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The chief purpose of this research was to investigate, through a series of focus groups, the outcomes that Higher Education lecturers and admissions staff seek from the 14-19 Education and Training system in terms of the types of knowledge, skills, attitudes and dispositions they would ideally like to see being developed in new students. To achieve this we asked the participants to focus on a series of questions distributed before the meeting. These questions guided the discussion during the focus groups, although inevitably unforeseen issues emerged. The main part of this paper provides a description of the major themes that emerged from these discussions. This section attempts to provide some sense of the characteristics of graduates from the 14-19 system that HE admissions staff believe would provide a solid foundation for progression into, and success within, Higher Education. All focus groups recognised the fact that current students already possess a number of desirable traits, not least the capacity to work hard, as well as a broad range of social and problem-solving skills. There was particular praise for students ’ improved oral and presentation skills. In addition, there was more or less general agreemen