So this month we decided to take looksie at UCAS again. This time focusing on the recently released ‘Placed Applicant’ data as at 31/08/2018, which is part of the daily clearing analysis 2018 statistical releases.
There has been a lot of talk around the demographic dip which will give Universities fewer 18 year olds, so we wanted to see where it has had an impact. We also wanted to see to what extent International students felt welcome and the impact on areas, such as nursing, which had a change in funding arrangements.
International Interest
A looksie at UCAS placed Applicants
In the last year there has been a slight positive shift to both International student groups (Non EU and EU, excluding UK). Both areas have increased in numbers as well which is a positive sign that International students still regard England as a place to come and study. This has also offset some of the decline in the number of Home placed applicants.
Subject split
We started out by looking at how things have changed over three separate time periods (1 year, 5 years and the full 9 years in the data set). What this showed was that despite the decline in the last year over the time period of the data set there has been an increase in nearly all the subjects with only one big subject seeing a decline.
We then started looking at grouping up the subjects which showed that the majority of the placed applicants reside in the science and social science groups and these are also where the biggest increases over the time period are observed. There has been a downward shift from Arts & Humanities over the last 9 years.
Placed Applicants by subject group
Nursing
Nursing has changed shape in the HE setting quite a lot over the time of the data set. There has been a shift to it being only accessible via a funded degree then they have moved to remove the funding. It has always been a challenge for HE providers as there needs to be placement in place but ultimately it does lead to employment in most cases. Looking at the data there looks to be a shift with 18 year olds over taking 20-24 year olds for the first time. They still lag behind the 25-and-over, though, who make up the vast majority of the placed applicants for nursing.
Placed Applicants – B7 Nursing only
So hopefully that was an interesting window into the latest UCAS placed applicants data. Do let us know what you think.
Adam and Dave
VisualisingHE 
[…] viz is the feature viz for #VisualisingHE ‘s September blog post: ‘A looksie at UCAS placed applicants 2018‘ – 31/08/18. The idea was to create something a little eye catching to support the […]
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