The Manchester A – Z Approach to Widening Participation

In 2007 / 08 the School of Pharmacy at Manchester participated in a pilot study run by central admissions looking at the use of contextual data (eg Index of Multiple Deprivation; school / college performance; parents in higher education; whether an applicant has been looked after/in care for more than 12 months) to widen access to higher education. In that study, 27% of our home applicants were flagged as contextual students, of which the contextual data was used on 20 (8.7%) to invite them for interview. The end result was four students registering on the M.Pharm. that would not otherwise have been given the opportunity. All four have successfully completed year 1 of the course, one student being in the top 25% of the year group with an average of 69%.Data from this pilot study has since been used to help launch our Foundation Year programme which openly targets students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds.