FOI disclosure log

Date of response:  12 July 2024

We have now considered your request of 20 June 2024 for the following information:   

Question 1. Please can you tell me what the average ucat score was of the uea preparing for medicine participants that applied to the a100 course in recent years (2024,2023,2022)?  

Our response:  

Question 2. And also what was the lowest ucat score of those participants that was offered a place?  

Question 3: And what was the average ucat score of those participants that was offered a place? 

Our response:  

Unfortunately, on this occasion, it is not possible to provide all the requested information. The Act contains a number of exemptions that allow public authorities to withhold certain information from release.  We have applied the following exemption for the requested information relating to the A100 medicine course 2023/24 admissions cycle. 

We have applied this exemption for requested information relating to the A100 medicine course - 2023/24 admissions cycle. The University is currently in a live recruitment cycle for its A100 medicine course, and it is our belief that release of this information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the University of East Anglia.        

Student recruitment is undoubtedly a commercial activity for all universities.  The University’s success in recruiting students to the preparing for medicine course directly affects both our reputation and financial position.          

To compete in the Higher Education market, with leading UK and international universities, the University must ensure that information that would be strategically useful to its competitors is not placed in the public domain. Release of such information would potentially compromise the University’s ability to attract and retain the high-quality students that allow it to be a progressive and sustainable institution.         

The UK Higher Education sector is a highly competitive environment.  All universities seek to recruit the best students from a limited pool of prospective UK and international applicants, as well as competing to attract high quality staff, research funding and accreditation.  This competition is both on a national and international scale, with UK-based institutions in direct competition with institutions around the world for funding, students and staff.          

The A100 medicine course is  extremely popular, and it is clear that real-time information on the requested information relating to the number of applicants invited to interviews, offers and University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT) scores within this live 2023/24 admissions recruitment cycle would be of interest to our competitors.  It therefore follows that information during a live admissions recruitment cycle of 2023/24 for the requested course can readily be seen as commercially sensitive. We do not share information pertaining to live recruitment cycles with any of our competitors; this information would provide them with the insight to match and potentially exceed our recruitment activities.  The University believes that its position would be severely compromised if it were to release information that would benefit its competitors.           

We consider it would be likely for such prejudice to our interests to occur, given the sensitivity of the requested information, the consistent treatment of it as commercially sensitive by both this University and other Higher Education institutions, and the degree to which the number and value of applicants and subsequent registrants is now critical to any university’s success.     

The application of this exemption requires an examination of the public interest in disclosure as opposed to that in non-disclosure.           

The factors in favour of disclosure would include:       

•    There is a legitimate public interest in the information you have requested relating to the preparing for medicine course, both to further the transparency and accountability of public authority activities.     

Factors in favour of withholding the information are largely laid out in the explanation for the use of the exemption above but would include:       

•    A public interest in protecting the ability of institutions to compete on a level playing field and to ensure that there is fair competition between universities for prospective students. By protecting the University’s real time recruitment information from public disclosure, we are acting in line with established practices across the sector within the UK and internationally in maintaining this fair competition.         
•    To disclose the requested information, at this stage in the process, would be likely to prejudice this institution’s competitive and commercial position, and it is difficult to see how this could be in the public interest.         

After consideration of the above factors, we believe, on balance, that the public interest lies in withholding the requested information.