Parents Guide to Applying to University

Do you want to continue your education at university after leaving the UTC? UCAS is the governing body which deals with university applications in the UK – and we will help you with your application, every step of the way.

Each student will receive a dedicated coach to help complete their application, answering any questions our students might have, and ensuring all applications meet the required deadlines.

Each student makes five choices about the subjects that they want to study, and where they want to study them. These choices will lead to an offer or a rejection, and any offers are usually conditional on the type of grades achieved at A-Level or other Level 3 qualifications. Two choices are then made by the student – one firm, first choice, and one insurance choice which should have lower conditional grades. Once these decisions have been made – they can’t be changed.

If a student receives no initial offers, they can wait until after they receive their exam results, and then apply to university through ‘clearing’ – a system which deals with vacant university places available

Mid-September: Applications open. Online applications are accessible through UCAS’s ‘track’ system at ucas.com

Mid-October: Closing date for applications to University of Oxford and University of Cambridge; and for medicine, veterinary science or dentistry elsewhere.

Mid-January: Closing date for all other applications.

February/ March: Online offers start to arrive.

May/ June: Offers and rejections should have been received through the UCAS website. Students choose their two offers – a first choice and a second choice.

August: A-Level results are published on the third Thursday of the month. Universities have already received these results and decided on the student’s acceptance; students can discover which university place they have received at 7am on the morning of results day, before they receive their results

Attending results day is important as it allows us to help you if your results don’t turn out the way you may have hoped. We liaise with universities on results day to confirm university spaces for our students, as sometimes universities will confirm a place on the course even if your grades may be lower than expected.

In the instance that your grades may be lower than expected, you are still able to apply for a university place through the clearing process, which is a system that matches vacant university spaces with students, following A-Level results day.