhere proving that if the goal is attracting enough undergrads who are capable of lasting the 3 or 4 years of the course so they can pay their fee (when you are also in charge of the goal posts that impact on their survival), interviewing candidates does not make enough difference to justify the time taken to do the interviewing.
interestingly my daughter got an interview for one course, she also got offers from other courses without an interview - they missed the opportunity to sell themselves to her. The course who did interview her is undersubscribed and entry requirements not that high - but probably therefore gets a lot of “don’t know what else to do” or “filling up 5th space on application” students. Making offers people don’t accept is not a good use of anyone’s time. Having made it through an interview actually made it feel more like an achievement for her - and if you were paying your own fees that would perhaps make if feel higher value. Perception is important - and if you come across as open to anyone paying the fees with fairly achievable grades you dilute the value. The more prestigious your course appears to be to the market the more “top quality” candidates will apply.
The solution is, as others have said, is for universities to interview everyone.
What's so good about interviews? They're heavily subjective and vibes-based. Also, you couldn't interview every single applicant or even every candidate with grades above AAB (or whatever), could you? You have to cut down the numbers somehow
on average Strathclyde uni is offering 54-57% of applicants a place (that is not specific to the course the OP’s daughter applied for which might be much more over subscribed). It’s perfectly feasible to interview them all, or at least those who have met / expect to meet the minimum entry requirements.
they interviewed and probably correctly rejected my son for a course he never really wanted to do - 5th option, title looked like he wanted but details were not aligned to his actual personal skills, despite having all the requirements on paper; they also gave him an offer for the course he wanted - 1st choice.
yes an interview might be vibes based, subjective and therefore open to unfair bias but even before LLMs were able to “polish” your personal statement there was a bias for students who:
- went to schools who proactively help pupils refine their PS
- has a particular teacher with a keen interest in that pupil/their course choice/institution who may have more insight on how to appeal
- has parents who are “very supportive” v those left to fend for themselves
Even on this thread we’ve seen teachers with different opinions on the personal statement that triggered the thread. I’ve seen with my own children, at the same school two different guidance teachers give pupils quite different levels of input.
If all your applicants have the required grades, and all your applicants have pretty good personal statements (which may or may not have been all the students own work) then how would you distinguish candidates?
would you rather interview twice as many people and eliminate the ones who exaggerated their personal statements, or save interviewer time and fill your course with less able candidates? Obviously if the numbers are high enough you do still need some way of prescreening.
interviews aren’t necessarily perfect either - everything that a great school/parent can do for a personal statement can also be done to help a student prepare for an interview whilst other possibly better students are left to their own devices.
there are no easy answers and even if teenagers think it is the most important thing in the world - getting accepted to your “ideal” choice probably isn’t actually critical to life.
If all your applicants have the required grades, and all your applicants have pretty good personal statements (which may or may not have been all the students own work) then how would you distinguish candidates?
Do it on academic results alone - if you have 150 spots, then take the applicants with the highest scores. You can give extra points to eg people from deprived backgrounds. Or just do it by lottery - whoever meets the admission criteria gets a ticket.
Everyone thinks they're a great interviewer and that interviews are a great insight into applicants. It's rubbish. I don't know if the research has been done in academia but in the private sector workforce there was no difference found in the performance etc of interviewed and non-interviewed workers. (I don't have the link so take that as you will).
if you have 150 spots, then take the applicants with the highest scores
If you think that gives you the best candidates, that will complete and benefit most from their years with you, I'm going to assume your exposure to undergrads is next to zero.
If all your applicants have the required grades, and all your applicants have pretty good personal statements (which may or may not have been all the students own work) then how would you distinguish candidates?
Do it on academic results alone - if you have 150 spots, then take the applicants with the highest scores.
im not sure that’s a particularly great criteria - do we want doctors who are incredibly good at passing exams, or doctors who are smart, have an interest in people and the confidence to communicate?
- if you are a maths course how would you separate out all the presumably very high maths scoring students? Based on similar subjects which may or may not have been available at all schools, breadth of subject, or a decision made three years before on what to study?
- do you accelerate the race for grades even more; ignoring creating rounded students and encouraging students to pursue subjects that score well?
- do you benefit those who (can) pay for tuition more to coach them to get a better grade without actually understanding?
but one of the criticism levelled at doing that is it’s based on fairly arbitrary criteria: your postcode; your school; if you were in care etc.You can give extra points to eg people from deprived backgrounds.
there is some merit in that until you think - do you want your surgeon to have won his training on luck? Or the person prosecuting rapists to have been the least suitable candidate at law school? Or even the other candidate on your chemistry degree who you get as a lab partner to really have no interest in chemistry?Or just do it by lottery - whoever meets the admission criteria gets a ticket.
