We are aware that interrogating the UCAS website for statistics is not the easiest or most enjoyable of tasks, so here are some highlights relevant to English, using Media and History as comparators. A few notes of caution however:
• UCAS figures do not include postgraduates or part–timers
• The figures presented here do not include those on joint or combined programmes
• The basis for the subject categories was amended in 2002, so caution must be exercised in comparing figures with 200 and earlier.
For these reasons, there are likely to be differences between figures presented in the UCAS data and those presented by HESA.
All Applicants and all Accepts by Subject and Gender 2001 –2004
| Men | Women | Total | ||||
| Applicants | Accepts | Applicants | Accepts | Applicants | Accepts | |
| English | ||||||
| 2004 | 2809 | 2433 | 7247 | 6214 | 10056 | 8647 |
| 2003 | 2690 | 2325 | 6919 | 6228 | 9609 | 8553 |
| 2002 | 2583 | 2291 | 6730 | 6252 | 9313 | 8543 |
| 2001 | 2382 | 2168 | 6493 | 5932 | 8875 | 8100 |
| Media Studies | ||||||
| 2004 | 2070 | 2299 | 2113 | 2106 | 4183 | 4405 |
| 2003 | 1918 | 2386 | 2225 | 2349 | 4143 | 4735 |
| 2002 | 1669 | 1979 | 2177 | 2185 | 3846 | 4155 |
| 2001 | 1471 | 1738 | 1781 | 1729 | 3252 | 3467 |
| History | ||||||
| 2004 | 4780 | 4232 | 4484 | 4349 | 9264 | 8581 |
| 2003 | 4465 | 4131 | 4329 | 4271 | 8794 | 8402 |
| 2002 | 4223 | 4086 | 4440 | 4413 | 8663 | 8499 |
| 2001 | 3624 | 3261 | 3217 | 2997 | 6841 | 6258 |
Commentary
• Trends – The total number of accepts for English in 2004 was about 00 up on 2003 (as was History). The rise in numbers in Media Studies appears to have halted however, with accepts in 2004 being 330 down on 2003.
• Gender – Women represent almost 72% of accepts for English in 2004. (48% for Media and 5 % for History)
• Age – Figures not shown here demonstrate that 87% of English accepts are aged 20 and under; 6% aged 2 to 24; 5% aged 25 to 39 and 2% aged 40 plus.
• Domicile – Figures not shown here indicate that 96% of English students are home students, 2% are from the EU and 2% from other overseas.
UCAS Figures for English, Media Studies & History
Commentary
• UCAS tariffs are explained more fully at: http://www.ucas.ac.uk/candq/tariff/index.html. As a rough guide, three GCE ‘A Levels’ at grade A amount to 360 points
• The profile of English is almost identical to that of History; there are more Media accepts in lower tariff bands than English or History Stop Press – provisional data released by UCAS on 9 October shows that 9,234 applicants have been accepted onto degree courses in English, an increase of 6.90% on 2004. (The average increase across all subjects was 7.76%.)
