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About the essay collection

UCAS, in collaboration with Unite Students and Knight Frank, is grateful for the input from a range of stakeholders and partners across the UK education and skills sectors, whose individual voices have created this essay collection. The opinions expressed in individual essays are the authors’ own, and do not reflect the views of UCAS. The purpose of this release is to stimulate debate.

Alternatives to higher education

If you're undecided about uni or your plans have changed, there are other options after secondary education, such as apprenticeships, gap years, overseas study, and more. This page explains university alternatives.

Amy, Level 6 design engineering technical apprentice

Amy Lauder is in her third year of a four-year Level 6 graduate apprenticeship with aerospace company Leonardo. She will qualify with a BEng (Hons) in Engineering: Design and Manufacture from the University of Strathclyde.

Applicant experience

Supporting Professionalism in Admissions (SPA) was an independent and objective voice on UK higher education admissions, to promote professionalism, fair admissions, and access to higher education.

Application rates data explorer

This tool is a way to interactively explore some of the data published in the 2017 UCAS January deadline applicant analysis report.