Timetable For Applications
Applications for full time undergraduate courses are made up to a year in advance of the time of entry, which is usually only possible in October, at the start of the academic year. You may apply before you have completed the exams which will qualify you for entry, or after obtaining your results. If you wish to take a gap year between leaving school and going to university, you may apply for deferred entry, particularly if you intend to be abroad for much of that year.All applications for full-time places on undergraduate courses go through a central organisation called UCAS on a single online application form. Depending on what you wish to study, you may enter to up to four or six choices on the same form. Wherever you are applying from, we can access your form with your permission as you complete it and guide you on every step of the process and likewise on what to do after you have submitted the form.
Applications for Oxford, Cambridge, medicine, dentistry and veterinary science must be submitted by 15 October for entry the following October. Applicants for Oxford and Cambridge are also required to complete the university's own form and are advised to nominate a college (though this last point may change in the case of Oxford as the university is reviewing its application process). Fuller details of the entry procedures for these universities are given on their websites or can be obtained from us.
Applications for other universities or most other courses should be submitted by 15 January, although earlier applications are recommended if there is likely to be a high level of competition. Separate rules operate for students applying for art courses. Later applications are possible, particularly in the case of students from outside the EU, providing the university is willing to consider them. This does not apply to those courses/institutions with the 15 October deadline.
Some universities routinely interview students as part of the applications procedure. Otherwise, in general terms the applicant will be assessed on whether he or she is likely to meet, or has already met the admissions criteria for the course, their motivation and overall potential, and the comments made by their referee. If universities then wish to accept you, they will either make you an outright offer if you have already fulfilled the entry criteria, or a conditional one if you are still completing your course. Otherwise you will be rejected. These decisions will be made in the spring term, assuming you have met the application deadlines set out above.
Once you have heard from all the universities on your list you will be required to select one of them, if all your offers are unconditional, or nominate a first and second choice if the offers are conditional, or reject all of them. If you later satisfy the conditions set by your first choice you automatically gain a place there, or similarly your second choice if you fail to get into your first choice and meet the requirements for this offer. If you hold no offers by the end of the first round of UCAS at around the end of March, you are entitled to apply again through UCAS Extra for any courses with places available. If you fail to hold a place in August, following your exam results, you may enter the final cycle of UCAS, called Clearing, and try to obtain a place then.