UCAS application

UCAS APPLICATION - THE FIRST THING TO THINK ABOUT

The UCAS application process is tricky, and you need to make sure you get it right because this decision determines what you do with the next three or four years of your life.

The first that you need to do, and this is not a small thing in any way, is to pick five courses you want to apply for. This is complicated; you need to think about what you're going to enjoy; about entry requirements, about where you want to live and after you've picked five courses, you need to write a personal statement. This is going to be a big part of deciding whether you get into university or not because this is the bit that the admissions tutors are going to look at and choose whether to accept you, interview you, or reject you. So if you get this bit wrong, you might end up with no offers. After you've picked your five courses and written your personal statement, then you can start to fill in your UCAS application form.

You're going to need to give them your essential details, a bit of student finance information if you are from the UK or the European Union, add your course choice, education, employment history, and then you're going to write your personal statement ending with your references.

Your references will be significant as this is what helps the admissions tutor decide whether you're a yes, a maybe, or a no, they have to be in at the same time as your application. You shouldn't fill in your application at the deadline because you need to have your references submitted by your teachers ready and waiting for you. If you want to apply for medicine, veterinary medicine, or dentistry, only four of your five choices can be for those courses. This is to give you a guaranteed insurance choice in case you don't meet the entry requirements for those courses because they are highly competitive. If you want to apply for Oxford or Cambridge, only one of your five choices can be for either Oxford or Cambridge. You can't apply for Oxford and Cambridge, and then three other things. For courses at Oxford, Cambridge, medicine, veterinary, dentistry: your application needs to be in mid-October for starting your course the following September/October and the rest of applications need in by the deadline of the middle of January for a course beginning September of that year. But, just because those are the deadlines it doesn't mean that's when universities start giving out offers.

As soon as the universities start getting applications in at the beginning of September, they start reading them and start making decisions. By the time January comes around, they might have given away a large number of their places already. Just because January is the last time you can submit your application, doesn't mean that's when you should submit it. Get your application in as soon as possible as University admissions teachers are going to have a massive pile of admissions to go through, so you need to make sure that yours stands out, and stands out in the right way.

This is where your personal statement, references, and predicted grades are going to work out whether you are accepted straight away; get asked for an interview; or you get rejected and whether the offer they give you is conditional or unconditional. A conditional offer means you will have to get specific grades to go into the course, whereas an unconditional offer: means they thought you were amazing and they will accept you no matter what your results are. Once the university has made this decision, they will tell UCAS, and then UCAS will inform you. Once you've received all of your offers in, that's when you can start to pick one.

You choose one firm choice, that's where you really want to go, assuming you get the grades, and one insurance choice, that's where you want to go if you don't get the grades for your firm choice. So make sure the grades for your insurance choice are lower than the grades for your firm choice. Then, the rest is just hard work, making sure you get the grades that you need to get into the place that you want to go.

On results day, you're going to need three plans. A plan for what happens if you get better results than expected because then you might be able to apply for an adjustment place; an idea as to what happens if you get the results that you need; and then what happens if you get worse results than expected.