Figure 4 : Gaps in high tariff application rates between POLAR3 quintiles 1 and 5
Placed
rate
55 . Like the gap in application rates , the gap in placed rates between POLAR3 quintiles 1 and 5 has also widened since 2012 .
56 . In this analysis , the placed rate is defined as the proportion of the Key Stage 4 population who were accepted to start a higher education course through the UCAS Undergraduate scheme . As Table 2 previously showed , like other application outcomes , placed rates have risen across England , rising from 25.8 per cent in 2012 to 37.3 per cent in 2021 . Much of this increase occurred in the two most recent cohorts , for whom record numbers achieved the highest grades at Level 3 ( such as A-levels ), meaning more applicants than ever before met the terms of their offers and were subsequently placed on a higher education course .
57 . Figure 5 shows that that young people from the most represented areas were more than twice as likely to be accepted to a higher education course at age 18 than those from the least represented areas , with the gap in placed rates remaining between 24 and 27 percentage points throughout the period .
58 . Since 2012 , placed rates initially grew from 14.9 per cent to 22.1 per cent in 2019 ( up 7.2 percentage points ) in the least represented areas in England . Meanwhile , the most represented areas saw an increase from 39.0 per cent to 46.7 per cent ( up 7.7 percentage points ) between 2012 and 2019 . This means that the gap in placed rates between quintile 1 areas and quintile 5 areas initially widened by 0.5 percentage points between 2012 and 2019 .
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