University of Cape Town Student Admissions Data 2015-2019

In order to lessen computation times the main applications file was split by year - this part contains the years 2014-2019. Note however that the other 3 files released with the application file (that can be merged into it for additional detail) did not need to be split. As such, the four files can be used to produce a series for 2014-2019 and are labelled as such, even though the person, secondary schooling and tertiary education files all span a longer time period.

Here is additional information about the files:

1. Application file: the "finest" or most disaggregated unit of analysis. Individuals may have multiple applications. Uniquely identified by an application ID variable. There are a total of 1,540,129 applications between 2015 and 2019. As mentioned, it was this application file that was split to reduce computation times. It was not necessary or logical to split the other files.
2. Person file: 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. It is important to note that because individuals may have multiple applications, potentially spanning over many years, it was decided not to split the person level datafile. Rather, the person file spans the full data range from 2006 to 2019.
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). This file spans 2006 to 2019.
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.This file spans 2006 to 2019.

Further information on the processing of the original data files is summarised in a document entitled "Notes on preparing the UCT Student Admissions Data" accompanying the data.