Supporting someone applying to university

Tuesday 3 December 2019, UCAS advice

by UCAS

Supporting someone applying to university

UCAS

We started this journey in S5, after the National 5 results were received. 

Our first port of call was an event held at Elphinstone Hall Aberdeen, where a range of universities attended. Pop-up banners helped us look for the universities that had sport on offer, as this was Eden’s thoughts at the start of S5. We picked up lots of prospectuses and talked to the personnel on the stands, which was extremely helpful for the next stage. 

School provided a list of open days, and based on the universities which had courses Eden was interested in, we created a timetable to work out which open days we could attend. In September/October time, we attended the university open days, and this gave Eden fantastic information about the university, courses, accommodation, UCAS process, funding, and study abroad opportunities.

Eden then concentrated on his Highers, and having received the results for these, set about developing his personal statement. At the same time, we began round 2 – his school provided a list of university open days and Eden, now familiar with the universities he had visited, chose those he wanted to see again. 

In addition, based on his Higher results, he expanded his course interests and, therefore, we decided to visit several new open days. Now these are complete, Eden has shortlisted six courses across five universities. His choices have been based on the content of the courses and location.

All the information started to come together – personal details, personal statement, and university choices. 

The key to the UCAS application is the personal statement. Eden wrote this independently, with the draft reviewed by myself and school. It is an important part of the application, so Eden spent about two weeks developing and refining it before adding it to the application. 

The application calls for up to five course choices, therefore having deliberated over the one course to leave off, Eden completed all parts of the form in late October. Before pressing the submit button, we reviewed each section to ensure the information was correct and the courses he had chosen had the correct UCAS code.

We now look forward to confirmation from UCAS that Eden’s application has been received, and await any university offers.