Podcast: Admissions Special

UCL East Schools Engagement Assistant, Roberta Livingston hosts an Admissions Special with notes and guidance provided by the UCL Admissions Team.

Image credit: UCL Imagestore 

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Transcript

ROBERTA LIVINGSTON: Hello and welcome to Ask the expert where you ask the questions and UCL’s finest experts answer. I'm your host, Roberta Livingston, a Schools Engagement assistant at UCL East. Now this episode is not your ordinary, Ask the expert episode as this time round we are doing an undergraduate admission special and this is part one. At Ask the Expert we receive a lot of questions about applying to UCL. Some of the questions are more general, whilst others are more specific. So after speaking with the UCL admissions team, they have sent me some pointers for general guidance that could hopefully provide insight.

OK, question #1. Can you still study at UCL if you've received grade 5 in GCSE Maths and English?
UCL have over 400 different degree courses at undergraduate level, so there are often different entry requirements depending on what you would like to study. We advertise all of our GCSE requirements on the online prospectus, so the first step is to double check the entry requirements on the relevant course information page. For most courses, UCL expects a minimum of Grade 5 or C in both GCSE Mathematics and English language. You don't need to have achieved these grades when you submit your application, but you should be studying the required subjects in order to meet the requirements by any applicant deadlines typically this is around 31st of August of the cycle you applied in. Some courses may ask for higher GCSE requirements, but also in some cases, the courses may actually ask for lower grades, which leads to the second question. 

Can you still study at UCL if you've got strong GCSE grades but weaker A level grades?

UCL assesses applications in a holistic manner. Taking into account a variety of elements from the UCAS application form, we generally recommend that students only apply to UCL if they are on track to achieve the necessary A level or equivalent qualification such as an IB diploma grades but many of our applicants are eligible for our Access UCL contextual admission scheme. The grades required for access UCL applicants to join UCL are typically lower than the standard entry requirements or are more flexible in terms of subject requirements. Both the standard and access UCL entry requirements for each course are listed on the UCL online perspectives on each course’s information page, the access UCL. Details are listed under the Contextual Offers section. As we also take part in the Realising Opportunities scheme and other participants can also use the contextual offer grade requirements as an indicator for whether to apply. Some applicants may have weaker predicted grades as a result of mitigating circumstances. In some cases, such as being a local authority care for more than three months. These may mean that the applicant will be accessed UCL eligible and therefore the grade predicted may actually meet the contextual offer entry requirements. If you do have circumstances that you think have affected you, then please do ensure you tick any relevant boxes in your UCAS form, particularly around the contextual information. Universities will handle the information in a sensitive manner, but may ask you for some further details. We recommend discussing your situation with a teacher, if you feel comfortable doing so, and your school may also be able to help support you if you're having ongoing difficulties. Some universities also have separate mitigating circumstances procedures during the application process but at UCL we ask that you contact your exam boards to follow their respective policies. For anyone whose personal situation doesn't fit into any of the usual mitigating circumstances or contextual eligibility requirements. It may still be possible to receive an offer to study depending on the level of competition. If you're predicted or achieved grades, then it's best to be realistic requirements in a similar region to the grades with which you are applying it may also be possible to retake exams and reapply to UCL in the future, but we would advise checking our prospectus as it confirms if particular programmes do not consider resits. Alternatively, you can contact our admissions team prior to applying in case this is not possible for the course that you're interested in studying at UCL. And so there you have it. I think the biggest takeaway is to look very carefully through the UCL online prospectus to find out what each course is asking for specifically, if you would like even more information, feel free to contact the UCL admissions team via their contact form on the UCL website. You can find them under admission enquiries. And that is the end of this episode. I hope it was helpful and keep an eye out for Part 2, where I'll be talking to Kate Bright from the Slade school of Fine art to discuss their different admissions process. If you wish to submit your own questions for an expert to answer, just type in, Ask the expert UCL on your search engine and our website should be the first to pop up. Till next time. Thank you.

FURTHER READING

For further advice, view our guidance on writing a personal statement.