If you are from the UK and are thinking of going to University, UCAS is the most reliable way of applying. UCAS (which stands for University and Colleges Admissions Service) is an online system which allows you to input all your personal information, educational information, personal statement, reference and your top 5 choice of Universities onto. The application process is very easy, the forms which you have to fill in are explained thoroughly in the 'Help' section of the UCAS website.
Registering is the easy bit. All you have to do is go on the UCAS website (www.ucas.ac.uk), go on "Apply" and select "Register" as you will need a username and password to log in the next time you wish to fill in more details. This process is quite lengthy, so no need to rush to get it done all at once.
You will then have to enter all of your personal information including names and addresses. Make sure you put your full name in the same way in which it appears on your exam certificates to avoid any unwanted stress later. Also make sure you include your most used e-mail address so that UCAS will have no difficulty to ask you for more information which they may need. After you have put in all of your details, you will be asked to come up with a password. Remember that you should never give out any personal details to anyone and you should make the password hard so that only you ever get the chance to enter your account.
Next comes the first hard-ish bit of the whole If you are applying through your school or college, you will be asked to provide a buzzword, which is normally something like college1002, which will make the school name pop up on the screen. Now that this has been filled in, you will get an e-mail which asks you to confirm that all the information which has been entered is correct. I had a bad experience with this, since I am a very impatient person and I like receiving everything on time. This e-mail took some time to be delivered to my mailbox, and I did the worst thing possible and panicked. DO NOT PANIC. UCAS is a very busy website, with thousands of students eagerly waiting to put in all their University choices down.
This is the section which had me anxiously filling in each of the spaces, checking over a numerous amount of times and checking over even after sending my application off.
Here, you can put in all your 5 University choices and the subject which you want to study at that University.
This is very easy, as all you have to do is choose the University from a drop-down list which appears after you click on the 'Find' tab.
This section is all about paid work (part time or full-time jobs past and present) not voluntary or work experience. These can be included in your personal statement, especially if relevant to your chosen career plans.
Don't go into a lot of details. The University Admissions Team will want to know more about you than the work which you have been doing.
* This guide is aimed at those studying A-Levels
Registering is the easy bit. All you have to do is go on the UCAS website (www.ucas.ac.uk), go on "Apply" and select "Register" as you will need a username and password to log in the next time you wish to fill in more details. This process is quite lengthy, so no need to rush to get it done all at once.
You will then have to enter all of your personal information including names and addresses. Make sure you put your full name in the same way in which it appears on your exam certificates to avoid any unwanted stress later. Also make sure you include your most used e-mail address so that UCAS will have no difficulty to ask you for more information which they may need. After you have put in all of your details, you will be asked to come up with a password. Remember that you should never give out any personal details to anyone and you should make the password hard so that only you ever get the chance to enter your account.
Next comes the first hard-ish bit of the whole If you are applying through your school or college, you will be asked to provide a buzzword, which is normally something like college1002, which will make the school name pop up on the screen. Now that this has been filled in, you will get an e-mail which asks you to confirm that all the information which has been entered is correct. I had a bad experience with this, since I am a very impatient person and I like receiving everything on time. This e-mail took some time to be delivered to my mailbox, and I did the worst thing possible and panicked. DO NOT PANIC. UCAS is a very busy website, with thousands of students eagerly waiting to put in all their University choices down.
Personal Details
This section asks you to provide all and any information about where you live, what your nationality is and if you are thinking about taking any student loans or grants. You get everything presented to you in drop-down list form which makes everything clear and easy to navigate through! (I remember having to write the phrase 'navigate through' about a million times in my ICT A-Level coursework, so writing it above made me shiver!)
Here are some tips on the 'Personal Details' page!
1. Nationality: Having a UK passport means you select "UK National". Since I don't have a UK passport, I had some troubles with this part. I have lived in the UK nearly my whole life, and I think myself of a UK National, however, this is not what you think you are, it's what your legal documents say!
2. When you get to the question about your 'Student Support', most home students should choose 02 (Local Education Authority). This means that you will not be sponsoring your studies yourself. You will require a loan from an authority such as Student Finance England to make sure that you have the money to pay for your education.
It is always a good idea to do all the 'Admin' parts of this process before you go onto the exciting bit, but trust me, it's worth it! On the 'Education' part of your application, you will have to record where you've been educated and what you have studied since you were 11 including all your exam results. Throughout this bit I made a lot of mistakes, and thankfully my referee and Head of Year spotted these very quickly.
I thought that doing this step-by-step would be a lot easier, not only for me to explain in the easiest way possible, but also for you to understand and not confuse you even more.
Step 1:
Enter all the institutions you've attended, making sure that you get all the dates correct. If you click on 'Find' and 'Search' you will find your school or college and the exam centre numbers if you don't already know them.
Step 2:
If you took your exams at the institution chosen, make sure you say 'yes' when asked if you have taken qualifications.
Step 3:
Once you've made sure all your schools/ colleges are listed, you can start to fill in all your qualifications to date. These may include GCSE's and AS (Advanced Subsidiary) Levels.
Tip: Make sure that you enter all the modules as well as the subject total. I didn't know I had to do this and it created a whole lot of headache-age!
2. When you get to the question about your 'Student Support', most home students should choose 02 (Local Education Authority). This means that you will not be sponsoring your studies yourself. You will require a loan from an authority such as Student Finance England to make sure that you have the money to pay for your education.
Education
It is always a good idea to do all the 'Admin' parts of this process before you go onto the exciting bit, but trust me, it's worth it! On the 'Education' part of your application, you will have to record where you've been educated and what you have studied since you were 11 including all your exam results. Throughout this bit I made a lot of mistakes, and thankfully my referee and Head of Year spotted these very quickly.
I thought that doing this step-by-step would be a lot easier, not only for me to explain in the easiest way possible, but also for you to understand and not confuse you even more.
Step 1:
Enter all the institutions you've attended, making sure that you get all the dates correct. If you click on 'Find' and 'Search' you will find your school or college and the exam centre numbers if you don't already know them.
Step 2:
If you took your exams at the institution chosen, make sure you say 'yes' when asked if you have taken qualifications.
Step 3:
Once you've made sure all your schools/ colleges are listed, you can start to fill in all your qualifications to date. These may include GCSE's and AS (Advanced Subsidiary) Levels.
Tip: Make sure that you enter all the modules as well as the subject total. I didn't know I had to do this and it created a whole lot of headache-age!
Choices
This is the section which had me anxiously filling in each of the spaces, checking over a numerous amount of times and checking over even after sending my application off.
Here, you can put in all your 5 University choices and the subject which you want to study at that University.
This is very easy, as all you have to do is choose the University from a drop-down list which appears after you click on the 'Find' tab.
Employment
This section is all about paid work (part time or full-time jobs past and present) not voluntary or work experience. These can be included in your personal statement, especially if relevant to your chosen career plans.
Don't go into a lot of details. The University Admissions Team will want to know more about you than the work which you have been doing.
Personal Statement
Your personal statement is totally yours. You have to write it in a way that shows what kind of person you are. You need to make sure that your personal statement reflects the type of person you are.
My top tips are:
Don't type straight into UCAS. Type everything on a word processing software (for example Microsoft Word).
For the sake of compatibility, use Times New Roman font size 12 with no more than 4,000 characters with spaces.
You can use 47 lines.
Don't waffle, make sure you keep your personal statement neat and concise.
Sooo, now you have all that completed, it is the most exciting time of all (other than finding out that you have been accepted into one of the Universities you chose on Results Day). All the stress that you have had to go through pays off and you have freedom!
* All photographs rights go to their responsible owners. None on this article are mine.
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