On 17th August 2020 the Secretary of State for Education announced that students would be awarded the higher of their algorithm-calculated grades or centre assessment grades.
Since then, the University of Sheffield’s Dental School has endeavoured to be as flexible as the situation allows, in order to minimize disadvantage to offer holders caused by these exceptional and unprecedented circumstances.
Following discussions within the University, with Dental Schools Council and our NHS partners, we have taken the decision to slightly increase our intake of dental students for 2020. This will allow us to admit in 2020:
- all students who selected Sheffield as their first choice and met the conditions of their offer with their algorithm-calculated grades
AND
- all students who selected Sheffield as their first choice and met the conditions of their offer with their centre assessed grades who have completed either the Discover Dental Professions or Realising Opportunities programme, or are offer holders from widening participation backgrounds who meet the Access+ criteria.
We appreciate that this approach will still require some students who selected Sheffield as their first choice to defer their entry to 2021. However, limitations to available specialist teaching space and clinical placements mean that it is not possible to safely accommodate all students for 2020 entry. We are therefore asking some students to defer entry to 2021 whilst seeking to minimise the effects on those from widening participation and disadvantages backgrounds.
Students who are currently required to defer their entry in Sheffield may have the option of accepting a place at another UK dental school with places remaining for 2020 entry.
Previous information
In our previous statement, we outlined our prioritisation criteria in relation to requiring deferrals to 2021 entry. The principles of those prioritisation criteria have been applied throughout and any remaining places that become available for 2020 will be allocated on this basis.