- Hello, my name is Mark Wilson. I'm Customer Experience Manager at UCAS, and today I'm going to talk about how UCAS is supporting our international customers. I've been really looking forward to getting your questions and comments and colleagues, sharing thoughts with each other in the questions and answer section. Thank you. As mentioned, this session is about how UCAS is supporting international advisers and I'm really pleased to be co-presenting with my colleague Callie Hawkins, both of us, part of the customer experience management team here at UCAS. Firstly, I will cover how COVID-19 has impacted the higher education admissions process and what we think the impact is on the applicants and share some points about UCAS' response to COVID-19 then I'll pass over to Callie who will talk through making applications to UK higher education both for 2020 including the clearing process, confirmation and clearing process of summer 2020 and raise some points about supporting students looking at applications for the following year 2021. First of all, I think the really important thing to highlight is that here at UCAS, we have been very resilient and I have been personally amazed by the response of the UCAS team and many, many fantastic colleagues who've rallied around so that we can carry on with our business as usual and be here to support you. Before COVID-19 became a global pandemic, we'd already started working on remote working practises and that really helped us make this successful transition to working from home under these new circumstances. So that includes all of those teams that are there to support you as advisers such as adviserhelp@ucas.ac.uk the team behind that are still dealing with your queries and questions as well as the applicant contact centre. We've been really keen to make sure that everybody has as much information to hand as they need so that students can keep making informed decisions. So we will keep you up-to-date with our direct communications, our online information and we've separated out into different sections for each audience, whether you're a student or an applicant, a provider or adviser. We have dedicated pages within UCAS.com with the relevant COVID-19 information and it has been a really eventful few weeks and months. There have been so many changes happening so quickly measures put in place for public health and safety and containment of COVID-19 could have really deeply influenced the way students are carrying on with their education and which have also had huge impacts on all of our professional and personal lives. But underneath this, what we really want to stress is that there is an element of continuity and UCAS is contributing to that continuity and stability as much as we can. UK universities in Newcastle, are continuing to accept applications. We've not seen applications stopped by any means and although the UK government had requested, in the interest of stability, a pause on unconditional offers that lasted until the beginning of May has since been lifted and universities are back to making unconditional offers as before. With due respect for students decision-making under these, very trying circumstances, we've responded to that from you UCAS' side by pushing back deadlines for decisions from those applicants who received offers. So all of those decisions, which previously would have needed to have been made at different points starting in early May, will now have a deadline of 18th of June, but we are still planning to receive grades for those qualifications that are integrated and connected to UCAS. And we will confirm places with universities and run clearing. And as many of you would have noticed, we also launched the 2021 application cycle as usual in May and Callie will share a bit more information about that in a moment. For international students, and the applicants you're supporting, will certainly be feeling this. There is this heightened, difficulty and challenge and uncertainty around changes to processes for examinations and assessments and how grades will be awarded. And we know from many of you, that you're interested in what impact this has both in the UK as well as in other countries, out of a sense of ensuring that you can confidently talk to your students about fairness in the process. As you can imagine, we've been involved in discussion with the awarding organisations, we have worked through with them the processes they're using. The use of data is fairly consistent from a lot of the awarding organisations' data from previous years that they use to sense-check and balance off the predicted grades and alternative sort of coursework assessments that will have been submitted to help with the ranking and the grading of applicants through other means outside of standard assessments. So we are equally confident that both the grades that students receive these years will be valid, will be something they can be proud of to reflect the effort they've put into their education, but also that it remains a level playing field. International students whose first language is not English, will also have numerous challenges around accessing English language test centres. We have kept up-to-date information on UCAS.com as part of the Coronavirus hub, information hub where students can take English language tests we've sign-posted to the major test providers and as many of you will have seen, some of those have responded by making tests available online. And we have encouraged universities and colleges to be as flexible as they can be. And many have with adoption of alternative tests, particularly those that are available online. Universities and colleges, whilst maintaining the quality and standards of entry onto their courses, are also using the flexibility they have as Tier 4 sponsors to use their autonomy to determine who has met conditions for English language. Now we have also upped our engagement with different customer groups. We know that we play not just an important role in the support for applications and admissions, but we're also an essential conduit of information for our customers as well. We've run a number of international Facebook live events. We had 88,000 students, applicants and advisers attend our first one. 51,000 who watched the live or recorded version of our second Facebook live international Q&A. So watch out for other events in June. We have at time of recording, only heard from one or two universities and colleges who've announced their arrangements for September 2020, but we're starting to work on a collated list of different delivery arrangements that the universities and colleges will be putting in place. Whether they go fully online, a mix of online and face to face or delayed starts and so on. In addition to the Facebook live events, we've hosted and we'll continue to host Q&A sessions for teachers and advisers. We know that you have different types of questions. But also we have started to explore, how we can organise and bring together universities and colleges and the students who are looking to make applications to those universities and colleges for 2021, how we can bring those two groups together in the changed circumstances with a high likelihood that the travel restrictions and large gatherings will be restricted in some way for a number of months to come. So keep an eye out also, for information about our virtual exhibitions. I wanted to finally highlight, in terms of our engagement, one particular initiative which we're trying to follow up. Connect is our idea of an informal network, which creates a two-way information sharing between UCAS and international advisers. We've had feedback from a number of sources that, you'd like the UK higher education