Everyone thinks they're a great interviewer and that interviews are a great insight into applicants. It's rubbish. I don't know if the research has been done in academia but in the private sector workforce there was no difference found in the performance etc of interviewed and non-interviewed workers. (I don't have the link so take that as you will).
that study would be interesting - I can see for some roles it is certainly true that interviewing is probably not useful, but if the job involves face to face human interaction simple paper based selection will be poor. I don’t know that I’ve ever hired someone because of the interview but I’ve certainly rejected some and I’m sure they were good calls. There may be other ways to sift out the exaggerated CVs, the arrogant ****ers who wouldn't fit the team, etc. I’ve also made some bad hires that made it though interview but they had also gone through some sort of paper based screening. Depending on that study it may also have an inherent bias - eg if you were hiring teachers with 5 yrs experience then I can see that interviews might not be the be all and end all, every candidate has already proven their capabilities, they’ve already made it through university selection and at least one job selection process to get their 5 yrs experience. That’s not the same as working out who at 16/17/18 is actually a good candidate for becoming a teacher. Really good academic grades would be a bad criteria (or at least on their own). The same will be true of many jobs - evidence of real relevant experience will be better than 45 minutes sitting in front of a panel but school qualifications and references are unlikely to give you the same insight.
there is some merit in that until you think - do you want your surgeon to have won his training on luck? Or the person prosecuting rapists to have been the least suitable candidate at law school?
A lottery if they meet the criteria already. To echo a point that you've already made: a lot of this is slightly meaningless. It's just an overwrought process for allocating students to courses within a category of university: whether a top tier student goes to Oxford or Cambridge, or a D tier student goes to Westminster or Hertfordshire...it's all pretty irrelevant in the long term.
I can't remember exactly and can't be bordered to check, but I heard that Australia processes domestic student applications basically on the applicant's ATAR score alone. If you want to do law at Melbourne Uni, you need a 99.98 (or whatever); animal grooming at James Rouse is 72.34. Does that system really lead to worse outcomes?
Obviously there's a whole bunch of people who believe in their mystical powers to spot gold and predict futur behaviour who would disagree with this.
@kelvin: nah, I'm just a punter who was an undergrad twice and applied three times (and ended up with pretty much the rejections and offers I deserved, to be fair!). I have also hired and fired a bit, and am very cynical about similar arguments that are made there.
Having had one child finish uni and the other one in her second year I do think the degree apprenticeship route described by snotrag would have been the better option for both of them.
I missed out on higher education because I failed the 11+, but I managed to get through my working life finding jobs that, while I never earned huge amounts, they were mostly fulfilling jobs. The first couple did actually give me training on the job, which was a great help, and I’ve felt for a long time that doing an apprenticeship is the way to go, being paid, getting on the job training with off-site training with a degree at the end has to be the optimal approach.
The small print/publishing company I worked with for 18 years took on a couple of students who had studied graphic design, and frankly they were hopelessly out of touch with actual graphics as used commercially, they didn’t understand how to use grids to lay out pages or other techniques, they didn’t understand how CMYK was used in four-colour litho, instead doing designs that required eight or nine separate colours! 🤦🏼♂️
Having to explain simple processes to someone with degrees in the same subject I was working in was disappointing, to say the least. 🤷🏼♂️
The system worked, grade inflation broke it. Having multiple exam boards rather than national exams all students sit at the same time doesn't help.
Having to explain simple processes to someone with degrees in the same subject I was working in was disappointing, to say the least.
I obviously can't speak to your specific example, but it's surely often the case that someone with a high level theoretical understanding of a subject may not be familiar with the lower level processes. Einstein would probably have needed guidance on the protocol for washing test tubes.
Do course in graphic design… get job as artworker at start of career to learn what your design education missed out… next stop… junior designer… was pretty standard. One of the reasons starting salary for design graduates was, on average, pretty low. First job after your course wasn’t really a graduate job. All change now of course… barely touching print after graduation isn’t odd now. Assuming you get work at all. Starting positions in a predominantly print based agency are rare as hell.
there is some merit in that until you think - do you want your surgeon to have won his training on luck? Or the person prosecuting rapists to have been the least suitable candidate at law school?
A lottery if they meet the criteria already. To echo a point that you've already made: a lot of this is slightly meaningless. It's just an overwrought process for allocating students to courses within a category of university: whether a top tier student goes to Oxford or Cambridge, or a D tier student goes to Westminster or Hertfordshire...it's all pretty irrelevant in the long term.
