Get on and get in

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.