Using UCAS

Here you can find out about the UK’s central university application system – UCAS.

UCAS Homepage

UCAS is the central clearing house for university applications in the UK. It is not affiliated with EF and all UK students also apply through this website. It is mostly used to apply for undergraduate courses, but a growing number of postgraduate courses also take UCAS applications.

UCAS provides a single application portal which you use to submit the same application form to five universities.

For the majority of undergraduate programmes, including all of the most competitive and prestigious universities, UCAS is the only way to apply. A few universities and the majority of postgraduate programmes also (and in some cases only) accept direct applications.

In addition to operating the application system, the UCAS website also allows you to search for the courses available at universities around the UK, and provides a number of guides and information pages to help you with your application.

Deadlines

UCAS sets deadlines for both applicants (you) and universities to complete the various stages of the process through the year. You can check these ‘Key Dates’ here. However, the most important usually fall at the following times:

Mid-October: Deadline to apply for Oxbridge and Medicine.

Late January: Deadline to apply for all other undergraduate courses.

Mid-May: Deadline for universities to make offers to applicants.

Early June: Deadline to choose your Firm and Insurance universities.

Early July: Clearing opens.

Mid-to-Late August: British A-levels results are released.

Late August/Early September: Deadline to meet all remaining offer conditions.

Completing the Form

The UCAS application form covers basic personal information, as well as your specific application choices and your personal statement. Remember that the same application, including the same personal statement, goes to all five universities, so make sure that it is relevant to all of them.

Below, you can find a summary of what goes into each section, including some tips on what to look out for and how to complete each section.

This includes some basic ‘about you’ stuff like your name and address, as well as more complex details about your residence status.

Set your postal address as the school and add a different home address in your country.

For most students, your residential category will be ‘Other’.

Set your programme manager as your nominated access. This will allow us to speak to universities on your behalf.

If you have any special needs, declare them. It is illegal for universities to reject you based on these and knowing them allows the university to support you better when you get there.

Tip: Whenever you have the option of a dropdown menu choose from the list. Do not type into the box. You may also need to scroll down within the list.

This is where you add your five universities and courses.

You will need to add them in this order: University (called ‘Institution’), Course, Campus.

Usually, there’s only one campus, called something like ‘Main Site’, although multi-campus universities may put different courses on different campuses, and for collegiate universities (e.g. Durham), this is where you can state your college preference.

The answer to ‘Live at home while studying?’ is ‘No’ unless you’re planning to commute to lectures every day from your home country.

You can normally leave ‘Point of Entry’ blank unless you’re applying for second year entry to a Scottish four year course.

Tip: As in the Personal Details section, you should choose from the drop-down lists, although this time you will need to type something to start the search. Be very careful with the names of institutions, as these may be very similar for different institutions in the same city (e.g. University of Birmingham and University College Birmingham).

You will need to add each school where you have studied from secondary/high school upwards. There’s no need to go back to primary school.

Within each school, you will then need to add the qualifications that you obtained there. If you left school without completing your qualifications, you can mark the box to say that you did not gain qualifications at this school.

Remember to include EF University Preparation Abroad (Oxford) and the University Foundation Year with all eight assessed modules (nine for Architects).

Tip: If you have are still studying for a qualification (e.g. the Foundation Year), your grade is ‘Pending’. If you give your completion date for a qualification as being in the future, you will not be able to enter a grade.

This section allows you to list places where you have worked. You can’t give a lot of detail – only the employer, dates and your job title – so you may want to say more about your skills and experiences (if these are relevant to your application) in your personal statement.

If you don’t have any work experience, you can just mark this section as complete and move on.

Most of our students use ‘Private Finance’ (i.e. you or your family will pay directly). If you think that you might be eligible for a UK or EU student loan, you can choose the ‘Student Finance Services’ option; if you do this, the university will probably contact you for more information.

Tip: If you are not sure of your fee status, you can choose ‘Not Known’ and the university will contact you for more information to assess your situation.

This is your chance to sell yourself to your university and stand out as an individual. It is also the only piece of extended writing that the university will see from you so it needs to be accurate and well-written.

It has a maximum length of 4 000 characters including spaces or 47 lines, whichever is shorter. This works out as approximately 400-600 words.

The goal is to show your relationship with and enthusiasm for your subject, so the personal statement should be approximately 80% subject-focused.

Tip: Follow the classic writing advice to ‘show not tell’ and base your personal statement on examples from your experience.