Rise in unconditional offers

Since 2014, the number of unconditional places offered by universities has risen from 2,985 to 51,615 and of the 259,230 Sixth Form students who applied to university this year, nearly 1:5 received an unconditional offer. The latest figures also show that 10.6% of students predicted to get CCC were given an unconditional offer, compared with just 4.6% of students who were predicted to achieve three A*s. In 2014, unconditional offers were only awarded to exceptional candidates. Further analysis of the data shows that just one quarter of students actually achieved, or exceeded, their predicted grades, suggesting that thousands of guaranteed places were awarded using unreliable predictions.