What Next?

Interviews

You may be invited for an interview with your chosen college/universities before they decide to offer you a place on their course. If the course you want to do is in an area such as dance, or drama, you may even be asked to come to an audition or invited to show your portfolio of work.

Some colleges/universities will only interview those students that are borderline, they may only just meet the grade requirements or it maybe that there are a number of students with similar qualifications and they can’t distinguish between them via the application alone. Some colleges and universities may not interview at all.

If you are invited to interview there is a great deal you can do in order to prepare yourself. In our getting a job section you will find tips on interviews techniques that will help you, UCAS also has a section on the website called invitations to interview or audition.

Offers

As long as you have applied on time, colleges and universities will aim to get back to you before the 31st March, and even if they haven’t they must have replied by the 6th May with a final decision. If you applied through UCAS late, then the latest you will hear is July.

Students are able to check the progress of their application using UCAS and the section on Apply and track your application. Students will also receive emails when changes are made or their information has been updated on Track.

As mentioned above you may be invited to interview or for an audition, and these can be seen on the UCAS Track system. When this happens you can either accept or decline the invitation using Track, or even ask for an alternative date or time if you are unable to attend.

Once the college or university have made their decision they will let UCAS know and then UCAS will inform the student by letter or email. The offer will then become official, but not until then.

You will get one of the following offers from the college/universities:

• Conditional Offer - this means that you will need to meet certain conditions in order to secure your place, normally based on exam results.
• Unconditional Offer - this means that you have already met the requirements and the college/university is happy to accept your application without conditions.
• Withdrawn application - an application could be withdrawn by you or by the college/university. This may happen if you didn’t attend the interview or haven’t responded to letters or emails they have sent out. The Student may decide they no longer want this college/university as an option.
• Unsuccessful Application - there are many reasons that applications for a course are unsuccessful. Students may be given a reason when the college or university respond, or students may be given the option to respond to letters or emails.

Once an offer has been made the college/university can not change their mind or withdraw the offer, unless you provided an application that was incorrect—for example you may have provided the wrong qualifications or expected grades. If they have made a conditional offer based on a student achieving grades B,B,B in their A Levels, the college/university cannot ask then for A, A, B later.

Decision Time

You only need to make a decision once you have received a response from all your colleges/universities. If they do not respond by the 6th May the application will be automatically recorded as unsuccessful. Any offers that have already been made can not be changed so there is no problems with waiting until all the decisions before making the final decisions.

A reply needs to be made to each offer made with one of the following:

• Firm Acceptance - this will be the first choice, if it is an unconditional offer then all other offers can be decline. If it is a conditional offer then one other offer can be accepted as an Insurance Acceptance.
• Insurance Acceptance - if your first choice offer is a conditional one then you can accept one further offer as a back up in case you do not meet the requirements of the conditional offer of the first choice.
• Decline - when the student has decided the offer they wish to accept and their insurance offer (if needed), then they will need to decline any remaining offers. A student can even decide to decline all offers that have been made, and choose to go through Clearing or Extra.

Students will need to respond to these offers using the UCAS track system, there is also a list of the deadlines for responding on Track.

If you don’t respond to the offers by the deadline, your application will automatically be rejected.

Extra

If you have applied for five choices and not received any offers, or a student decides to decline all their offers, then students may be able to apply for other courses through UCAS Extra. Extra lets students to apply for one course at a time using the Track System. Applications via Extra start in February and then finishes in July, and then clearing opens.

If a student is eligible for extra a new button will appear on Track to allow students to apply for courses.

Exam Results

If you have conditional offers that are dependant on the results you achieve. If you meet the conditions then you will be accepted on the course. If a student hasn’t quite met the requirements then the college/university may still accept you. A response will come via UCAS that will tell the student.

If the students results are better that were expected this means the student may be eligible to change the course that was asking for higher grades. Go to the UCAS website and adjustment, then students can got to the Results and Adjustments section.

Clearing

Students that do not meet the conditional offers, or may have been declined all their offers and not had any offers at all and so may end up without a place on a course. Clearing is available from July until September, but most students will go through clearing when they have received their exam results which are published in August.

When going through clearing, applications are made one course at a time using the Track system on Track, there will be notification online that will confirm eligibility. Students don’t get sent confirmation of this, they will only know if they go onto the Track themselves to check.

If applying through clearing or (Extra) students may want to contact the admissions tutors at the colleges/universities in order to find out more about the courses that the student is interested in. This will be more important if a student is completely changing course. Students may also decide to send a new personal statement direct to the college/university explaining the reason they have changed course—although the original statement will still be read. With the clearing application.

Clearing finished in late September and applicants may then have to apply directly to colleges/institutions if there are any placed that are left.

When going through clearing there may be limited choice of courses and institutions at this late stage and therefore it is best that students don’t try to rely on getting a place through clearing or Extra. Taking time to complete your application form initially and making the choices on the course will help to improve the chances of students getting onto the course of their choice before clearing.

Oxford and Cambridge do not go through clearing.