There’s an art to filling in your UCAS form, and it doesn’t involve simply listing your after-school activities. Jamie Mathieson separates the bad from the good
Applying to university is like moving house. You need to know what you want, you have to be realistic, and you have to get the paperwork right. It can be very stressful, and an awful lot comes down to luck. Yet, wherever you end up, it will start feeling like home very quickly. A university, like a house, is just walls, and you can put whatever you like inside them.
If you’re reading this, you may well be at an independent school. If so, you are at an advantage. Accept this. It means you have no excuse — admissions tutors will show no mercy to a shoddy application and are hugely wary of all your extra coaching. It also means that you need not find admissions statistics off-putting; you are almost certainly one of the better applicants.
The most important question to answer in your UCAS form, and in any interviews you might be called to, is the most basic: why are you applying? Do think about your answer. If you really can’t come up with a decent one, you’re probably applying for the wrong course, to the wrong university, or for the wrong reasons. The number one priority of most universities is to keep their drop-out rate as low as possible. They need to know that you’re serious, not just about studying generally, but very specifically about your subject.
Show them you’re serious: show, don’t just tell. The main theme of your personal statement has to be your subject — and not just that you like it, but what you’ve done because you like it. The best way to ensure you get into a good university is to read as much as you can right now: read, critique, and form your own opinions. But do think about what books your future tutors, who do your subject for a living, will really be impressed by: it’s unlikely that the latest David Starkey blockbuster has made as much an impression on his fellow historians as it has on the Waterstone’s bestseller list. A teacher once told me that even the best schools are two generations behind universities: in the humanities especially, most schools are still stuck in the Sixties. See if you can bridge that gap.
Your extra-curricular activities should not be the focus of the application — they should be as peripheral to the personal statement as your tutors hope they will be to your studies. Sure, getting stellar A-Levels while rowing for Britain shows you can manage your time, but anyone who’s met an Oxbridge don knows time management is hardly their most prized asset. Focus on the academics, even when discussing the extra-curricular: after all, playing football has a history, has produced literature, and is big business. Wayne Rooney unconsciously plots out equations every time he strikes a free kick. (Very unconsciously.)
Think ahead. The people reading your application are going to teach you. They need to know that you are applying for good reasons, that you will do well, and that you will relish the work. They also need to know that they are going to enjoy spending time with you. There’s a fine line between selling yourself and boasting. Avoid mentioning all those awards from your school prizegiving, namedropping the family contacts who got you that work experience, and anything potentially polarising. Feel free, in that case, to be vague: I wrote on my statement simply that I had done work experience at a national newspaper. It would probably not have been wise to mention that it was a tabloid.
Remember also that your application is the first impression you will make on the men and women who’ll be teaching you, mentoring you and assessing you for the next three years. First impressions really endure at university, so make yourself comfortable at open days and interviews. I helped with portering at my college during interviews this year, and saw how the most nervous and agitated applicants were always the ones wearing suits, or, worse, accompanied by their parents. And being nervous and agitated dramatically increases the chances of doing something stupid: I was unimpressed by the exceptionally well dressed young man who misunderstood my job and instructed me
to carry his bags.
In Freshers’ Week, plenty of people seemed boastful, haughty or bored. A few leaped from introductory small talk straight into religion or politics. On the other hand, there were others who were polite, modest, smiley and enthusiastic, and who retained a healthy perspective that maybe it wasn’t really the biggest deal ever — people who were themselves, rather than putting on an act. Guess who I wanted to spend time with? University admissions tutors aren’t so different from anyone else.
Pressure on university places
According to recent UCAS statistics, applications for undergraduate degrees for 2011 entry rose by 1.4 per cent to reach the highest number ever. This means that almost 670,000 people are looking for places with only 479,000 available. This can be largely attributed to far fewer candidates taking a gap year (numbers down 50 per cent from last year) in an effort to avoid the well-publicised rise in fees for 2012 higher education entrants.
Last year also saw the largest ever number of candidates failing to gain an undergraduate place and the proportion of those who reapplied this year is higher. There are more than 150,000 applications from 19-year-olds this year, an increase of 5.5 per cent on last year. Colleges which specialise in A-level retake courses are booming and expect to continue to do so next year.
UK universities are increasingly popular with overseas students, both EU and non-EU, and this trend looks set to continue. More than 47,000 EU applicants in 2011 represent another increase (a 5.7 per cent rise on 2010). This is despite the fees at universities elsewhere in the EU often being much lower than in the UK. These EU applicants are competing with UK students for subsidised places.
International (non-EU) applications went up by 3.7 per cent to 56,000, despite recent tightening of student visa rules by the UK Border Agency. Britain is second only to the US in higher education exports. With the government continuing to control and restrict home student quotas, the overseas market remains an increasingly important source of independent revenue for universities. The biggest increase in overseas students coming to the UK over the past two years is from China.
What will happen next year? With the new maximum fees of £9,000 a year coming into force in 2012, some vice-chancellors are preparing for a collapse in the number of applications. On the other hand, although there was a blip in the hitherto inexorable growth in applicant numbers after the 2004 fees rise, the following years saw the increase resume and it has continued to this day. The government’s intention to scrap the control on home student numbers for the brightest students, allowing universities to accept as many AAB-grade students as they wish, will encourage rather than deter high-quality applicants.
The Council for Independent Education (CIFE), whose member colleges specialise in A-level tuition, has seen a surprising 62 per cent increase in the past three months in helpline website visits compared with the same period last year and college principals report that pupils are now typically retaking A-levels not simply to obtain low pass grades but to turn an already reasonable set of grades into A*s, As and Bs.
James Wardrobe
Former Principal of Lansdowne College and CIFE spokesman
www.cife.org.uk
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