Contextual admissions

We aim to widen participation and fair access and welcome applications from students of all backgrounds.

Contextual admissions is a university admissions process that takes into consideration an applicant’s individual circumstances and background when reviewing their application, rather than solely focusing on their academic achievements. This means that universities can consider factors such as an applicant’s socioeconomic status, family background, and the quality of the schools they attended when making admissions decisions. The goal of contextual admissions is to create a more diverse student body and provide opportunities for students who may have faced additional challenges in their academic journey.

Each university will have its own contextual admissions policy and will use different sets of data to make decisions.

Contextual admissions at Cardiff University

Our contextual admissions policy aims to widen participation and improve access to Higher Education (HE), and we welcome applications from people of all backgrounds. We use additional information as part of the undergraduate admissions process, taking into account the context in which an applicant has achieved – or will achieve – their qualifications, to provide greater understanding of their potential to study an undergraduate degree programme with us.

Your UCAS application

Only information received in the original UCAS application can be used to create a contextual score. Information updated or provided after submission cannot be taken into account as a contextual score will already have been applied. Please make sure you thoroughly check your application before submitting and answer every question truthfully. It might feel uncomfortable to disclose certain information, but we can reassure you that this information is kept confidential and won’t negatively impact your application.

How do I know if I will be classed as contextual?

You will be classed as contextual if, on your UCAS application, you answer yes to any of the following questions:

• Are you a care leaver or care experienced?
  • For example, you live or have lived in a foster home or residential care, including temporary placement prior to being adopted.
• Are you a parent or do you have parenting responsibilities?
  • This includes if you are pregnant, adopting, or caring for a child as a guardian or foster carer.
• Are you currently receiving free school meals, or have you been in receipt of free school meals during your secondary education?
• Do you have any caring responsibilities?
  • We recognise carers as those “who care, unpaid, for a family member or friend with an illness or disability, mental health condition or an addiction” (definition from Carers Trust).
• Do you have official refugee status in the UK or are you an asylum seeker?
• Would you consider yourself estranged from your parents (i.e. you are not in contact with and supported by your parents)?
  • For example from your biological, step or adoptive parents or wider family members who have been responsible for supporting you in the past.

You will also be classed as contextual if you complete any of the following widening participation activities at Cardiff University, whether you apply in the same year or the subsequent year after your participation in the activity:

• Confident Futures
• Sutton Trust Medicine and Dentistry Summer Schools (note that Sutton Trust applicants to BDS Dentistry and MBBCh Medicine are guaranteed an interview on one occasion, regardless of multiple applications, and if the minimum entry requirements are met).
• Sutton Trust Pathways to Engineering
• Sutton Trust Pathways to Law
• Step Up to University

Other contextual factors

We also use the following indicators when assessing your eligibility:

• Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) average household gross annual earnings, based on the home postcode listed on your UCAS application – the lower the average earnings in the area where you live, the more points you will get towards your contextual score
• POLAR4 (Participation of Local Areas) measures how likely young people are to participate in Higher Education across the UK and shows how this varies by area, so if you live in an area where not many people go to university, you will get points towards your contextual score
• Welsh, English, Scottish, and Northern Irish indexes of multiple deprivation, based on the home postcode listed on your UCAS application, so those living in the most deprived areas receive more points towards the contextual score
• Welsh and English high school sixth form performance data, based on the postcode of the school listed on your UCAS applications
• Welsh and English free school meal rates, based on the postcode of the school listed on your UCAS applications
• whether or not your parents or guardians have a Higher Education (HE) qualification, like a degree. If they don't have a HE qualification then you would receive contextual “points”

The “parents in HE” data is collected on your application form so you should make sure you include this information on your application. The other indicators are external data sets which are linked to information from your application form, based on your home postcode and school location.

How do we use this data to decide if you are contextual?

We use a weighted score for each of the other contextual factors to calculate a numerical score. This score is based on a scale of 0-330 with 0-99 being non-contextual (applicant not disadvantaged) and a score of 100 or above signifying indicators of deprivation that demonstrate disadvantage to attainment and access.

We use a weighted scale for these indicators, as opposed to yes/no metrics, as it provides a more holistic approach to contextual admissions. Using a weighted scale allows us to take account of positive factors alongside disadvantage to create a rounded score. For example, an applicant may be disadvantaged against a single metric but advantaged in multiple others, which would offset the single disadvantaged metric.

How do we use your contextual status in decision making?

How we use your contextual status in decision making will depend on the course you are applying to. If you are classed as contextual you will either:

• be given an offer made at one or two grades lower than the standard offer (typically the middle to lower end of the advertised grade range)
• be given additional consideration in the scoring and selection process which is used for determining those to be invited to interview
• be guaranteed an interview
• or a combination of the above

For some qualifications, like BTECs and T Levels, it’s not always possible to reduce the offer by one grade, therefore if no grade range is advertised this means there is no contextual offer for that qualification and everyone who qualifies for an offer will receive the same offer.

Frequently asked questions