Use of contextual data

Source: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/study/policy/contextual-data/ Parent: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/apply/

The University is committed to reducing and eliminating barriers to entry for students with the potential to succeed at St Andrews. We ensure that no applicant is disadvantaged in the admissions process due to their socio-economic background, including factors related to their place of education, individual circumstances or residence. This is achieved using relevant pre-entry information, clear entry requirements and robust assessment methods, tailored to each application cohort.

Find out more about our commitment to contextual admissions and use of contextual data:

• Undergraduate admissions
• Postgraduate admissions

Undergraduate 2026 entry

An introduction to undergraduate contextual admissions

The University of St Andrews has a limited number of places it can offer for undergraduate study each year and not all who meet all our entry requirements can be offered a place. It is therefore important that we set out our principles for assessing applications so you know what you can expect from us.

We are committed to the Universities Scotland guarantee of fairness when applying to a university in Scotland, as outlined on the Universities Scotland website.

All admissions decisions at the University of St Andrews are made in line with the University’s Admissions Policy.

Open all

• Our ambition and our pledge

• How does our undergraduate contextual admissions work?

• How do we decide the entry requirements an applicant needs to meet?

• What contextual data do we use to flag our applications?

Postgraduate - 2026 entry

The University of St Andrews has committed to reducing and eliminating barriers to entry to postgraduate degrees classified as home for fee purposes.

We are undertaking work to widen access to postgraduate study and to support this we introduced a contextual information section into our taught postgraduate (PGT) application form in 2023. The responses to these questions will be made available to our academic admissions officers and can be used to put the achievements of each individual applicant into context when assessing PGT applications.

The information that an applicant can provide at the point of application includes:

• the applicant can declare that they are care-experienced,
• the applicant can declare that they area refugee,asylum seekerordisplacedperson
• the applicant can declare that they have caring responsibilities
• the applicant can declare that they were in receipt of a means tested scholarship or maintenance grant as an undergraduate student?
• the applicant can indicate where they undertook their secondary education
• the applicant can declare the home postcode from which they applied to their undergraduate study
• the applicant can declare if they were the first generation in their family to undertake undergraduate study
• the applicant can declare if they were involved in any national widening access schemes to higher education prior to their undergraduate study e.g. Sutton Trust, Reach etc.

For 2026 entry the responses to the specific contextual information questions in our application will be available to our academic admissions officers when assessing PGT applications. The declaration of contextual information alone, which may be subject to verification by Admissions, does not result in an automatic offer of a place being made to an applicant.

Complaints

Grounds for raising complaints surrounding the Use of Contextual Data are limited to procedural error or irregularities in how the application of the Use of Contextual Data Policy has been applied in the assessment of an application. Complaints will be managed in line with the University Complaints Handling Procedure.

In the first instance, complaints should be addressed to the Director of Admissions. The University will not investigate complaints that question the judgement exercised in an admissions decision, which the University is entitled to make, unless credible evidence of maladministration resulting in a material flaw in the decision-making process.