The country known as the United Kingdom (UK) is comprised of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Universities in all four of these lands are subject to the same government regulations and processes, but the system of education in Scotland is different from that in the other parts of the UK. Thus the application process is consistent throughout Great Britain, but what you experience as a student would be different, depending on whether you enroll in Scotland or elsewhere in the UK. Most degrees in the UK can be completed in three years, whereas in Scotland, the usual length is four years.

What to Study?

If you are applying in the UK, you are required to indicate your course of study at the time you apply. Unlike the US, where students can apply without having decided about their major, there is no such thing as “undecided” at UK universities. If you like the idea of studying in the UK, you must be prepared to launch into a quite specific course of study, and to stay with it for three years until you complete your degree. The word “course” is used to describe the subject of study, including all the specific classes that a student will take over the three or four years of enrollment. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the course of study is usually quite specific - for example, “Psychology” at the University of Durham, or a joint course such as “Business Management with French” at Queen Mary University. Once your studies begin, all courses relate to that subject area, or two subject areas in a joint degree. If you change your mind about your course, you have to reapply to a different course, and unless it’s a closely related field, you would have to begin your degree over from the beginning. For this reason, students who are not certain of their interests are not a good match for studying in the UK.

Researching Courses and Universities

The UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) website is the best place to begin the research process. Go to the UCAS website and click on “Course Search.” You can then search by course or by university. As you find courses of interest, you will notice the letters “EP” listed after many course titles. These initials indicate the university has registered an entry profile on the website, and by clicking on the course title, you will be able to view the profile. Entry profiles contain information about why one would study a course, what are the key skills and qualities sought in applicants (which is important as you write your personal statement!), where to obtain more information, what academic qualifications are needed, and a great deal of information about the course itself. You will be able to see exactly what classes you will be required to take during each year of the course, which will help you decide if this subject is realistic for you. Entry profiles are a great place to start the research process.

Once you’ve decided on a course, you should consult Unistats, a website that allows you to compare a particular course – for example, Advertising, at all universities in the UK that offer it. You will find data there about the number of A-Level points achieved by the average admitted student, which is a rough way of determining selectivity – see your counselor for assistance with interpreting this relative to the AP. You also have access to student satisfaction data, based on a survey of students in their final year of the course. Finally, Unistats also report the percentage of graduates who are employed or enrolled in post-graduate degree courses within six months of graduation.

There are numerous other resources available for investigating courses. Many students have found the Higher Education League Tables, published by the major British newspapers such as The Guardian and Times to be very helpful.

Application Process

UCAS serves as the central clearinghouse for university applications in the UK. Applicants fill out a single online form, a reference is added, and once the form is submitted, UCAS forwards the application to the universities that the student has indicated. Each university then makes a decision about the application, forwards that information to UCAS, and it is then posted in the student’s UCAS account. The UCAS application limits you to a maximum of five courses, or four choices in clinical areas such as medicine or dentistry. These course choices could be at five different universities, or two courses could be chosen at the same university (e.g., one course called Psychology and another called Social Psychology at University of Kent would make up two course choices).

Starting the Application

All SAS students, including current seniors, NS men, and graduates considering a transfer, apply our through our school’s section of the UCAS website. Each August, the counselor who is designated the “UK Application Facilitator” provides updated and detailed instructions about how to complete the UCAS application correctly.

Once you have set up an account, you can begin completing the UCAS form. It requests demographic information, a list of courses to which you are applying, a report of completed and anticipated examinations (including SAT Reasoning and Subject Tests, and AP exams), and a one page personal statement which is described below. You pay the application fee online when you submit your form. After submission your counselor checks and approves the data you entered and add the reference letter, which will usually be written by your counselor after consulting with teachers you've had in courses related to your intended field of study. Your counselor submits the form to UCAS, which forwards it to your chosen universities. An admissions tutor determines whether your background, ability, and examination scores suggest success in your intended course of study.

Since the UCAS application deadline is January 15th, your part of the completed application must be submitted online no later than December 1st, so the reference can be added and the form submitted before school closes for the winter holiday. You may read in some places that the deadline for international student applications is June 30th. In fact, any application received after January 15th is considered a late application and is processed only after all other applications have been considered. SAS counselors enforce a December 1st deadline to ensure that you have you best chance of admission.

There are earlier deadlines for specific universities and courses. Students applying to Oxford or Cambridge must submit the UCAS form plus a supplemental paper application by mid-September in order to be eligible for the required interviews and exams held in Singapore in late October. If you plan to apply to Oxford or Cambridge, discuss this with your counselor in the spring of grade 11 in order to begin planning for submission of the work samples which are often required by those two institutions. Students applying for medical, dental, or veterinary courses must submit applications to their counselor by October 1st in order for the form to reach UCAS by the October 15th deadline. Interviews are almost always required for these clinical courses.

