Oxford's summer school: learning from a decade of access work
Lots of universities have spent lots of money over the past 10 years on access – with mixed results. Oxford is no exception. With the changed fees regime, access is more important than ever. So we're pleased that our flagship scheme, UNIQ summer school, is showing some tangible results – this is in part because we're putting into practice some of the things we've learned over the past ten years.
UNIQ is a big undertaking. Over five weeks this summer, 750 students from all over the UK will come to Oxford – and that's just the student participants. There are another 100-plus student mentors, along with 27 departments and 15 colleges all playing their part in making UNIQ happen.
All this activity must be targeted at the right students in order to see successful results. Oxford is committed to merit-based admissions, which means we're keen to identify and reach students from less-advantaged backgrounds who show the potential to succeed at Oxford. This raised two issues when we were designing UNIQ: how to define 'less-advantaged' and how to identify ability and potential to succeed at Oxford.
When selecting successful UNIQ applicants, we prioritise state school students who have achieved highly in their GCSEs – but crucially we take into account the context in which that achievement happened. For example, does the student come from a high-performing sixth-form school that sends lots of students to Oxford already? If not, the applicant is more likely to get a place on the summer schools. We also take into account the applicant's socioeconomic status, giving priority to those from areas identified as the most deprived.
This may sound straightforward, but it is a departure from how we previously ran our summer schools and other outreach programmes, and it took some careful thinking, as how we select participants affects the programme we are able to run. It would make sense to work with students at a younger age, so that the benefits to students come earlier and potentially have an impact on their exam scores and ability to prepare for study at a place like Oxford. But it is very difficult to compare students academically before they have undertaken GCSEs. As UNIQ is targeted at students with the potential to study at Oxford, it is necessary to run the programme for year 12 students, in spite of the benefits of working with younger students.
Then of course there is the question of how to measure 'disadvantage' in a way that can differentiate among a large group of applicants, while still treating each student and his or her circumstances individually. We looked at other access programmes and the criteria they used, such as students receiving educational maintenance allowance or free school meals or the occupation of their parents, along with various socio-economic categorisation tools. But some things are more verifiable than others – a parent who is a police officer could be a part-time community support officer or chief constable, for example. And many measures of deprivation (such as free school meals) are not as inclusive as they seem – many poor students don't actually take up free school meals, and others aren't eligible simply because they attend the wrong kind of school (sixth-form or further education colleges, for example). EMA was a good indicator of household income, but it no longer exists. So we ultimately opted for school attainment and progression rates, as well as certain socioeconomic indicators (using the POLAR2 and ACORN postcode data sets).
Getting the right content and activities at the summer school is as important as getting a good mix of students. Students are only here for a week, but they get a realistic sense of academic life at Oxford, as well as other activities designed to address as directly as possible some of the barriers they might face in deciding to apply here. These include the practicalities of the tutorial system and admissions process, particularly the infamous admissions interview. But indirectly, the summer school also brings together academically strong students who come from schools or backgrounds where they may be in the minority, and establishes a sense of community that exists long after the trains depart Oxford for the journey home.
So what are the tangible results we can point to? To put it simply: two years' worth of undergraduate admissions figures show that UNIQ has been hugely successful helping students from underrepresented backgrounds get into Oxford. Around 70% of UNIQ participants over the past two years have applied to Oxford, and about 40% of those applicants are then made a conditional offer. The average success rate for all applicants to Oxford is around 20%.
Given these striking figures, we were disappointed that very few people have reported on them in the last two admissions rounds. Perhaps this isn't so surprising, when it comes to Oxford media prejudice prevails. But it is precisely this type of highly targeted and evidence-based approach to access the higher education sector has been criticised for failing to provide in the past, so we feel it is important to share the lessons learned from our experience with as wide an audience as possible.
And we want others involved in access work to do the same – there is some interesting research out there about the impact of different access projects, but the sector also needs to share practical advice. With increased fees universities are currently investing significantly in their access work, and we as a sector must avoid the impatience and tendency to throw resources at quick fixes that plagues Premier League football managers and owners – and we must resist pressure for quick wins from external agencies. There's arguably a lot more at stake in widening access work than football (money aside), but there's also a lot more to be gained by everyone from sharing practical experience, tactics and good results.
Sinead Gallagher is head of access at Oxford University
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