Understanding the UCAS Clearing System

The UCAS web site is very comprehensive and user friendly. It allows you to manage your application easily and offers a huge range of advice to students wishing to enter higher education. The basics of the clearing system are outlined as follows:

First of all log on to the site and familiarise yourself with it: www.ucas.co.uk

Registering on the site allows you greater flexibility and access to areas so it is worth doing this as soon as you begin your A level courses.

You will probably have an idea of the course you wish to undertake but the first time you log on to the site it might be very flexible. You will find a sub site which helps you to choose the course that is right for you and there is something called the Stamford Test which is a simple online questionnaire and attempts to match student interests with abilities and suggest appropriate higher education courses.

There are many different routes you can take, for example foundation degrees which are linked to employment, graduate degrees or post graduate if you already have the appropriate qualifications. In addition there are a number of course modules which you may like to take and accrue credits towards a degree – all this is explained on the site.

You will need to establish entry requirements to the university course of your choice – this is the minimum educational level and also the institutional requirements. This is a search that is easily done through the UCAS platform. There are many tools to help you through this such as Entry Profiler (essentially a course sorter tool) and admission tests to see if you are eligible for a course (examples are medicine and dentistry).

Once you have selected your course and universities then you can begin the application process – make sure that you note the lifetime of the application and key dates when things like academic references etc. have to be in. Closing dates for course applications and eligibility must also be clarified (this may include predicted grades).

Remember that you can get your predicted grade from Oxford College once you have fulfilled the course requirements. This will normally be completion of at least three assignments from each part of the A level, so three from the AS and three from the A2. If you haven’t started your A2 part of the award your tutor will not be able to predict a grade for this. Therefore you may only have a prediction for the AS part of the award – so you must be clear when completing the UCAS application whether you need to have the full A level predicted grade. This normally affects fast track A level Oxford College students more than the 2 year course students because of the application windows. However, if you understand that a predicted grade is a professional judgement of academic ability based on assignment scores, consistency and tutor judgement then you will see how important it is to complete these assignments. Predicted grading is not just an average of scores.

The UCAS site will also provide details of credits or points gained through study or part of study, and how this affects your entry requirements. The link for the tariff is: http://www.ucas.com/students/ucas_tariff/tarifftables/

UCAS references are normally provided by someone who has known you for at least one complete academic year and can write about whether you suit the course chosen. Therefore your Oxford College tutor is not the correct choice for this. You can however obtain a formal student status confirmation from Oxford College which is in fact conferred with your predicted grading. It is up to each individual tutor whether they will provide a UCAS reference or not, and students should never assume that they will, so should never divulge tutor email addresses and details to universities or other institutions, without permission from the tutor themselves.

Once your UCAS application is completed and submitted then you will need to wait for notification of interviews and provisional offers which are subject to final A level results and available places. Once your A level results are confirmed then you can notify UCAS and you will be guided through the clearing system to obtain formal offers.