Why are British ethnic minoritiesless likely to be offered places

at highly selective universities?

Vikki BoliverSchool of Applied Social Sciences

Durham University

SRHE and UALL joint seminar series22nd January 2015

Background to the research

“…there are more young men from black backgrounds in prison in the UK than there are UK-domiciled undergraduate black male students attending Russell Group institutions” (Alan Milburn 2012 University Challenge p.21)

“Just one British black Caribbean student was admitted to Oxford last year [in 2009]. That is not a misprint: one student. Merton College, Oxford, has not admitted a single black student for five years. At Robinson College, Cambridge, a white applicant is four times more likely to be successful than a black applicant. […] Applications are being made but places are not being awarded.” (David Lammy writing in The Guardian, 6 Dec 2010)

Background to the research

Background to the research

Posited explanations1) Ethnic minorities are less likely to achieve the grades needed to

qualify for entry to highly selective universities

“School attainment is the single biggest barrier to getting more black students to Oxford. […] If Mr Lammy thinks Oxford and Cambridge's data makes "shocking reading", he should try the national figures. In 2009, 29,000 white students got the requisite grades for Oxford (AAA excluding general studies), compared to just 452 black students.” (Sally Mapstone writing in The Guardian, 9 December 2010)

Some ethnic minority groups do perform less well at A-level…but are ethnic minority applicants just as likely to receive offers from Russell Group universities as White applicants when they have the same A-level grades?

Posited explanations2) Ethnic minority applicants study the wrong subjects at A-level

“Our consistent advice is that taking two facilitating subjects will keep a wide range of degree courses and career options open to you. This is because these are the subjects most commonly required by our universities and hundreds of courses require one or more facilitating subjects.” (Wendy Piatt, Director General of the Russell Group, 27 September 2013)

‘Facilitating subjects’: Biology, Chemistry, English Literature, Geography, History, Languages, Maths, Physics

Are ethnic minorities just as likely to receive offers from Russell Group universities as White applicants with the same ’facilitating subjects’ at A-level?

Posited explanations3) Ethnic minority applicants disproportionately choose

degree subjects that are heavily oversubscribed

“Our own recent analysis shows that subject choice is a major reason for the lower success rate. Black students apply disproportionately for the three most oversubscribed subjects: 44% of black applicants, compared to just 17% of white applicants.” (Sally Mapstone, Pro-VC of Oxford University, writing in The Guardian, 9 December 2010)

“Black and Asian students tend to apply to more competitive subjects, such as Medicine, which results in a disproportionately high rate of rejection and therefore lower participation rates.” (Jon Beard, Director of Undergraduate Recruitment at Cambridge University, 2 December 2010)

Posited explanations

3) Ethnic minority applicants disproportionately choose degree subjects that are heavily oversubscribed

“One of the interesting things I have discovered is that one of the underlying reasons for the under-representation of ethnic minorities in some highly selective universities is because they apply predominantly for medicine and law, both highly competitive courses…” (Les Ebdon, Director of OFFA, quoted in The Sunday Times, 20 January 2013)

Ethnic minorities are concentrated in certain subjects, including some that are highly numerically competitive…but does this account for their lower offer rates?

Posited explanations

4) Admissions selectors may seek, consciously or unconsciously, to admit a study body that is ethnically representative of the wider population

Ethnic minority applicants are unevenly distributed across subject-institution combinations

If fairness is conceived of as representativeness rather than equal treatment, this may lead to the disproportionate rejection of ethnic minority applicants from courses where ethnic minorities make up disproportionately large share of applicants

Posited explanations Some evidence that universities do conceive of fairness as

being about the representativeness of the student body

Arguably legitimate to pursue representativeness at the expense of equal treatment fairness at the aggregate level rather than the individual level, in outcome if not process

But in any case, the 2010 Equality Act requires universities, as public institutions, to ensure that they do not unlawfully discriminate against applicants on the basis of any of nine ‘protected characteristics’, including ethnicity

Data and methods

Micro-data on applications to full-time undergraduate courses submitted via UCAS

10% random sample of all ‘home’ applicants seeking entry in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

N = 151,281 applications to Russell Group universities submitted by N = 68,632 applicants

Unit of analysis is applications rather than applicants

Use of binary logistic regression models to predict the odds of receiving an offer from a Russell Group university rather than being rejected, conditional on application

Predictor variables

Applicant’s declared ethnicity

Other applicant characteristics, incl. school type and POLAR2

Number of A*, A, B, C, D and E grades at A-level, or UCAS points equivalent

Facilitating subjects at A-level (Biology, Chemistry, English Literature, Geography, History, Languages, Maths, Physics)

Withheld from admissions selectors, but clues in

application form

Actual not predictedgrades; no data on

AS-levels or GCSEs

Generic ratherthan degree

course specific

Predictor variables

The numerical competitiveness of the applicant’s chosen course as indicated by the initial rejection rate for each of 23 degree subject areas (e.g. ‘Medicine & Dentistry’) at each of the 20 then-members of the Russell Group

The percentage of applicants who are ethnic minorities as indicated by the percentage of applicants to each degree subject area at each Russell Group university who self-identified as ethnic minority rather than White (centred on the mean for RG applicants of 20%)

Unobserved heterogeneity

due to use of broad degree subject areas

rather than specific degree courses

Descriptive statistics

Multivariate results

Multivariate results

Multivariate results

Multivariate results

Interaction with % EM applicants

Spurious main effect of ethnicity?

Have their A-level grades under-predicted

Have poorer GCSE/AS grades

Not have the combination of A-level subjects required for entry to their chosen course

Apply to the most over-subscribed courses within the subject areas used here

Possible overstatement of ethnic inequalities if ethnic minority applicants are more likely than White applicants to:

Could be implicated inindirect discrimination

Reason & significance?

Could signal poorer A-level subject availability

&/or quality of subject advice

Need for moredetailed UCAS data

Spurious interaction effect?

Possible that the interaction between applicant’s ethnicity and the proportion of applicants who are ethnic minorities is actually driven by something else…

Something which correlates with the percentage of ethnic minority applicants AND which legitimately widens the ethnic gap in acceptance rates

?

In prospect Worth experimenting with removing applicants’ names from UCAS

forms to see if ethnic disparities in offer rates diminish

Need more detailed UCAS data to explore the role played by several potentially key variables including GCSE and AS grades, predicted A-level grades, A-level subject requirements, and specific degree course applied to

Need UCAS data for 2013 entry and beyond to monitor whether ethnic group differences in offer rates from Russell Group universities increase or decrease in the future

An urgent need to challenge UCAS’s decision to stop supplying individual-level data to third parties for independent analysis

Why are British ethnic minoritiesless likely to be offered places

at highly selective universities?

Vikki BoliverSchool of Applied Social Sciences

Durham University

SRHE and UALL joint seminar series22nd January 2015