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What happens next?

Step 2: Applying

Once we have received a completed application, it goes through the following steps:

  1. We process the application.
  2. We send the student a welcome letter and their Applicant Welcome Guide, confirming their personal details and choices.
  3. Their chosen universities and colleges can view their application online.
  4. The universities and colleges decide whether or not to make them an offer.

1. When we receive a completed application, we begin to process the details. If we have any queries, we contact the student to find out more information.

2. After processing the application, we send the student a welcome letter containing their Personal ID, username for Track and a list of their choices. They should check the information carefully and if it is not correct they should let us know immediately by contacting our Customer Contact Centre. If they haven't received a letter within 14 days of sending the application to us, please ask them to contact our Customer Contact Centre. Pleased with the results

Students will be able to view their application in Track using their Personal ID and the same username and password they used to apply. If they do not know their login details, they can use our login reminder service on the Track page, or contact our Customer Contact Centre.

3. As soon as an application is processed, universities and colleges can access it online. They will be able to view the whole application, but they will not see where else the student has applied. Each institution will only see any other choices after all decisions have been made and the student has replied to their offers. Universities and colleges may contact them to tell them that they are considering their application. Not all of them do this, so your students shouldn't worry if they don't hear from some of their choices.

4. The universities and colleges will consider an application against their own admissions criteria. Each has its own criteria and its own ways of working, so your students can expect to hear from them at different times: your students may be contacted within a very short period of time or it may be some months before they hear anything.

The universities and colleges will decide on an individual basis whether they wish to make an offer or not and then send their decision to us. Decisions will be displayed on Track as soon as we receive them. More about offers

Information about an applicant's school or college:

For a number of years some universities and colleges have been using information called contextual data, as well as the information that an applicant provides, when they consider an application. This information, which is publicly available, provides them with performance data for the schools and colleges in the UK that the applicant has attended as well as participation in higher education in their area, and allows them to make a holistic assessment of the applicant's potential in the context of any barriers they may have encountered.

From the 2012 entry application cycle UCAS has provided this information directly to the universities and colleges that the applicant has applied to. Although it is already publicly available; UCAS has made it available for all universities and colleges in the UCAS scheme.

The information that will be available is:

  • the school performance of students achieving:
    • five A*-C GCSE including English or Welsh and mathematics or equivalent in England, Wales and Northern Ireland
    • five or more SCQF level 4 Scottish Standard grade including English and mathematics or equivalent in Scotland
  • the school performance relating to the:
    • average QCA points for the best eight GCSEs in England and Wales1
    • average points for the best eight Scottish Standard grades or equivalent in Scotland
  • the school performance relating to the:
    • average QCA points per A level entry (or equivalent) in England and Wales1
    • average UCAS Tariff points per Scottish Highers entry in Scotland
  • the school performance relating to the:
    • average QCA points per A level student (or equivalent) in England and Wales1
    • average UCAS Tariff points per Scottish Highers student in Scotland
  • the percentage of students at the school:
    • entitled to free school meals *England, Wales and Northern Ireland
    • registered for free school meals in Scotland

      • *Note: the information for England has been sourced by local authority
  • the percentage of students at the school:
    • entitled to educational maintenance allowance in England, Wales, Northern Ireland (note this information will not be available for England after the 2010 academic year as this data was no longer collected in England. It will be available for other administrations if still available from them)
    • registered for educational maintenance allowance in Scotland
  • Lives in a low progression to higher education neighbourhood (Polar 2)
 

1 We are unable to provide this information for Northern Ireland.

The information will be linked to the applicant or can be made available as generic data sets. It will initially be available for the 2009 and 2010 academic years.

The universities and colleges may use the information when they consider an application. Check individual university and college websites to see how they use the information.

More information about contextual data is available in the Changes for 2012 entry - an adviser's guide (PDF).