Communications shared with The PIE News show the unnamed UK university has asked agent partners to draw-up a priority lists for CAS issuance, due to sky-rocketing demand specifically for Master of Research (MRes) courses. The action is linked to a request made to the UKVI for further CAS allocation.

The university has written to its official agent network to inform representatives to prioritise recruiting a “more diverse applicant profile”, stating that all “MRes courses are now closed to new applications” due to the “high volume of applications already received”.

It reads: “We kindly ask your team to begin compiling a list of applicants based on the CAS allocation; MRes applications should not exceed 25% of your total CAS usage.”

The action appears to be linked to the University requesting an increase in CAS allocation mid-cycle, rather than a response to the new Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA) reforms outlined in the immigration white paper.

The PIE has previously reported on the increasing interest in MRes courses as a route for students bringing dependants to the UK on a study visa.  

While this study route legitimately allows for dependant visas, with postgraduate research courses not under the same restrictions as other programs, direct promotion of MRes courses as a way to bring family to the UK has been frowned upon by the UKVI.

The communications seen by The PIE show the university reminding agents that “all advertisements or promotional materials for MRes courses must be approved [by the university]” and that “under no circumstances should MRes be promoted as a route for bringing dependants to the UK”.  

The timing of this action, however, has caused huge frustration for agents – who have supported large numbers of students successfully applying to MRes courses in previous intakes.

As one agent who wished to remain anonymous told The PIE: “A lot of us [agents] are really frustrated about this. It’s easy for the university to simply close courses when they are full. But we, dealing with students and families, now have hundreds of offers for September that we now have to withdraw.”

It’s easy for the university to simply close courses when they are full. But we, dealing with students and families, now have hundreds of offers for September that we now have to withdraw
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“How are we supposed to pick the 25% that are more worthy of a place than others? It’s not fair and is very poor planning from the university,” they added.

The university in question offers a wide portfolio of MRes courses in subject areas such as business and management and public health that are popular in markets more likely to attract dependant applications such as Nigeria, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

The action appears to be linked to a request for increased CAS allocation, an action that usually triggers a UKVI audit to better understand the nature of the increased demand.

University communications state that the institution “has been successfully granted an additional CAS allocation for the upcoming September intake”.

“However, We would like to remind you that from September 2025 onwards, Medium of Instruction (MOI) letters will no longer be accepted as evidence of English language proficiency for applications to our MRes programmes,” the communications add.

No specific mention of MRes or MOI usages was included in last month’s white paper or proposed BCA reforms.

Currently, sponsors of international students must have a visa refusal rate of less than 10%; an enrolment rate of at least 90%; and a course completion rate of at least 85% in order to successfully pass their annual BCA and retain their student sponsor status.

However, under proposals in the immigration white paper, each compliance threshold would be raised by five percentage points as the government moves to crack down on “abuse and exploitation” within the system.

It remains to be seen if the action taken by the unnamed university is a way of trying to bring the institution in line with the proposed new compliance levels.