UCAS Report Suggests Competition is Even More Severe

UCAS has just released some statistics from the 2021 cycle. We have put together findings from UCAS End of Cycle 2021 and hope that applicants of 2023 entry will find them useful.

International Applications

While the number of international applicants outside the EU in 2021 increased by 12% to 111,255 from 98,660 in 2020, the acceptance rate is down by 4.9% to 48.5%.

While Mainland China remains the top market of UK international students’ recruitment in the past five years, Hong Kong has dropped to the fourth, following India (No.2) and the USA (No.3).

(source: Where Next: the experience of international students connecting to UK higher education)

(Graphic Copyright: UCAS)

A-Level Grades and Unconditional offers

The numbers of applicants with A level grades of A*A*A*, A*A*A, and A*AA have risen by 53.8%, 35.5%, and 21.4% from the previous cycle respectively. Acceptance rates of these applicants in the 2021 cycle are 91.5%, 91% and 90.9%, down from 94.8%, 94.5% and 93.5% respectively in the previous cycle. We hope these statistics numbers, though from the UK 18-year-old applicants, without including other applicants like mature students or graduate applicants, can draw attention from our members to realise the increasing competitiveness.

Unconditional offers dropped from 15.7% of all offers in 2020 to 3.3 percent in 2021, with 'conditional unconditional offers' all but disappearing throughout this cycle.

(Graphic copyright: UCAS)

We strongly suggest applicants start the preparation early and work hard on improving their grades. If you need any professional advice in UK university admission or help with A-level, please feel free to contact us.