Re: Oxford (OAT) assessment day - a review
I must admit you have to take your hat off to Oxford.
Actually it's a very old physiology trick which I had never heard of before until I worked at a University. The deal is if you really want people to choose your Establishment above all the rest you have to make them feel that you are more selective than the rest. So they feel that they have been chosen.
The Uni had the problem that they had a 100 person engineering course to fill. All the breeze block uni's had just got degree status and were advertising heavily, red brick and stone Uni's have a long standing agreement that advertising for students is a bit common and if the student is thick enough to be taken in by an advert on the telly they are probably quite suited for a breeze block uni.
Now there was over 1000 places for accredited engineering degrees going in Scotland but only about 800 potential students with the UCAS points and preference for engineering. Everyone else decided to drop there required points. This Uni decided to increase the points and also give interviews. They increased the points to near medic levels. Which most of the research slaves who had graduated from the course and continued wouldn't have been able to get on their former course.
The end result of academics spending weeks of getting moaned at by admin officer into doing the interviews was that the course was over subscribed. Started with an extra 10% which is a normal attrition in the first term as people get home sick or can't handle it. And another couple of Uni's engineering departments struggled to stay open for the next few years.
The course was exactly the same, and according to the academics the quality of the students didn't change either.
Most people in the department were very scathing about this plan until it proved to be exceptionally successful.
Its just another marketing ploy by OAT to make the potential customer choose their school over the others. It also has the advantage as well of generating some easy profit.
The purpose of this post isn't to say you shouldn't pay the money for the selection, do integrated or any other of those well worn debates on wannabees.
Its just meant to open your eyes to the ploy behind it. Its to try and make the limited market for intergrated students go to OAT instead of the other 2.
MJ
Last edited by mad_jock; 5th Jan 2006 at 15:12.