Sophia's story

Sophia applied to a specialist medical college to enter its training program. After going through the selection process, Sophia was informed her application was unsuccessful. The college provided Sophia with feedback and recommendations to consider should she wish to apply again.

Sophia raised concerns with the college that these recommendations were inadequate and inconsistent with publicly available information about the selection process on the college’s website. She was also concerned that the recommendations did not align with the selection criteria. 

Sophia complained to our office as she was dissatisfied with the college’s attempts to respond to her concerns. 

Our office transferred Sophia’s complaint to the college through our early resolution transfer process. In its response, the college provided a further explanation about how Sophia’s application was assessed. Sophia explained she was still concerned that her application had been assessed using criteria that differed from the publicly available selection criteria. 

We made preliminary inquiries into Sophia’s complaint to better understand the college’s selection process and the selection criteria used to assess Sophia’s application. 

What we found

We found Sophia’s application was assessed in line with the college’s selection process. We also found the selection criteria the college relied on when considering Sophia’s application were worded consistently with the information available on its website at the time she applied. However, we considered the college could provide more information about the selection process to prospective applicants.

We also found the college provided Sophia with feedback and recommendations consistent with the selection criteria. We concluded that the college had taken steps to address Sophia’s concerns about the outcome, including by encouraging her to apply for a merits review of its decision. 

However, the college did not inform Sophia of the option of making a formal complaint. We considered this could have provided the college with an opportunity to address Sophia’s concerns about the application process separate to her concerns about the merits of the decision. 

Complaint outcome

We provided Sophia with more information about the selection process and how the criteria were used to assess her application. 

Relatedly, we provided feedback to the college that it should consider providing more information about its selection process in the material given to applicants to improve the transparency of the process. We also explained that applicants could benefit from being provided with more information about the outcome of their application. 

We suggested the college may wish to refer complainants to its formal complaint process in the future. This would provide the college with an opportunity to address a complainant’s concerns without the need for our office becoming involved. 

In response to our feedback, the college reviewed its selection process. This review led to an internal recommendation that some of the publicly available information about the college’s selection process and requirements could be enhanced and simplified. The college is now progressing this recommendation to the next phase, which involves a further review by senior stakeholders. It also advised it would take steps to retrain staff about identifying and escalating complaints through its formal complaint process.