XClose

UCL News

Home
Menu

Update on admissions selection processes

2 June 2011

In line with UCL's commitment to modernising systems and processes to ensure that they support our core academic mission, the Provost's Senior Management Team has agreed that we should review our processes for selecting students.

Admissions

The desired outcomes are:

  • Clear information for applicants, so that they can judge their suitability as candidates.
  • Speedier response times, bettering those of our competitors.
  • Transparent decision-making, so that we can demonstrate clearly how decisions have been taken.
  • Greater efficiency, including a transfer of responsibility for decision-making on most cases to well-trained support staff, using criteria defined by academic colleagues.

A number of pilots for undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes have been running this year, and whilst the admissions cycle is still in progress, the feedback to date has been largely favourable. Positive features reported include a high level of agreement between administrative and academic staff in assessing applications, more transparent and quicker decision-making and improved recruitment experiences. Further information about the pilots and issues arising from them is available here.

Next Steps

The steering group for the project has recently approved draft templates and guidance notes which will enable the definition and recording of the selection criteria for each programme. These will be circulated to departments in the near future, for return in early July. In addition I will also be scheduling meetings with departments to discuss the new process.

Lyndon McKevitt

Admissions Manager (Projects and Systems)