I can't remember exactly and can't be bordered to check, but I heard that Australia processes domestic student applications basically on the applicant's ATAR score alone. If you want to do law at Melbourne Uni, you need a 99.98 (or whatever); animal grooming at James Rouse is 72.34. Does that system really lead to worse outcomes?
I think that’s not unreasonable if you have a system where everyone sits exactly that same entry exam (or mix of exams) and thus have directly comparable scores - but that requires not only the university entry process but the entire school exam system to be rewritten so is dream land. It would also mean that the scores are based purely on academic achievement - so no consideration if your medicine or nursing candidates are scared of the sight of blood, or lack the personal skills to talk to patients! No consideration if they achieved 98.5% from a comfortable highly supported background or 97% whilst hopping between foster parents. You can introduce extra criteria and adjustments but ultimately you end up with something not that different!
grade inflation is usually used to suggest exams got easier, but it’s often overlooked that it can equally be that teaching improved (or at least manipulating candidate output towards the marking scheme).The system worked, grade inflation broke it. Having multiple exam boards rather than national exams all students sit at the same time doesn't help.
given the OP was discussing entry by a Scottish student to a Scottish university - and all Scottish students operate under a single exam system I don’t think your second point has any weight.
Whereas teachers that have been teaching for decades in languages comment that the brightest students are about the same as they've ever been but the overall level has fallen.
Whilst I can't produce a time machine and go a fetch any students to compare I can say that long term PISA trends support my view. Peak education was around 2015 with a significant decline in recent years.It really is just grade inflation. We are now below 2003 levels. There should be fewer As and less pressure on places than in a couple of decades.
Might just be me but the one paragraph I read; Why do you want to study this course or subject?, just felt like either poorly written or just AI.
30 seconds with an ai detector says 70pc is ai generated or edited. I don't recruit for education, I have done some recruiting at work, I would want a personal statement to be personal not AI. Education may be different. But it is an extremely quick filter.
I couldn't see any interest in business in there at all. I can only echo previous posts, straight psychology sounds like it would be more for her?
Lastly, and just me, I didn't get my first choice uni but did get my second, I jumped at it before someone else did.
I wish her all the best whatever her choice.
Nothing particularly useful to add beyond what I already said but had to comment on
I suspect you went to university in the helicon 'John Lewis' era.
I try not to comment on spelling or word errors, what with dyslexia and all that, but I can't let that open goal comedy opp pass me by. I think you mean halcyon but the helicon era would be fantastic, but a little disruptive. When I was at Uni we had some lectures in old / tightly packed seating theatres sitting shoulder to shoulder and the constant knocking of the brass would have been very distracting, not to say the continual parping.
Can I take it off for lab work? If not, do I put it over the lab coat or do I need one with an inbuilt pocket?
No snidey harm meant, just made me LOL.
(those that know, know, otherwise the wiki page for helicon might get a few hits)
....😀
The system worked, grade inflation broke it. Having multiple exam boards rather than national exams all students sit at the same time doesn't help.
Probably worth sitting this one out if you don't know how Scottish education works.
It would also mean that the scores are based purely on academic achievement - so no consideration if your medicine or nursing candidates are scared of the sight of blood, or lack the personal skills to talk to patients!
...and this is just assuming that the current applications industry is good at detecting "personal skills" of children whose brains are still forming. Through what - an AI written personal statement? A 10 minute interview? The admissions bureaucrats' Spidey sense of what makes a good student?
thanks again all for feedback. Just to clarify on the it's an AI statement. It was written by a 17 year old girl with no AI involved, I can assure you of this 100% it's not AI.
Perhaps, going forwards, better proof reading / mentor advice is needed then.
My original reply didn’t post correctly…
It’s been interesting to read the different opinions on the PS. It was written by a 17 year old girl who is applying for the first time for anything like this. I can assure everyone 100% no AI was involved. To generate her PS I had to use screen shots from the UCAS portal and ran through Chat GPT to make a text file to paste into the forum, perhaps that is being picked up on?
Presumably the same level of differing opinions is also at university administrations. She has been offered unconditional to other universities for Psychology with joint honours in business with only Strathclyde rejecting her. Unfortunately Strathclyde was her first choice. As a guess Strathy must be the most oversubscribed of all her applications.
Thanks again to Convert, Polly and Troutwrestler
I think you mean halcyon but the helicon era would be fantastic, but a little disruptive
Thanks for the prompt to look up the origins of both those words 🙂 Relevant to our current weather is that "halcyon days" refers to a lull in the storm in which kingfishers (or some other mythical birds) could lay their eggs. They'd better get on with it today.
