The University will soon have an online contextual admissions checker for all students considering applying for an undergraduate degree programme. This will allow prospective applicants to check their eligibility for a contextual flag, which triggers additional consideration in the admissions process. We were one of the first universities in the UK to use contextual data in our admissions process and have been doing so since 2004. Contextualised admissions recognise that school leaving qualifications are not necessarily the best way of assessing academic potential. No student is admitted solely on the basis of their grades. Image This is in line with our commitment to widening participation, which ties into Scottish and UK government goals to increase educational aspiration and attainment among people from groups traditionally under-represented in higher education. By providing information to applicants about their personal eligibility via a self-service automated process, we aim to make our admissions processes more transparent, reduce uncertainty, and encourage those from under-represented groups to apply. We will be the first university in the UK to provide this upfront automated service around contextualised admissions. Project SAC054 is a joint endeavour between IS Applications, Student Systems and Student Recruitment & Admissions. It will deliver an online questionnaire with instant results, as well as information on contextualised admissions. The form is due to go live by the start of the next admissions cycle in September 2016. In 2015 the University received over 30,000 undergraduate applications from UK domiciled applicants. The contextual admissions checker is being developed in line with our policy on fair and transparent admissions to provide a service to all our prospective UK applicants. Gemma DochertyAdmissions Operations Officer Publication date 13 Jul, 2016
