Date of response: 30 June 2022
We have now considered your request of 07 June 2022 for the following information:
Please may I request the following information for each of the A100 (Medicine) and A104 (Medicine with Gateway Year) courses, for admissions cycles 2021 and 2022 entry: No. of applications; interviews; offers sent; Average UCAT score of applicants invited to interview (or points if exact scores are not held); Lowest UCAT score of applicants invited to interview (or points if exact scores are not held).
|
Course/ Year
|
No.of applications
|
No. of interviews
|
No. of offers sent
|
No. Average UCAT score
|
No. Lowest UCAT score
|
|
A100
2021/22
|
1587
|
576
|
378
|
2700
|
1970
|
|
A104
2021/22
|
345
|
99
|
71
|
2485
|
2030
|
|
A100 /A104
2022/23
|
Exempt s.43(2)
|
Exempt s.43(2)
|
Exempt s.43(2)
|
Exempt s.43 (2)
|
Exempt s.43 (2)
|
Unfortunately, on this occasion, it is not possible to provide all the requested information. The Act contains a number of exemptions that allow public authorities to withhold certain information from release. We have applied the following exemption to this question.
| Exemption | Reason |
| s.43(2): Prejudice to commercial interests of any party | Disclosure of information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of a person as defined by the Act |
We have applied this exemption for our response for the 2022/23 entry, for both A100 and A104 Medicine for all requested data -; number of applications, interviews, offers, average and lowest UCAT scores. The University is currently in a live recruitment cycle for its A100 and A104 Medicine Course, and it is our belief that release of this information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the University of East Anglia.
Student recruitment is undoubtedly a commercial activity for all universities. The University’s success in recruiting students to the A100 and A104 Medicine course (or to any other course) directly affects both our reputation and financial position.
To compete in the Higher Education market, with leading UK and international universities, the University must ensure that information that would be strategically useful to its competitors is not placed in the public domain. Release of such information would potentially compromise the University’s ability to attract and retain the high-quality students that allow it to be a progressive and sustainable institution.
The UK Higher Education sector is a highly competitive environment. All universities seek to recruit the best students from a limited pool of prospective UK and international applicants, as well as competing to attract high quality staff, research funding and accreditation. This competition is both on a national and international scale, with UK-based institutions in direct competition with institutions around the world for funding, students and staff.
A100 and A104 Medicine are extremely popular courses, and it is clear that real-time information relating to the information requested within this live recruitment cycle would be of interest to our competitors. It therefore follows that information during a live recruitment cycle I.e., for 2022/23 entry to the A100 and A104 Medicine course can readily be seen as commercially sensitive. We do not share information pertaining to live recruitment cycles with any of our competitors; this information would provide them with the insight to match and potentially exceed our recruitment activities. The University believes that its position would be severely compromised if it were to release information that would benefit its competitors.
We consider it would be likely for such prejudice to our interests to occur, given the sensitivity of the requested information, the consistent treatment of it as commercially sensitive by both this University and other Higher Education institutions, and the degree to which the number and value of applicants and subsequent registrants is now critical to any university’s success.
The application of this exemption requires an examination of the public interest in disclosure as opposed to that in non-disclosure.
The factors in favour of disclosure would include:
- There is a legitimate public interest in the information you have requested both to further the transparency and accountability of public authority activities.
Factors in favour of withholding the information are largely laid out in the explanation for the use of the exemption above but would include:
- A public interest in protecting the ability of institutions to compete on a level playing field and to ensure that there is fair competition between universities for prospective students. By protecting the University’s real time recruitment information from public disclosure, we are acting in line with established practices across the sector within the UK and internationally in maintaining this fair competition.
- To disclose the requested information, at this stage in the process, would be likely to prejudice this institution’s competitive and commercial position, and it is difficult to see how this could be in the public interest.
After consideration of the above factors, we believe, on balance, that the public interest lies in withholding the requested information.