UCT Student Admissions Data 2012-2014

South Africa, 2012 - 2014

Get Microdata

Reference ID

zaf-uctsad-2012-2014-v1

DOI

https://doi.org/10.25828/cy36-bs17

Producer(s)

Admissions Office

Collections

Remote Access Data Enclave

Metadata

DDI/XML JSON

Created on

Jun 03, 2026

Last modified

Jun 16, 2026

Page views

27882

Downloads

321

Identification

Survey ID number

zaf-uctsad-2012-2014-v1

Title

UCT Student Admissions Data 2012-2014

Abbreviation or Acronym

UCTSAD 2012-2014

Country

Name	Country code
South Africa	zaf

Study type

UCT Student Admissions Data

Series Information

The UCTSAD series provides annual administrative microdata on applications submitted to the University of Cape Town. This dataset covers application cohorts from 2012 to 2014.

Other identifiers

Type	Identifier
doi	https://doi.org/10.25828/cy36-bs17

Abstract

The UCT Student Admissions Data (UCTSAD) 2012-2014 dataset records all applications submitted to the University of Cape Town (UCT) that belong to the 2012 to 2014 student application cohort. UCT's Information and Communication Technology Services (ICTS) extracted the source data from the UCT student administration SQL database and made it available to DataFirst for curation and dissemination. The dataset comprises four files for the 2012-2014 cohort: an application-form file recording every stage of every application process; a person file recording biographical and demographic characteristics of each applicant; a secondary-school-subject file recording the school subjects and results that applicants reported on their applications; and a tertiary-education file recording any prior tertiary study that applicants declared.

Between 2012 and 2014, UCT Admissions Office planned to revise their undergraduate admissions policy. For this reason, they included a supplementary research section (Section K) in the application form for information on education disadvantage. This information was solely for policy review purposes and was not used in admission decisions for the 2012/2014 intake. Because the application form differed for these years the data has been kept separate from that of the other years.

Kind of Data

Administrative records

Unit of Analysis

Student application

Version

Version Description

v1.1: Edited data, for use in DataFirst's secure Remote Access Data Enclave

Version Date

2026-06-01

Version Responsibility Statement

DataFirst

Version Notes

This is version 1.1 of the cleaned annualised files for the 2012 to 2014 UCT application cohort.

Scope

Keywords

university applications student admissions higher education secondary school subjects prior tertiary education administrative records South Africa University of Cape Town

Coverage

Geographic Coverage notes

The dataset covers only applications submitted to the University of Cape Town. Geographic variables within the dataset, such as home address, reflect applicants' self-reported information and are not independently verified.

Universe

All persons who submitted an application to the University of Cape Town and whose earliest application-process date falls in the calendar years 2012 to 2014.

Producers and sponsors

Primary investigators

Name	Affiliation
Admissions Office	University of Cape Town

Study authorization

Authorization Date

2014

Agency

Agency name	Affiliation	Abbreviation
Admissions Office	University of Cape Town	UCT

Authorization Statement

Permissions were granted to DataFirst to make UCT Student Admissions Data available to accredited researchers through our secure data service in 2014 and 2019. Permissions to share the data in the secure Remote Access Data Enclave was granted by the Admissions Office on the 25th November 2024.

Data collection

Dates of Data Collection

Start	End
2012	2014

Time Method

Cross-section [cross section]

Data Collection Notes

Section K of the admissions application form comprised a set of voluntary research questions designed to support a planned revision of UCT's undergraduate admissions policy. Applicants were explicitly informed that their responses to this section would not influence admission decisions for the 2012/2013 academic year, and that their names would not be linked to their answers.

Participation was voluntary, though strongly encouraged. The questions collected information across five thematic areas:
- Educational disadvantage: Whether the applicant considered themselves to have been educationally disadvantaged by apartheid.
- School fee status: Whether the applicant's last school was a no-fee State school, and whether they received a fee reduction.
- Parental/guardian education: Whether the applicant's mother, father, grandparent, or primary guardian/caregiver held a university degree.
- State support: Whether the applicant received any child support grant and whether their family rely on a social pension from the State.
- Mother or primary guardian first language

Data processing

Data Processing

Type	Description
Derivation	The annual cleaning R script assigns application process identifier by scanning application rows in chronological order within each person-and-application group. A new process begins when the application program action equals 6, 9, 4, or 14; the process ends at the first row whose application end effective date equals 9999-12-31.
Derivation	The annual cleaning script derives the application year as the four-digit calendar year of the minimum application begin effective date within each combination of person identifier and application process identifier This variable identifies each application process as belonging to a specific annual cohort.
Correction	Named anomaly corrections adjust the application year for specific records where the algorithmically derived year does not match the intended application cohort. Each correction carries an explanatory comment in the R cleaning script.
Linkage	Person, secondary-school-subject, and tertiary-education records link to the annual cohort through the person identifier present in the yearly application-form file. Secondary-school-subject records are retained when the school year is less than or equal to application year, or when the school year is missing. Tertiary-education records are retained when tertiary education year is less than or equal to year of application.

Access policy

Location of Data Collection

Remote Access Data Enclave

URL for Location of Data Collection

Number of Files

access_policy

Access authority

Name	Affiliation	URL	Email
DataFirst	University of Cape Town		support@data1st.org

Access conditions

Data available through our secure Remote Access Data Enclave

Citation requirements

UCT Admissions Office. University of Cape Town Student Admissions Data 2012-2014 [dataset]. Version 1. Cape Town: University of Cape Town [producer], 2026. Cape Town: DataFirst [distributor], 2026. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25828/cy36-bs17

Deposit requirements

Users who publish results based on this dataset must notify DataFirst before publication and provide a copy of the publication or working paper.

Availability Status

Available in DataFirst's Remote Access Data Enclave

Metadata production

DDI Document ID

zaf-uctsad-2012-2014-v1

Producers

Name	Abbreviation	Affiliation	Role
DataFirst	DF	University of Cape Town	Metadata producer

Date of Metadata Production

2026-06-01

Additional metadata

Series idno

zaf-uctsad

Cohort year

2014

Source period

2006-2014

N data files

Cleaning script

2026-uctsad-yearly-cleaning-guide-v1.1.R

Documentation

2026-uctsad-yearly-cleaning-guide-v1.1.docx
uct-sad-2006-2014-notes-v1.pdf

Linkage key

personid / person_id (renamed in newer source periods)

Citation

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