The reasons why students from lower socio‐economic groups are under‐represented at high status universities are not yet entirely understood, but evidence suggests that part of the gap may be a consequence of differential choice of A‐levels by social background. The Russell Group of universities has since 2011 published guidance on A‐level subject choices, describing some A‐levels as ‘facilitating’ in that choosing these helps keep the largest number of Russell Group degree courses open. The numbers of students gaining AAB in facilitating subjects has subsequently been developed as a performance measure for individual schools and sixth form colleges, and, in aggregate, as a government Social Mobility Indicator. While it is clear that there is a gap between the proportions of students in maintained and private schools achieving this measure, there is little other work to date on how social background is related to the take‐up of facilitating subjects, or to a more fine‐grained categorization of all the large number of ‘non‐facilitating’ subjects. I develop a taxonomy of all 96 A‐levels certified for English students in 2014/15 beyond the facilitating/non‐facilitating dichotomy according to Russell Group members’ expressed preferences, and use it to analyse the A‐level subject choices of three A‐level cohorts (2010–2012), using National Pupil Database data. I find that large differentials in A‐level subject choice exist by social background, particularly for facilitating subjects. These differentials substantially disappear when GCSE attainment and subject choices are taken into account. Closing this choice gap at A‐level is likely therefore to depend on reducing differentials in attainment and subject choice by social background at GCSE. The introduction of the EBacc may help with the GCSE subject choice element.

The relationship between A-level subject choice and league table score of university attended: the 'facilitating' , the 'less suitable' , and the counter-intuitive Catherine DilnotOxford Brookes university, uK ABSTRACT English students from less privileged backgrounds and state, rather than private, schools remain significantly under-represented at high-status universities. There has been little work to date on the role of A-level subject choice, as opposed to attainment, in access to university. Using linked administrative data for three recent cohorts of English entrants to UK universities,

We conduct a randomised controlled trial in the South West of England to evaluate a policy to encourage students from poorer backgrounds to apply to selective universities. Current university students visited local schools and colleges, providing accurate information on the costs and benefits of university, and giving inspirational talks about making that decision. We find that there is a significant effect on the likelihood of students successfully applying to a selective university, but weaker effects on other outcomes. We find that effects are largest for students attending further education colleges, which typically cater for more disadvantaged students (in our sample, 6.2% of students in schools are eligible for free school meals compared to 7.4% in colleges) and offer a wider range of vocational courses. We suggest avenues for future research in this area.

We conduct a randomised controlled trial in the South West of England to evaluate a policy to encourage students from poorer backgrounds to apply to selective universities. Current university students visited local schools and colleges, providing accurate information on the costs and benefits of university, and giving inspirational talks about making that decision. We find that there is a significant effect on the likelihood of students successfully applying to a selective university, but weaker effects on other outcomes. We find that effects are largest for students attending further education colleges, which typically cater for more disadvantaged students (in our sample, 6.2% of students in schools are eligible for free school meals compared to 7.4% in colleges) and offer a wider range of vocational courses. We suggest avenues for future research in this area.

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