Personal Statement

Your personal statement is your chance to make a convincing case for your admission. The personal statement can be no longer than 47 lines or 4000 characters, including spaces, and should focus on why you have chosen to study the courses you have listed, and what interests you about your subject. Details about what you have studied, read, or experienced in relation to your course will help the admissions tutors assess your suitability for admission. This is not a place to show off every last extracurricular activity that you have joined, but rather to discuss how any particular activity might have helped to prepare you to study your subject.

UCAS is very serious about detecting plagiarized personal statements. Each incoming personal statement is checked against a library of personal statements from previously submitted applications and sample statements on websites and in paper publications. After your application is processed, your personal statement will also become part of the library of statements. Any statements showing a potential level of similarity of 10% or greater will be reviewed closely.

Reference

Since you apply for a particular course of study at UK universities, the UCAS reference is very different from a recommendation letter to a US university. The reference should specifically concentrate on your suitability for the proposed course of study, and will include predicted AP exam results as reported by your teachers. Don’t even think of suggesting to your teacher that your prediction be increased a bit – because your offer will reflect that higher prediction and you will then have to achieve that score – or lose your chance to attend that university. Usually, your counselor is the best person to write your UCAS reference, and will include content or quotations from one or two relevant teachers. In some circumstances, a teacher in the particular subject area might write the entire reference with input from your counselor. Regardless of who actually writes your reference, the document must discuss how you are suited to study the course for which you are applying. In order to do that well, your counselor and teachers will need information from you about this. Students who have decided to apply to UK universities are therefore required to complete the UCAS Teacher Reference Questionnaire no later than May 1 of your junior year.

After Applying

After your application has been reviewed, you will be informed of your admission decisions through a section of the UCAS website called “Track." Instead of an outright acceptance, UK universities give “offers” of admission which are usually contingent upon meeting specific conditions. A typical offer requires certain AP or SAT Reasoning and Subject Test scores. The more popular the course of study, the higher examination scores needed. Outright denial occurs if you do not complete the specifically required exams or if your exam scores to date are weak. On the other hand, a particularly well-qualified student (or a male who graduated and is serving NS) may receive an unconditional offer, which is an outright offer of admission. Some universities will make an offer contingent upon exam scores in particular subjects. For example, if you apply for a chemistry course, you would need to be taking AP Chemistry and AP Calculus and earn particular scores on both exams.

Each time a UK university makes a decision on one of your applications, UCAS will post the offer in your Track account, including all the details. You will also eventually receive a formal offer in the mail. Because of the way UK admissions decisions are made, the SAS transcript is of less importance than exam scores. Once you’ve been assigned a UCAS number, if you wish, you can have your transcripts sent directly to the university admission tutor, especially if you’ve done well. The transcript may not carry a lot of weight, but a record showing you did well in high school will never hurt.

Don’t respond to any offers until you get the last one. When the last decision is posted, speak with your counselor and then use your Track account to reply to your offers. You will be asked to code all of your offers (you could have as many as five) as “Firm,” “Insurance” or “Decline.” Choose one firm and one insurance offer; all others must be declined. Since most offers are conditional upon examination scores and you won’t have received the exam results, this can be a difficult decision, so speak with your counselor. Once you have made a commitment to particular courses, you cannot change your mind. If you did not receive any offers, you can participate in a process called “Extra” in which you can apply one at a time to additional courses until you receive an offer. See your counselor for help with this process. Students who receive offers, but do not make the scores required by their firm or insurance offer can enter a process called “Clearing” in which they can compete for available places based on their actual AP scores.

Links

• UCAS - The primary site for researching universities and courses throughout the UK.
• Teaching Quality Information - This site provides information about teaching quality at higher education institutions in the UK and helps you compare institutions and subjects. Inforamtion is organized by subject and is based on official studies provided to the government.
• National Student Survey - Since 2005, students in their final year of university have been asked their views on the quality of the education they had received in their subject area at their institution. The results are shown on this site – as long as 50% or more of the students in a course responded.
• UK Financial Aid - From the Council of International Schools (CIS)
• BBC Education Site - Excellent general site about education in Britain. The "18+" link can help clarify the different qualifications (degrees, diplomas, foundation courses) available in the UK
• Year Out Group - Organization with a website that lists a number of gap year program ideas.
• Foundation Degree Site - List of subjects in which foundation degrees exist, arranged by subject and by institution. Also describes what a foundation degree is.

Visit the British Council in Singapore

The British Council
30 Napier Road
Singapore 258509
Telephone (65) 6473 1111 (Main Line)
Fax (65) 6472 1010 / 6479 7481
ukstudy@britishcouncil.org.sg