Filling in Your Application Form

There are six sections on the UCAS application form:

1. Courses

In this section, you can select up to six courses (four if you are applying for medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine or veterinary science). You can enter these choices in any order - the online form will automatically put them into alphabetical order. All six choices are confidential during the application process; universities and colleges considering your application cannot see any of your other selections.

2. Education

In this section, you are expected to provide the details of the name, centre number (if applicable), start date, finish date and type of attendance for the three most recent secondary schools, colleges or universities you have attended.

If you are a mature student, you must provide details for the last school or college that you attended on a full-time basis and any schools, colleges or universities that you attended full-time or part-time at a later date.

You will also need to provide details of all qualifications that you have been awarded, or that you are currently studying or awaiting examination results.

3. Employment

In this section, list all the full-time or part-time paid work you have undertaken, making sure to include weekend and holiday jobs. Any unpaid work experience should be included in your personal statement.

4. About You

The information in this section is used to:

• Determine the level of tuition fees you have to pay (home students pay a reduced rate in comparison to overseas students).
• Discover any relevant unspent criminal convictions that may pose a risk to other students. Certain courses, such as teaching, health, social work, veterinary medicine, or those involving work with children or vulnerable adults will require you to declare any convictions - spent or unspent. If you do have a conviction, you will not be automatically excluded from the application process. However, the university or college concerned may want to consider the application further or ask for more information before making a decision.
• Determine if you have any disabilities or other special needs, so that the institution can offer you suitable help or support.

5. Personal Statement

Your personal statement is your chance to tell the institutions why you are interested in the courses and why they should want you as a student. Admissions officers will want to know what interests you about the subject and what you intend to do after your course. Many institutions do not interview applicants, so this may be your only chance to make a good impression. Think about including the following:

• Why you have chosen the course.
• What interests you about your chosen subject.
• What you have read about the subject.
• Details of any skills and experience you have gained in the subject area.
• What career plans you have for when you complete your course.
• Any job, work experience, placement or voluntary work you have done, especially if it is relevant to your subject.
• Details of any involvement in master classes or other Gifted and Talented programmes.
• Details of any involvement in widening participation schemes such as mentoring activities or summer schools.
• Details of non-accredited skills and achievement that you have gained through activities such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award, Young Enterprise or Millennium Volunteers Scheme.
• Your social, leisure or sports interests.

Your personal statement may be up to 4,000 characters (including spaces). It is advisable to prepare your statement as a word-processed document so that you can spell-check it before pasting into the online form. However, you should never rely on a spell-checker to catch all spelling mistakes - you must read it through careful before submitting it.

6. References

Once you've completed all the sections of your application form, simply click on the 'Send to referee' button so the person who's acting as your referee can check your details and add their statement. If you're not at school and are applying independently, paste your referee's statement into the online form.