I bet you thought my silence on the subject meant the BBC and statistics had finally made friends, didn't you? Unfortunately not. Here's a recent example.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22721432

"11 applications were submitted for every place" doesn't tell us anything. Perhaps all applicants submitted 11 applications each for various vacancies, but all of them got a place somewhere or other. What we want to know (I assume) is the total number of APPLICANTS, across all types of vacancy, compared with the total number of places. For example, there were eleven times as many applicants as places. That is what they seem to be claiming in the headline, but the statistics they employ to back it up are completely different.