Selecting students: is there an education‐industry mismatch?

Centres on the selection of undergraduates for hotel and catering management (HCM) courses in the UK. Semi‐structured, face‐to‐face in‐depth interviews ( N = 25) were conducted with HCM tutors in 16 UK institutions to identify the source, nature and ways of measurement of the qualities used to select undergraduates. A synthesis of the evidence allowed a classification into four subgroups, e.g. academic attainment and ability, motivation to study, and commitment to work in, HCM, personal characteristics, and personal circumstances. As expected, the measures of academic attainment together with evidence from the headteachers’ reports, seemed to be key features of the selection process but there appeared to be a mismatch between what some of the admission procedures entailed and what the selectors considered to be important.