I am from a country from the southern hemisphere. Results were out mid January and university started mid February. No interviews / personal statements etc. You listed your courses in order (bit like the CAF ) and then you get into the course depending on your results.

Other than being online rather than paper the system seems pretty much the same as when I went through it *cough*hack*ty years ago when at most about 5% of people, almost all nice middle class people at that who clearly deserved only the very best, went to a much smaller number of universities. Now that most people (or close to it) go to university imho there's no room for this nonsense. The alternatives mentioned already sound, apart from anything else, massively less elitist and more likely to promote the sort of social inclusion that places like Oxbridge pretend to want to pursue.

edit to add: and why exactly was it such a good idea to destroy ALL alternative forms of HE in this country?

I believe the current rate of progression to university before the age of 30 is "only" 49%.

This is quite an interesting article; looks at the scramble for places during clearing and the implications of unconditional offers, among other things. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... s-clearing
I think some of the problems pointed out in this piece are what have led to the UCU proposing the end of offers conditional on grade predictions, as many students are admitted anyway even if they drop grades; more and more universities are making unconditional offers; and there are still plenty of students willing to gamble everything on results day to get a place, any place, anywhere. This latter is in my own view very ill-advised and I never understand why parents don't step in to prevent a child grabbing something (and a very expensive something at that) they had previously dismissed or not considered, but that is a separate point.

This piece also suggests that the market for 18 year olds is buoyant, with mature students being the ones most likely to be deterred by fees and perceptions of poor value and therefore not to go to university.