Standing the test of time

Our CEO James Turner explores why PQA deserves to be looked at again – despite the challenges to implementation.

One of my very first tasks joining the Sutton Trust back in 2004 was reviewing the recommendations of the Schwartz report on fair admissions. Our Chairman, Sir Peter Lampl, has been a member of that task force, and – to a fresh pair of eyes working in the sector for the first time – the recommendations made a lot of sense. Among them was a move to Post-Qualification Applications (PQA), as “the current system, relying on predicted grades, cannot be fair ... It does not meet the Steering Group’s recommended principles of fair admissions, since it is based on data which are not reliable, it is not transparent for applicants or institutions, and may present barriers to applicants who lack self-confidence.” 

Fast forward 16 years and PQA is back on the table – albeit in the context of a global pandemic and a chaotic exam season that caused huge anxiety amongst young people, not to mention a huge strain on those working in schools and universities. This summer brought into sharp relief how high stakes these decisions are, and how much a place at university still means to the current generation of sixth formers and their families.  

As in 2004, the common sense behind PQA is inescapable: for decisions as life-defining as what to study at university and where, it has to make sense for those choices to be based on real data (i.e. actual grades achieved) rather than on projections. Especially when those projections are mostly wrong – and wrong more often for poorer students than their better off peers. Whether under-predicted or over-predicted, it is in everyone’s interests for students to be paired with courses based on the most complete information possible.   

And, as our research has previously highlighted, it is bright low-income youngsters who are most likely to have their grades under predicted, potentially contributing to an ‘under match’ of students and suppressing social mobility at our most selective institutions. Through our programme work, we often hear from students who did not apply to a certain course because, being the first in their family to go to university for example, they did not believe they were good enough to get in, even though they go on to do incredibly well in their exams. 

Some may argue that this is exactly the wrong time to be looking again at this issue, when universities and schools are struggling with the basics of keeping open safely. But if there is any silver lining to this terrible year, it is that it has given us a chance to look afresh at the system and how it operates.  

The polling we are releasing today suggests that the renewed interest in PQA from policymakers is in tune with the views of young people who applied to start university this autumn, and who have had the most tumultuous of experiences. Even though these young people ended up, eventually, with the highest grades on record – and even though, for most, their final grades were based on teacher assessments – the predictions they applied to university with still proved to be incorrect in a large percentage of cases. And many from working class homes particularly say they would have made different choices had they applied to higher education after they knew their results. Consequently, two thirds support a move to PQA.

So even this most exceptional of years has provided more ammunition for change. But – as those who have been involved in previous PQA reviews will know – the devil really is in the detail of its implementation. The logistical challenges of this most intuitive of reforms are significant and, realistically, could not be introduced until 2022 at the earliest. Indeed, there is a real danger to rushing through well-intentioned changes that would make things worse, for example if low income youngsters – who typically have less support at home – are left stranded without guidance from schools in a period of post-qualification decision-making in the summer holidays. 

And PQA isn’t a silver bullet which will remedy all the ills of the system. Fair access to university will continue to require action on other fronts as well.  Potential will continue to be lost if universities don’t adopt contextual admissions, for example – the pre-18 education playing field will still be highly uneven, regardless of when university decisions are made. Indeed, an added benefit of PQA would be to make that process of contextualising admissions much more transparent to prospective students than it is now. 

It is no secret that the Trust is a fan of PQA: we have been calling for it for twenty years or more. There are of course significant logistical challenges and potential pitfalls along the way. But the prize is potentially great. Our hope is that as the government looks at its vision for higher education in a post-Covid, post-Brexit world, it will find time and space to seriously examine PQA once again, at the heart of an equitable and transparent university admissions system.