After Application

Here you can find out what happens next after you submit your application.

After all the hard work and focus that goes into making your applications, it can be easy either to feel lost or to ‘rest on your laurels’ once you’ve submitted and deadline day has past. But really, this is only the end of the beginning of the application process.

Things to Look Out For

Applicant Open Days

Choosing that initial shortlist of universities to apply to is only the start of the decisions you have to make. Eventually, you’re going to need to pick a Firm and an Insurance choice, narrowing your options down to your final destination and home for the next three or four years.

To help you make this decision, you should continue investigating the universities you have applied to, weighing up their strengths and weaknesses and finding the place you feel most at home. This means that you should visit your choices if you can: we will try to arrange visits either to or from popular universities, and many universities will hold Applicant Open Days in the Spring to try to win a place in your final selection.

Information Requests

Some universities will ask for more information about you, your qualifications etc. Please look out for these; if you do not reply, the university might reject you automatically. These requests may come by email to the address that you gave on UCAS.

Alternatively, they may come through the university’s own Applicant Portal. Many universities have their own place for communicating with you: please check the emails they have sent you in case they have asked you to register for this. And please continue to check the portal as well for further communications. Failing to respond to communications is an easy but stupid way to miss out on a place at the university of your dreams. Don’t be that person.

Meet those Conditions!

Universities will generally be making Conditional Offers. This means that they will state certain requirements (conditions) that you will have to meet in order to take up a place on their course. They will ask for 2 qualifications: Academic (usually the University Foundation Year) and Language (usually IELTS). You will need to meet both requirements in order to join the university.

In a few cases, they may make an unconditional offer if you have already met all of the requirements they need in order to join their programme. This would only happen if you already have qualifications which they accept for entry, e.g. from your high school.

Of course, you now need to spend the rest of your time on the course meeting these conditions, getting the grades you need for admission. But remember, getting through the university gates is only the beginning: you also need to spend the rest of your time with us developing the language, skills and knowledge that will help you get the most out of your degree.

FAQs

Your Firm choice is the one that you most want to go to, but where you still have a reasonable chance of meeting the conditions. If you meet the conditions at your Firm choice, this is where you will go.

Your Insurance choice should be your favourite of the universities that has made you an offer which you are (practically) guaranteed to meet. It should always be a university with lower conditions than your Firm choice.

Log in to UCAS Track and press the button ‘Reply to your offers’. You then choose your Firm choice from the list, then continue to the next page to choose your Insurance choice.

No. If you have met the conditions and provide the documents and deposit by the deadlines, the university is under a legal contract to accept you. This contract can only be broken (a) if you don’t meet those conditions or (b) by mutual agreement between you and the university (which really means your decision).

You can go through Extra to replace all of your current choices with one other choice from the universities that still have places available. The other option to consider would be International Year One

The simplest solution here is to take IELTS again. However, you probably know whether you just need another attempt and a bit more practice in the meantime or whether your problems with IELTS are more serious.

Different universities and different departments within universities work at different speeds and confirming places can be a slow process. Many universities will also wait until the British A-level results come out in August and process all of their admissions then. We will be keeping a close eye on UCAS and will follow up with you and the university if things are moving unduly slowly.

Extra is a stage of the application process where universities try to fill places which they still have empty. Because universities try to make lots of places available to students, the universities with spaces cover almost the full range from Russell Group to very safe insurance choices, so you should still be able to pick up a good choice here.

You can only enter Extra if you are not currently holding any offers, which means that either you have to be rejected or you have to reject all of your original 5 choices. You can then choose one option to replace these. If they reject you, you can choose one more and the process repeats until you’re placed.

Clearing is how universities fill the last remaining places on their courses after Extra has closed, including places left by other students who have not met the conditions of their offers.

The big differences between Extra and Clearing are:

  • Universities can only make Unconditional offers in Clearing, so you have to have your final results ready before using it.
  • In Clearing, you contact universities directly by phone or email and then enter the final confirmed place in UCAS. You do not make your application to the university through UCAS.