UCAS Applications
Applying through UCAS: How to choose your course
UCAS is the Universities Central Admissions Service. It is the central system that handles all applications for undergraduate study in the UK. It does not administer postgraduate study and there is no such central system for postgraduate study because applications are done direct to each university that interests you.
However if you are applying for an undergraduate course in Britain you must apply through UCAS. All international applications are dealt together with all the British applications.
Many people believe it is difficult for an international student to use the UCAS system but if you use our step-by-step guide below you should find it is quite possible to make the application yourself. We recommend you print out this article before attempting your application. Firstly, here are the important basic facts:
- The earliest you can apply is Mid-September for courses that will begin in 12 months time.
- The main application deadline is June 30, so you have a period of 9 months to apply (Oct-Jun). However if you are applying for Oxford or Cambridge you must apply before Oct 15 (see our section on applying to these 2 universities). If you are applying for Medicine, Dentistry or Veterinary Science you must also apply by Oct 15. All other courses at all other universities have a deadline of June 30.
- If you miss the June 30 deadline you can still apply through UCAS. Follow the usual procedure (see below) the only difference to your application is that, after June 30 universities are allowed to announce that certain courses are full and therefore you can only apply for courses that are advertising vacancies (see later in this article for details).
- Once you know the deadlines for the major (or majors – you can apply for more than one major) you wish to apply for you should use the UCAS course search to find a list of all the possible courses for you (see below for details on how to apply).
- The application fee is 15GBP. If you can pay by credit card you can apply online. If you need to pay by bank transfer you must apply with a paper form, which is not easy to obtain (see below).
- After you have replied you will have to wait between 4-6 weeks typically. Unfortunately you will be contacted by mail rather than email in most cases.
- When you have received decisions from all your universities you must choose your first and second choice university. When you do this any other offers you have will be cancelled but your place at your first choice university will be secured. If you cannot make any requirements of your first choice university you will automatically be given a place at your second choice university.
Search
When you are ready to search for courses, here’s what we suggest:
You will need to go to UCAS course search
Complete the search by selecting the following criteria:
subject course type institution regions do you want to search for |
You will now see a list of all the courses offered at all the universities in Britain for your major. This list is complete, you can be sure that UCAS includes all the courses and all the universities in Britain.
So now you have to select which courses to investigate further. To do this you should already have a list of 8-15 universities that you most like. We recommend you look at The Times ranking tables and read our article on choosing an undergraduate university. Look for the courses at your favourite universities and click on the course titles that most interest you.
When you do this you will see the following box of details – you should make a note of them for each course as you will need this information when you apply.
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information required to complete the UCAS application : |
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institution code name : |
ABRDN |
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institution code : |
A20 |
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course code : | M114 |
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campus code : | see below for list of campus codes |
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short form of course : |
LLB/Law |
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further details : |
see notes about this course |
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Once you have selected the courses/universities that most interest you should decide which ones you want to apply to (maximum of six). Then you can begin the application process - see our article on how to apply through UCAS.
To view related articles please click here