St Killian’s CollegeChallenge Nurture and Respect
Applying to University
A guide to the process for parents
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What is it? University and College Admissions Service
• Students• Parents • Advisers • HE staff • About us
It is a charitable organisation which manages applications to UK higher education courses in N. Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales.
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The Process
• The student registers with UCAS. This is done on-line at www.ucas.com
• The student will then receive a UCAS personal identification number which will be used throughout the process
• You too can access the parents’ pages at www.ucas.com where there is information and assistance should you need it!
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Part 1-Personal Details
• personal information (name, address etc)• contact details (telephone, email address)• student support (finance arrangements)• criminal convictions• disabilities/ special needs• occupational background of highest
household earner
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Part 2- Course choices• Students are allowed to make up to a
maximum of five course choices.• I sometimes suggest four initially to allow
for a ‘change of mind’ later.• Additional course choices up to the quota
can be made after submission of the application.
• There is no order of priority required as the choices will be printed alphabetically.
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Points to note re choices
• Students applying to Oxbridge can only apply to one of the two institutions, either Cambridge or Oxford.
• Students applying for medicine, veterinary and dentistry can only apply for four schools.
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Some institutions require additional entrance tests for their courses;
• UKCAT or BMAT for medicine, dentistry, veterinary science / medicine.
• HPAT for allied health professions (physiotherapy, radiography,podiatry, optometry, speech and language therapy etc.
• LNAT for Law• STEP for Mathematics• Critical Thinking Skills
Students are encouraged to practise for these tests. Sample papers are available on-line or in the careers suite.
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Part 3 - Education
Students provide the results, dates and the examining board of all public examinations under taken or to be taken.
• GCSE• GCE AS level• GCE A2• BTEC level 3• Additional recognised awards such as music
(theory /practical), speech and drama, COPE etc.
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Education – Grades and Re-sits
• All students must record their AS grades on their application form even if they are re-sitting a module in January. However, a student can decide whether to add in the results of each module or not. I discuss this with the student as sometimes there are advantages in not doing this!
• Sometimes the institutions contact us for confirmation of the module results achieved at AS level if they are not recorded but this is rare.
• If a student is repeating AS levels, then he/she records ‘pending’ and the new final grade will follow in August.
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Part 4 - Employment
Students are invited to provide details of any paid employment.
• Employer • Address• Nature of the work.
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Part 5 – The Personal Statement
This is the most crucial part of the application for several reasons.
• Many institutions do not hold interviews.• Admissions tutors rely heavily on the information
provided in the personal statement when making their decision.
• It is the student’s opportunity to ‘sell themselves’ and personalise the application.
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Personal Statement
• It is vital that your son / daughter takes a lot of time preparing the personal statement.
• He / she should never lie or embellish situations as they will be detected at interview.
• It must be written by him / her and not ‘copied’ from another source.
• (UCAS runs all applications through a similarity detection system that looks for matches with internet sources and other statements)
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Part 6 – The Reference• All your son’s / daughter’s teachers submit a subject
specific report to the referee detailing a predicted grade, aptitude for the subject and his / her commitment and capacity for work.
• Each student has filled in a ‘student information sheet’ which allows the student to provide additional relevant information to the referee.
• The referee will then compile all the information provided by the students, teachers along with personal information, e.g., personality, contribution to school, hobbies, achievements, experiences etc.
• Students will have the opportunity to read the reference before it is sent to UCAS.
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Part 7 - Payment
The application fee costs £23.00Payment can be made in two ways;
• By credit / debit card directly to UCAS• By paying directly to the bursar’s office
here in school.• Note: the application will not be sent to
UCAS before payment has been made.
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The next stages• UCAS processes the applications which are then
forwarded to the appropriate institutions within one day of receipt.
• Students will then receive a ‘welcome letter’, a personal identification number and confirmation of the courses applied to for verification.
• Students will be able to access the progress of their application, reply to offers etc and make additional choices through the on-line ‘tracking system’.
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University Decisions
Once an institution has received the application, the admissions team will do one of the following;
• Make a ‘conditional offer’ which requires the student to meet previously specified criteria, e.g., grades, points and subjects.
• Make an ‘unconditional offer’ guaranteeing a place without meeting specified criteria.
• Decline to make an offer whereby the student is unsuccessful in the application.
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The student’s response
• When a student has received notification from all of the institutions, he / she will be asked to select two courses, one of which is CF (firm conditional) and is usually their preferred choice and their second choice CI (insurance conditional).
• This is usually done by 5th May
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What if the student is unsuccessful and has received no offers?
• This is where the fifth option can be used!• Alternatively, if all five options have been
unsuccessful, he / she can make another course choice through ‘Extra’.
• In this case, they can find out where courses haven’t been filled and can make an additional application but this can only be done one course at a time.
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Post Results• If the student meets the requirements of the CF or
the CI, then they are guaranteed their place on the course.
• Information should be received from the institution within a couple of days (if not on the day of the results). This again can be checked on ‘Track’.
• If the student exceeds expectations, then he / she is eligible for ‘adjustment’ where places are available at alternative institutions.
• If the student falls short of the grades required and is unsuccessful, then he / she is eligible for ‘clearing’.
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Most of all…..
Don’t Panic!!
There will be lots of help here at the College!
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Dates and Deadlines• 15th October - all Cambridge and Oxford
applications• 15th October – all medicine, dentistry,
veterinary medicine / science applications• 7 January – St Mary’s University College• 15 January – All other UCAS applications• 24th March – all Art and Design
applications• 5th May – final two choices confirmed
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Additional Points of InformationUniversity of Ulster
• ‘Gathered Fields’ - University of Ulster will not be allocating places until after 15 January deadline when all applications have been received.
• Grade Ranges- Some courses have had a grade range of UCAS tariff points introduced e.g., 260 –300 and dependent on the number of applicants, the exact requirement will be applied, e.g., 280.
• Increased entry requirement for a number of courses. These can be found on the online prospectus at www.prospectus.ulster.ac.uk
• Insight nights for Health Sciences, Engineering, Art and Design, Built Environment etc
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Additional Points of Information Queen’s University
• All applications for nursing / midwifery are now through the UCAS process.
• St Mary’s University College (QUB) separate application form
• New interviewing process for medicine and dentistry• Information evenings for parents – Engineering,
Humanities, Maths, Business Management• Precise grades only for medicine, dentistry and
pharmacy• Further information at www.qub.ac.uk
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Thank you!
Any Questions?