The received wisdom that Russell Group providers are deliberately contracting undergraduate recruitment, especially among home applicants, does not hold up.
Indeed, there are a little over a thousand more English domiciled applicants who have accepted a place at a Russell Group provider this year than last. Everyone else (excluding alternative providers) has lost accepted applicants over 2022, but (as UCAS is always keen to remind us) the “last regular year” comparison to 2019 looks a bit rosier.
Naturally these top level findings hide a panoply of micro trends (the big growth subject in the Russell Group? Law).
You’ll have spotted I’ve separated out the big seven (Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, Imperial, Kings, Manchester, Edinburgh) from the remainder of the Russell Group – these mega-providers (with a turnover approaching £1bn each) feel best treated as a separate classification, but if I talk about the “Russell Group” in the text I will generally add these together.
For all subjects, you will note that the “big 7” are down on last year, while the rest of the group are up, suggesting one example of a strategic difference.
