Undergraduate Programmes

Qualifications

Adults returning to education

Widening Participation

Open Days and Visiting UCL

Applying to study

Transferring to the UCL English Department

Affiliate study

Undergraduate Programmes

The Department offers the following programmes:

• Single-subject degree in English Language and Literature
  UCAS Code Q300
• Modern Language Plus (new for 2009 entry)
  UCAS Code RY00

Details of the above courses are available in the UCL Undergraduate Prospectus.

No. However, if you live in London and can only study part-time, you could apply to Birkbeck College, which is also part of the University of London and which specialises in part-time courses.

Qualifications

Please also see the UCL Information for Prospective Students pages.

Whatever qualifications you are offering, it is helpful if you can make it clear in your personal statement how much English Literature you have studied for your course and read in your own time.

The English Department is happy to consider applications on the basis of a range of qualifications. The following are examples of our requirements.

Students taking A levels are normally expected to achieve the following (for both BA English (Q300) and Modern Languages Plus (RY00)): three grades at AAA, to include English (grade A). They will also be required to have a pass in a further subject at AS level, and a foreign language is necessary at GCSE if not offered at A or AS level. The latter can include Latin or Classical Greek. For Modern Languages Plus BA combination English and French, A levels must include French; for combination English and Dutch, or combination English and a Scandinavian language, A levels must include a foreign language (any) at A level.

Yes, if you have a good reason for not having it and you, or preferably your referee, make this clear in your UCAS application. However, the offer you might ultimately receive may reflect this.

The Department will consider applicants offering a range of A level subjects alongside English Literature. Candidates should always study subjects in which they have a genuine interest, rather than choosing subjects for strategic reasons. The A level subjects studied by our best recent students have included History, French, German, Maths, Chemistry and Latin.

The following are examples of suitable international qualifications. If your qualifications are not listed or have any questions about this, please contact the English Department Admissions Office.

Scotland
A minimum of three Highers at grades AAB, including A in English, in addition to two A grades at Advanced Higher level OR two A grades at CSYS. Whether you are offering Advanced Highers or CSYS, one of the subjects should be English Literature.

Ireland
A minimum of four A grades and one B grade in the Irish Leaving Certificate, including an A in English Literature.

International Baccalaureate
BA English (Q300): 38 points overall, with 18 points in 3 higher-level subjects including grade 6 in English A1; Modern Languages Plus BA (RY00): 38 points including grade 6 in English A1 and a foreign language at higher level (which must be French to study English and French, and German to study English and German). Applicants have to have been awarded the Diploma.

European Baccalaureate
85% overall, including 85% in English.

French Baccalaureate
14/20 (‘Bien’) overall, including 15/20 in English.

Abitur
A minimum of 1.4 overall, including 14/15 in English.

Sweden
VG overall, with MVG in English. The application would be strengthened if a student had achieved MVG in other arts or humanities subjects, such as History, languages etc.

USA
Scores of 5,5,5,4 in APs, including 5 in English Literature. We cannot consider applicants on the basis of SAT scores.

Alternatively, an applicant could spend one year at a recognised US university, gaining an overall GPA of 3.5. This should include A grades in courses in English Literature.

The College gives advice about the standard of English required by UCL undergraduate students in general (please see the undergraduate entrance requirements in the UCL Information for Prospective Students pages). However, applicants to BA courses offered by the English Department should note that, due to the nature of the subject, the level of English required is substantially higher than that set by the College in that we expect candidates to be of near-native standard in written and spoken English.

Adults returning to education

The Department is keen to consider applications from applicants returning to education.

If you obtained A level grades of AAB, including A in English, or equivalent qualifications under the age of twenty-one, but have been out of education for some time, you are advised to take another course, preferably in English Literature, but possibly in a related subject, such as French or History, as it will strengthen your application.

We normally require such applicants to have undertaken some form of preparatory course. This will usually involve some recent literary critical study leading to the fulfilment of one of the conditions given below:

• Passing one A level (we usually look for a Grade A). This would normally be in English Literature, but if you already have an A in English at A level, and are not able to take a different course in English at, for instance, Birkbeck College (see below), you could take History or French or another Arts subject.
• Gaining the Literatures in English Certificate of Higher Education offered by Birkbeck College. This may be especially appealing to those who have taken A levels within the last few years and would prefer to take a different type of course as preparation for degree study.
• Successful completion of a ‘kite-marked’ Access course in Humanities. These courses are useful for students who left school without gaining many academic qualifications and need a general introduction to academic study. Students who already have some academic qualifications would be best advised to take a course in English Literature instead, as an Access course covers other areas within the Humanities as well and so less literature is studied.
• A 60 point Open University course at level one: Course AA100, 'The Arts past and present'.

We believe that these various courses of study, though demanding, are helpful to applicants. They enable students to develop their interest in the academic study of literature, and prepare them for the rigours of coursework.

Many of the preparatory courses can be taken part-time over the course of one academic year.

You should apply through the UCAS system in the usual way (see applying to UCL (UCAS) in the UCL Information for Prospective Students pages).

