FOI_25-213 MBBS Medicine contextual applicants
Date of response: 30 July 2025
We have now considered your request of 15 July 2025 for the following information:
I will be grateful if you could please provide the following data for the Medicine A100 course, for the application cycles 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025:
- Number of Home Non Contextual Applicants
- Number of Home Contextual Applicants
- Number of Home Total Applicants
- Number of Home Non Contextual Applicant Interviews
- Number of Home Contextual Applicant Interviews
- Number of Home Total Applicant Interviews
- Number of Home Non Contextual Applicant Offers
- Number of Home Contextual Applicant Offers
- Number of Home Total Applicant Offers
- GCSE Threshold for Home Non Contextual Interviews (if applicable)
- GCSE Threshold for Home Contextual Interviews (if applicable)
- Predicted Grades Threshold for Home Non Contextual Interviews (if applicable)
- Predicted Grades Threshold for Home Contextual Interviews (if applicable)
- UCAT Threshold for Home Non Contextual Interviews
- UCAT Threshold for Home Contextual Interviews
Our response:
Please see accompanying document, our ref: FOI_25-213 Appendix A.
Information not held - s.1(1)(a), Freedom of Information Act
On this occasion it is not possible to provide all of the requested information. In line with your rights under section 1(1)(a) of the Act to be informed whether information is held, we confirm that the University does not hold any recorded information for Home contextual applicants (number of contextual applicants, number of home contextual applicants offered interviews, the number of home contextual applicants given offers or the GCSE threshold for home contextual applicants.
The University do not categorise applicants as ‘contextual’, therefore we do not hold the requested information.
We also confirm that the University hold no recorded information for the UCAT threshold. There is no cut off or threshold for UCAT scores for applicants to the MBBS Medicine course.
Exempted under s.43(2): Prejudice to commercial interests of any party. Exemption explanation:
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 part of your request:
| 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 |
The University is currently in a live recruitment cycle for its A100 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 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 Medicine is an extremely popular course, and it is clear that real-time information on the number of applicants, interviews, UCAT scores, offers within this live recruitment cycle would be of interest to our competitors. It therefore follows that information during a live recruitment cycle of 2025 for the A100 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 relating to the A100 Medicine course, 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.