School and university leaders have called for a reform of unconditional offers to university, which are “detrimental to the long-term interests of students”.

In a letter to the Times today, a group including multi-academy (MAT) trust chief executives, university vice-chancellors and private school heads say that the rules on unconditional offers should be changed to cut their number and to stop students being “disadvantaged”.

The signatories include: Sir Anthony Seldon, vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham; Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders; Dame Rachel de Souza, CEO of the Inspiration Trust; Professor Edward Byrne, president and principal of King’s College London; Lucy Heller, CEO of Ark; and Barnaby Lenon, former head of Harrow School and chairman of the Independent Schools Council.

There has been a twentyfold increase in unconditional offers since 2013, and the practice has been blamed for reducing the motivation and results of students.  

In August, Tes reported on the case of a school in the North of England, which had seen its A*-E grades dive from 74 per cent in 2017 to 14 per cent this year, at a time when 40 students had received unconditional offers from universities.

“We are concerned by the growing practice of universities offering prospective students unconditional offers,” the letter states.

“This practice is detrimental to the longer-term interests of students, skews university choices and reduces the motivation and quality of sixth-form life in schools.”

The letter adds that “many universities feel reluctantly drawn into making unconditional offers to protect their numbers because others are doing so”.

The signatories say they do not support an outright ban because “regulatory intervention would breach the long-established autonomy of institutions over whom they admit to their courses”.

However, they want the rules to be changed so that “if unconditional offers are made to students before they receive their exam grades, then the student should not be compelled to accept it until after he/she has received all offers of a place”.

They also say that students “should have the option of accepting an unconditional offer as either a firm or insurance place”.

“If the decision lies with the student, there is much less chance of them being disadvantaged during the offer process and the number of unconditional offers being made would be significantly reduced.”

The changes are designed to address concerns that some universities are pressuring students into accepting an unconditional offer by setting a deadline that falls before they have received their other offers.

Allowing students to accept them as an insurance place is designed to stop students from plumping for a university that is lower down their list of choices simply because they have been made an unconditional offer, rather than taking a chance on another institution that might be better suited to them.