You are strongly advised to submit your UCAS application well before the UCAS deadline of 15th January, and if possible during the autumn. You can give the name of the person currently teaching you as your referee, even though he/she won’t have seen much of your work at that stage, as we can ask for the reference to be updated later in the admissions process, ie in January. If we decide to make you an offer of a place, we will make it conditional on your obtaining a particular result at the end of your preparatory course, just as we do in the cases of applicants applying from school who are taking A levels.

You may find that there is insufficient space on the UCAS form (i.e. in the ‘personal statement’) to give details about yourself and your reasons for wishing to study English. If this is so, we would encourage you to write or email the Department direct with this information; we will put it with your application form when it arrives from UCAS. To give us as much information as possible we also sometimes ask applicants returning to education to complete one or two standard written exercises.

See also Applying to study below.

Widening Participation

UCL has a government-supported policy to widen participation in higher education among under-represented groups. As part of this, the English Department has, over the last two years, appointed a member of staff to visit a wide range of state schools in London and the south east of England. These visits are designed to help information flow in both directions. Schools learn about applying for, and studying, English at UCL, and the Department learns about the experience and expectations of both teachers and pupils.

This knowledge feeds into continuing discussion of our admissions procedures, and we hope to find that as a result of these visits we will receive more applications from state schools. Other members of the Department regularly visit schools by invitation to talk about their research interests or about the teaching of English, and we also extend our programme of student visits to schools. By all these means, we shall continue to create, and maintain, links with a wide variety of schools.

For more information and advice, please visit UCL Widening Participation.

Open Days and Visiting UCL

The English Department currently has no open days planned. However, the Study Information Centre at UCL offers tours of the College on Wednesday afternoons as well as instructions for a self-guided tour. There will also be a UCL open day on 2nd July 2009 (now fully booked).

The University of London Federal Open Day is held in the second week in September, at Senate House.

For further information, please see open days in the UCL Information for Prospective Students pages.

Applying to study

Applications are made through the UCAS system and are sent to UCL where they are considered by the English Department (see applying to UCL (UCAS) in the UCL Information for Prospective Students pages).

About 70 people each year are accepted to read for single-subject English Honours and up to eight will take the Modern Languages Plus degree. The Department receives over 1,500 applications for these places.

We take everything in the application into consideration. The personal statement is looked at carefully for evidence of, and information about, the student’s literary interests.

The Department prefers to see a large part of the ‘personal statement' on the UCAS form given to specific details about an applicant’s reading, rather than to information about other extra-curricular activities, gap year plans, etc. We are not asking you to list every book you have read. Rather we are looking for applicants who can explain what it is that they especially admire, or find interesting, about particular books and films. We tend to be more interested in what you’ve read recently than your childhood favourites!

The Department regrets that because of the volume of applications it receives that it is unable to give individual advice about the content of personal statements.

You will be seen by two members of the academic staff for twenty-five minutes. They will usually discuss your A level texts, and/or your own private reading and the topics you have raised in your personal statement. We suggest you review your personal statement and make sure you are familiar with your A level texts before coming for interview. We are looking for applicants who like to think and talk about the books they read. We want our students to listen and consider what we say, but also to be able to weigh up different arguments and to think for themselves.

After the interview, you will taken to a room with other applicants where you will be asked to complete a short piece of critical commentary on a poem or short prose passage, taking no longer than forty minutes. We recognise that some applicants have more experience of this kind of exercise than others and always take that into account.

For example, the following two exercises were used in the past: [1] [2] (PDF).

If at all possible, we prefer to interview all those whom we are seriously considering for a place. However, if we are interested in your application and it is not possible to interview you, we will send you some standard written exercises to complete and make a decision on the basis of those instead.

It will save delay in the processing of your application if you make very clear on your UCAS form or in a separate letter to the Department where you will be during the admissions year. Please give exact dates as far as possible and full contact details. If it is easier for us to communicate with you through family or friends in the UK, please let us know this.

Transferring to the UCL English Department

We will consider applications for transfer from students currently studying in other departments at UCL or at other institutions, either in the UK or abroad, for entry into the first year of the BA course only. These applications must be received by 15th January. Applicants will need to fulfil the standard entry requirements (see above). We cannot consider applicants on the basis of their university study only.

If you are happy to be considered for first year entry and your qualifications meet the standard requirement, you will need to provide us with all of the following before we can look at your application:

1. A detailed letter giving the background to your application and your reasons for wishing to transfer to the English Department at UCL.
2. A full CV or a copy of your original UCAS application.
3. Two academic references: one from your current or most recent university tutor, and one from your English teacher at school.

These should be sent or emailed to Admissions in the English Department at UCL. On receipt of them we may ask you to complete one or two standard written exercises in order to decide whether or not to interview you, or we may invite you for interview without requiring written work, or we may reject your application.

If you are applying from outside UCL and we decide to recommend that you are offered a place, you will be required to submit a UCAS application so that we can do this formally.

Affiliate Study

We receive most applications for affiliate study (full academic year) between January and March. However, applications made during the spring and summer may still be considered.

Please note that, due to the popularity of the subject and the competition for places, it is not possible to take courses in the English Department if you have not applied to do so formally and in advance.

For further information on affiliate study in the English Department, including an outline of the courses offered, please see our page for international students.

For further information on affiliate study at UCL and for information on applying, please see the online Study Abroad Guide produced by the UCL International Office.