The admissions forecaster attempts to give an indication of what student numbers will be per department based on current application figures, and the likelihood that those applications will become Unconditional Firm (UF). A conversion to UF rate is calculated for each route owner / student mix / application status / intake type (DL, HEP, IPC, Standard) combination based on conversion of applications to Unconditional Firm from that combination last year. For example, a single rate is calculated for All Archaeology, UG standard applicants who on this day last year had an application status of CF. If 50% of them became UF then it is assumed that any Archaeology UG applicants with a status of CF today also have a 50% chance of becoming UF. These rates are recalculated on a daily basis so that we are always considering what applicants did at exactly the same point in the cycle last year Although, having said a single rate is calculated, 4 rates are actually calculated, but in each case the same logic applies: - Conversion to UF at end of cycle (last year)
- Conversion to UF at end of cycle (3 year average)
- Conversion to registered on 1st December (last year)
- Conversion to registered on 1st December (3 year average)
We also estimate future applications based on what percentage of applications for a route owner / student mix / intake type had not yet been received this time last year and again of those not yet received, what percentage became UF. This has a large impact on PG estimates Using these rates we then add together all the UF estimates from each application status estimate to give an estimated total UF for that route owner. | Warning |
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| title | Limitations and assumptions |
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| The logic used for the admissions forecaster has a number of limitations that may affect the validity of the results it predicts: - It assumes that the past is a good predictor of the future and indeed that students this year will behave as students in previous years have behaved. As external factors change this may not be the case
- There is no adjustment for initiatives that may affect these rates, e.g. a successful marketing initiative last year affected the numbers because students were applying earlier than in previous years, but the algorithm assumed that the same rate of future applications applied. Likewise the early UF offer scheme may have an effect that won't be covered
- The level of granularity does not take account of the differences that may appear between programmes. For example, a department may offer some programmes that are easy to recruit to and others that are not, but a single rate is calculated for them all which may over-inflate the estimate for some programmes at the same time as under-estimating for others.
As of 01/04/2020 extensive testing has been carried out on the accuracy of the the model utilised by the admissions forecaster. It has reaffirmed that the accuracy of the model is hugely dependent on the similarity of the current application year and the year which is used as the basis for the conversions rates. Attempts have been made to mitigate this, by allowing the user to choose the year they wish to use as the basis for the conversion rates, however change to the applications landscape will still have a significant affect on the accuracy of the model and this should always be kept in mind when quoting the figures produced by this report. If the the current application year and the year which is used as the basis for the conversions rates are similar then the model should produce a forecast of final numbers with a 5% margin of error from early May. The forecaster works best for UG and PGT cohorts and is less reliable for PGR cohorts. |
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