What you need to apply

Your qualifications

You will need to provide evidence of your school or college grades and/or predicted grades on your UCAS application. You will also need to provide evidence of your English language skills.

The qualifications you will need vary by degree and may also depend on whether you are a widening access student.

You should take the time to understand the entry requirements for the degree you wish to apply for and what qualifications you will need to achieve to be eligible for an offer.

You must enter all your qualifications on your UCAS application, from secondary education onwards - whether you have the result or you're still awaiting exams and results.

If you studied at a university or college but didn't finish the course, you still need to enter these details, include the start and finish date, and state that you didn't receive any qualifications there.

Understanding our entry requirements

Widening access offers

Your predicted grades

We use predicted grades as part of our selection procedures. It is therefore very important that your application includes predicted grades for any qualifications which you have listed on your application but have not yet completed.

It is your responsibility to make sure that your referee adds these predicted grades to your application when adding your reference.

We may be unable to consider your application if we do not have your predicted grades.

Your personal statement

Depending on the degree you are applying for, admissions staff will be looking for different things from your personal statement. Generally, however, your personal statement should:

• explain why you want to study the subject you have applied for
• demonstrate a clear understanding of what the subject involves at degree level
• detail your relevant skills, qualities and experience and state how these have been developed
• show that you understand the implications of your choice on your career aspirations

If you are applying to a professional or vocational degree you should demonstrate a clear understanding of the profession. If you can, you should support this with evidence of appropriate work experience, volunteering or work shadowing.

We recognise that not all students have equal access to such opportunities and therefore we do not stipulate that you must achieve experience through any specific means. We will consider a variety of experiences provided you are able to reflect on what you have learned.

Challenging circumstances

If you have experienced any challenging circumstances that have impacted on your pre-application education, you can include these in your personal statement so that they can be taken into account during selection. This information can be provided by your referee in your reference if you prefer.

Challenging circumstances policy

Writing a true personal statement

Remember that your personal statement is your opportunity to tell us about yourself. The information you give us must be true. If you copy a personal statement from elsewhere, or ask someone else to write this for you, including the use of AI apps such as Chat GPT, you could be committing fraud.

You can find guidance on personal statements on the UCAS website.

UCAS guidance on personal statements

UCAS guidance on using AI and Chat GPT in statement writing 

Personal statement guidance for Medicine

Your reference

If you are applying from a school, college or registered UCAS centre, a teacher or tutor who knows you – your referee – will write your reference before submitting your application.

If you are not currently in education and apply independently, you can ask a registered school, college or centre you recently attended, or an employer, if they would be willing to write a reference. Once you have agreement from your referee, add their details to the reference page of your application and UCAS will contact them.

Supporting information

If you need to send us supporting information, for example evidence of special circumstances relating to your school education, you must include this in your application or send it to us as additional information.

If you – or a party on your behalf – sends us supporting information, certificates or other documents before you apply, it may not be possible for us to match these to your application at a later date.

It is your responsibility to make sure that you provide all relevant information as part of the application process, even if you think it has been sent to us before you applied. If you do not, it is possible that your application will be unsuccessful due to missing information.

Any information sent to us that we can’t match to an application will be securely destroyed at the end of the admissions cycle in which it was received.

We can’t guarantee that we will consider supporting information if we receive it after the UCAS deadline.

A complete application

You must submit a fully completed UCAS application including a personal statement, reference and predicted grades by the relevant deadline to ensure that your application is considered. 

When to apply 

We take all the information on your application into consideration as part of the selection process.

How we select applicants

Submitting a complete and accurate application

Before you submit your application, you should make sure that all your information is complete and accurate.

Submitting a complete and accurate application

Related links

Guidance and support for teaching and careers staff