This paper deals with the strategic pressures which are reinforcing and accelerating the professionalisation of the policies and procedures for the admission of undergraduate students to higher education (HE)in the UK. It reviews the assumptions and practices which have, until fairly recently, dominated the ways in which students are admitted and then surveys new models which are emerging as higher education institutions (HEIs) seek to respond to the demands of a mass HE system and pressures for greater social inclusiveness in the student body. These models in turn create new needs, both human and technical, which the HE system has begun to address.