Don't get me wrong, Oxford are a very good school and Mike's a nice guy, this is marketing and he knows it.
Mike says they can't quote distance learning figures because they can't get accurate numbers. Now, all we do at Bristol is distance learning so how are we going to compare those stats?
I really don't want to get into this arguement but if you want to, here we go.......
Since May the CAA have provided raw statistics to FTOs, they omit the students that don't need to do approved courses like the Ansett pilots converting their licenses and include anybody who put 'Bristol' on their application form. Nobody knows what anybody else's pass rates are, these figures could be made up and you couldn't prove it. To be absolutely clear, I am not claiming these as our pass rates, this is just a report from some spreadsheets the CAA sent me.
The CAA stats show averages as:
Months 1 to 4 79.9%
Month 5 82.5%
Month 6 78.6%
Month 7 79.9%
Which is an (approximate) average of 80.1%. You can see that these numbers are very close to what Oxford claim, and they include in their figures their classroom courses. So what has that proved?
My point is that Oxford are blowing smoke, there's nothing special about their pass rates and they shouldn't pop them into bulletin boards everytime someone asks a question. If you want to advertise, you should pay for it, and make it clear its an advert.