Pupils at sponsored academies are likely to make “less ambitious” post-16 choices, while the opposite is true for selective schools and free schools, a new report has shown. Female students are also more likely to enrol in post-16 courses that are less challenging than their results would indicate. The Nuffield College-funded report found “clear and systemic patterns”, with school type, gender and background being major factors in whether students enrolled in post-16 destinations that ‘matched’ their ability, based on their previous performance. It was conducted by Education Policy Institute (EPI) and the UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities, using national administrative data tracking students from secondary school through to higher education. While the report recognises that some “mismatch” between outcomes and prior attainment is normal and desirable, systemic differences in mismatch based on students’ backgrounds suggests that some groups face structural barriers. Sam Tuckett, associate director for post-16 and skills at EPI, said the differences in outcomes “are not explained by prior attainment”, but “reflect the environments students learn in, the peers and …