What's so good about interviews? They're heavily subjective and vibes-based.
Because most senior lecturers and profs with any sort of experience can pretty much gauge the degree outcome of every first year student on their course after a pretty quick conversation IME.
What's so good about interviews? They're heavily subjective and vibes-based.
Because most senior lecturers and profs with any sort of experience can pretty much gauge the degree outcome of every first year student on their course after a pretty quick conversation IME.
Practically every middle manager in every institution reckons they can predict the future based on a quick interview and the vibe. They can't, and they're also exactly the category of people responsible for the lack of diversity and recruitment failures in the past.
Because most senior lecturers and profs with any sort of experience can pretty much gauge the degree outcome of every first year student on their course after a pretty quick conversation IME.
You'd have thought so, but the Prof who interviewed me did not seem familiar with Newton's Laws of Motion, and I got rejected after a brief discussion of centrifugal force.
Or maybe he made the right call ...
Centripetal or centrifugal ? IIRC academics prefered centripetal acceleration/force, maybe that was the problem.
Perhaps the fairest system if A level results aren't enough to select candiates is an entry exam/ competition. It's more objective than an interview with old school ties and interviewer preferences -
The combination of entry exam, dossier and interview is quite common over here.
Off to Scumbag College then, like the rest of us !
Centripetal or centrifugal ? IIRC academics prefered centripetal acceleration/force, maybe that was the problem.
The boring details are that he drew a diagram of a moon orbiting a planet and asked me to draw the forces acting on the moon. I drew an arrow representing the gravitational attraction. He insisted that I'd omitted an equal and opposite force representing centrifugal force. I pointed out that a) there was no physical agency for that force and b) since the moon was accelerating, there was no reason why the forces should balance. It went downhill from there. I didn't really care, as I already had a 2Es offer from my first choice uni.
Perhaps the fairest system if A level results aren't enough to select candiates is an entry exam/ competition. It's more objective than an interview with old school ties and interviewer preferences -
Oxbridge system, basically. I doubt many universities have the resources for that.
Nothing like Oxbridge which favours private school applicants specifically tutored for it. An entry system needs a few societal criteria too, a percentage of places for private school applicants equal to the percentage of private school students. And that once the places reserved for students from the most deprived areas have been filled.
I read Asimov's book on the moon when in secondary school. Fascinating stuff like the moon never falling away from the Sun, day length increasing due tidal forces slowing the Earth's rotation and the Moon thus moving away from the Earth due conservation of angular momentum. Probably enough to flunk the question.
Crazy that with all that we learned about the Moon the planets and their atmoshperes/climates in the 70s that half a century on POTUS is repealing climate laws.
Godwin’s law needs an update
Centripetal or centrifugal ? IIRC academics prefered centripetal acceleration/force, maybe that was the problem.
Perhaps the fairest system if A level results aren't enough to select candiates is an entry exam/ competition. It's more objective than an interview with old school ties and interviewer preferences -
The combination of entry exam, dossier and interview is quite common over here.
no A levels in scotland
ive not heard of any suggestion of “school tie” interviews in Scotland in the last 30yrs, in fact quite the opposite - as you would see if you read the thread; interviews I have heard about were either trying to work out if the student really understood the subject or was just good at memorising facts for exams OR were getting students to discuss their interests and motivations as a way to see if their application was really them.
entry exams just create another opportunity for an artificial selection criteria, like the ability to be coached for the exam! For entry to a psychology course would there be psychology questions? But many schools don’t teach psychology so those students would be disadvantaged.
we could of course have a simple “exam” with the same 3 questions for all courses, allow students to do it “open book” and even with scope to get advice or input on their answers from teachers / parents etc. and provide them an opportunity to explain why they want to come, what makes them suitable and things that make them a more interesting candidate than others! In some ways that seems quite fair… although if you forget to answer a part of the question, your teachers are overworked or poorly briefed and don’t spot your omission you’ll be at a disadvantage. In that way an interview provides an opportunity to prompt the student to discuss the other half!
ultimately whichever method is used some students are going to be disappointed, some of them will have been “unfairly” deselected when they would have been great candidates and some will get places when they probably don’t really deserve it. I doubt it’s possible to engineer a system that avoids that, but certainly it’s irrelevant to current applicants as they need to play the game that’s in front of them not the one they believe would be fairer.
the only real scope for criticism of the university here is how they word the feedback. Sometimes though brutal honesty is more useful than “we were oversubscribed and other candidates were better”. If nothing else, hopefully the school have this on their radar for next year’s cohort if they are applying for a “with…” course.