Prospective students who are handed unconditional offers to study at university are more likely to achieve lower grades than they were predicted, research has found as figures show that Aberystwyth university made more such offers than any institution in Wales.

As reported in the Cambrian News last week, Aberystwyth University made 1,340 offers “with an unconditional component”- meaning it was at some point conditional, including 780 fully unconditional offers to prospective students.

Despite the university offering more unconditional places for prospective students than any other university in Wales, it saw a drop of 12 per cent in the first-year student intake in September.

In a UCAS report on the rise of unconditional offers, research found that “applicants holding an unconditional firm offer were between seven and 13 per cent more likely to miss their predicted attainment by two or more grades, compared to what might be expected”.

“Many providers monitor unconditional offer students’ progress, to compare progression and degree attainment in relation to students admitted to the same programmes via conditional offers,” the report said.

“However, it remains the case that applicants who hold an unconditional offer as their firm choice are more likely to miss their predicted A level grades by two or more points, compared to those who are holding a conditional offer as their firm choice.”

For the first time in 2018, Aberystwyth made use of what UCAS define as ‘conditional unconditional’ offers - where a university makes an unconditional offer to a student on condition that the student confirms the university as their first UCAS choice.

UCAS research found that over 60 per cent of applicants who received a conditional unconditional offer said it had a big impact, or some impact, on their firm choice decision.

Overall, unconditional offers at Aberystwyth now account for 19.8 per cent of offers, up from 6.8 per cent in 2013.

See this week’s south papers for the full story, available in shops and as a digital edition on Wednesday