University of Cape Town Student Admissions Data 2006-2014

This dataset was generated from a set of Excel spreadsheets from an Information and Communication Technology Services (ICTS) administrative database on student applications to the University of Cape Town (UCT). This database contains information on applications to UCT between the January 2006 and December 2014. In the original form received by DataFirst the data were ill suited to research purposes. This dataset represents an attempt at cleaning and organizing these data into a more tractable format. To ensure data confidentiality direct identifiers have been removed from the data and the data is only made available to accredited researchers through DataFirst's Secure Data Service.

The dataset was separated into the following data files:

1. Application level information: the "finest" unit of analysis. Individuals may have multiple applications. Uniquely identified by an application ID variable. There are a total of 1,714,669 applications on record.
2. Individual level information: individuals may have multiple applications. Each individual is uniquely identified by an individual ID variable. Each individual is associated with information on "key subjects" from a separate data file also contained in the database. These key subjects are all separate variables in the individual level data file. There are a total of 285,005 individuals on record.
3. Secondary Education Information: individuals can also be associated with row entries for each subject. This data file does not have a unique identifier. Instead, each row entry represents a specific secondary school subject for a specific individual. These subjects are quite specific and the data allows the user to distinguish between, for example, higher grade accounting and standard grade accounting. It also allows the user to identify the educational authority issuing the qualification e.g. Cambridge Internal Examinations (CIE) versus National Senior Certificate (NSC).
4. Tertiary Education Information: the smallest of the four data files. There are multiple entries for each individual in this dataset. Each row entry contains information on the year, institution and transcript information and can be associated with individuals.