INTERVIEWS ARE being phased out by UCL departments in response to College’s push for a more efficient selections process. Increasing demands for a rapid turnover of applicants has made widespread interviewing a “meaningless” process that is more about recruitment than selection.
UCL occupies a strange position in the university hierarchy. Ever keen to distinguish itself from fellow Russell Group universities but lacking the resources to rival Oxford or Cambridge, College is sending out two incompatible messages about the value of interviewing applicants. While recognising the prestige attached to interviews, College’s calls for increased efficiency are undermining the value of the whole process.
At Oxbridge, where interviews remain a major part of the selection process, all colleges employ a professional admissions tutor to sift through the hundreds of applicants per place. UCL has nowhere near the same resources and interviews are organised by academics who take on the role of departmental Admissions Tutor on top of their existing commitments. Supervising the admissions process is supposed take up no more than twenty percent of their time but in reality, as one admissions tutor noted, it is often a far greater proportion. What’s more, these admissions tutors are “amateurs” and remain academics first and foremost.
In 2007 The Committee for the Recruitment and Admission of Students produced a report comparing the time taken by UCL departments to process UCAS applications to that taken by universities with a more centralised admissions procedure such as LSE, Nottingham and Warwick. The unfavourable results led to an emphasis on the need for “increased efficiency” in the admissions process. In plain language, this meant giving departments just one month to turn around UCAS applications, from submission to offer. In effect, squeezing out time-consuming admissions procedures such as interviews.
Students have raised concerns about the impact getting rid of interviews will have on future applicants. The chance for an interview is an attractive one, especially for students who are not also applying to Oxbridge. Concerns were also voiced by Admissions Tutors as to how scrapping interviews will affect students applying from disadvantaged backgrounds. Interviews have long been seen as the best way of broadening entry and recognising the potential of an applicant regardless of the calibre of their school.
Some departments, such as Anthropology, remain adamant that they will continue to interview potential students. But it seems for more over-subscribed courses such as History, the interviews process has long been a façade and a restructuring of the selections process is entirely necessary. History Admissions Tutor Adam Smith, said the department had “literally no choice to continue with the old system.” The much-vaunted UCL ‘regeneration programme’ has led to the loss of academic and administrative posts, leaving departments even less able to cope with the volume of applicants. Interviews may be the ideal method of selection for distinguishing between neat rows of perfect A-level grades, particularly for humanities subjects, but with reduced staff numbers the reality is that departments only interview students who are likely to be made an offer. Interviews have become a method for recruitment, persuading the applicant to choose UCL as their first choice, rather than a method of selection. Unlike Oxbridge, UCL do not have the luxury of knowing that students will always accept their offer.
So the problem remains how to differentiate between neat rows of perfect A-level grades while minimising the disadvantage of students from less privileged backgrounds. The approach of several departments is to ask for submissions of written work, which seems almost as naïve as relying on a personal statement. Geography have introduced ‘group tutorials’ to replace individual interviews. Denying departments the resources to interview a meaningful number of applicants seems rather out of synch with UCL’s commitment to “widening participation”. Interviews are however, likely to continue for applicants in unconventional circumstances, such as mature students.
Russell Group universities do not have the resources to sustain an Oxbridge system of interviews, especially considering the current economic climate. It seems likely that with the constraints on academics and a general increase in applications, the trend for centralised, professional administrators will continue, leaving departments less of a say in the admissions procedure but taking considerable weight off academics. [Additional reporting by JH]