sector to listen more. So we want to arrange sessions online, monthly online meetings, staggered for different time zones. So that we can both share the latest updates with you and hear back from you as well. So we are, we have sent out invitations for expressions of interest to this group. So check your recent adviser bulletins for the full details, but essentially if you contact us via adviserhelp@ucas.ac.uk, let us know who you are, where you live and work and also give us a sense of the network of colleagues and peers that you'll be hearing from and be able to disseminate that information to them. We'd really like to get you involved in the Connect group as well. Before I hand over to Callie, we really appreciate the, this year is an exceptionally difficult year to be an adviser for international applicants looking to study overseas. You are being faced with this key question from your students without any doubt. What should they do? Should they continue with their study plan? Should they defer for a year? Should they take any offers they have on the table for 2010 to 2020 and continue. So we wanted to lay out our position. And this is consistent with the advice we've given throughout the previous weeks and months. We really want students to keep their options open and we think the best way they can do that is to see through any application they have for 2020 to come and study at a UK university or college. They may not take the offer up, but seeing their application through, completing their studies is the best route to put them in a good position. However, we're also really, really emphatic that the student's personal safety, their health and well-being absolutely have to be the highest priority and no doubt this will be something that you'll be getting a very clear idea in your conversations with parents as well. But we need students and we, I think we all worked together on this one to make informed decisions at the right time with the right information. And we want to be playing a part in that too. So where you've got students thinking about whether to accept an offer for 2020 or defer for 2021, we don't know exactly what the size of the impact this year will be, but we anticipate that there will be, fewer students in whatever scale who are likely to be able to safely take up a place for study in 2020. But all of the other sentiment that we are seeing and hearing from outside of UCAS as well as our own feedback from applicants is that the demand for UK university degree is still there. So it is likely that there will be some displaced demand to 2021. So the availability of places, the level of demand and likely, availability of places for selective courses in particular, something that students really need to think about. Then also we have to think about how easy it will be for those students who are applying for 15th of October deadline courses. We know that BMAT and UKCAT tests, are still planning to run as normal. That may change depending on the circumstances. We know also there's some fantastic advice out there from the UK's general medical counsel, guidance on gaining relevant experience to study medicine in the time of COVID-19 published in April, 2020. But, we have to sort of face that there are some students who will be applying for those courses under very different circumstances from people in previous years. Also, if students are seeking to defer, then we want them to be making productive uses as well as safe use of their time. And I think thinking about those other options if students delay in study abroad plans, you know, with some of the restrictions that may continue for some time and the likelihood of availability of work and travel and other options. These are all factors for your students to consider. And finally, UK higher education is a real long-term choice and as a three or four year programme, we hope that students will draw the benefits from that irrespective of what's been happening so far this year. And will continue to sort of have its effect I'm sure for weeks to come. But, the students who join those courses in 2020 or 2021, we'll be drawing down benefits that will shape their future lives and careers for long, long term. So, we really want them to make the right choice. So, I'm going to hand over now to Callie who'll talk you through how that application process will work starting with confirmation and clearing 2020. - Hello, my name is Callie. I'm the Adviser Experience Manager at UCAS and I look after all the UCAS' registers centres worldwide and we have over 6,600 centres supporting students going through the undergraduate application process. Centres are made up of teachers, advisers, counsellors and agents. In today's session I'll be talking through the confirmation and clearing 2020 cohort and then touching briefly upon the 2021 admission cycle. Confirmation and clearing 2020. Confirmation is when universities and colleges receive grades and confirm places. Students who do not secure a place are entered into the clearing process. And this year that opens on the 6th of July. Clearing allows students to search university vacancies on our official clearing search tool on UCAS.com. We really do want to give students more control over their application. Last year we introduced a new feature called 'Decline my place'. Whereby all placed applicants could if they wish to, release themselves into clearing to find a vacancy at another university. This will carry on for the 2020 cycle. We're enhancing this service by actually understanding and recording why students use this survey at this point in the cycle. Basically want to understand why students are releasing themselves into clearing when they already have a place at a university. This year for the first time, we are following on from the success of the 'Decline my place' feature introducing Clearing Plus. This is for students who find themselves in clearing and can view a list of courses they've been personally matched to via Track. It's a more personalised information tool, an option for students. It's automatically available to all and placed applicants and it is at the point that they need it. Let's take a look. When students log into Track under next steps, they will see a box, 'See matches'. When they click on 'See matches', they will be presented with all the courses and providers matched to them. The student can tick as many as the boxes of 'I'm interested in many of the courses' as they wish. This will allow them to be contacted by one of those universities concerned. There's two key messages here for students, to keep your contact details up-to-date, but also be pro-active. Don't wait for that call. It might not happen. Still use the clearing in the normal way. Log onto UCAS.com take a look at our search tool and all the vacancies for clearing will be listed there. More information about 'Declining my place' and Clearing Plus will be available on the advice section of the UCAS.com. Let's move on to the 2021 cycle. I'm sure you all are aware that UCAS application process is entirely online and it's for anyone applying to an undergraduate course at a UK university. There are several sections to complete, the personal details, the choices of the university courses, the education section with the qualifications pending and taken, the employment section and one person statement covering all choices and of course the academic reference which is supplied from a school, college or counsellor. So on the 5th of May, we've launched the search tool displaying all 2021 courses. On the 12th of May, the adviser portal went live. So this is for centres who are supporting undergraduate applications through the process and on the 19th of May, the UCAS Apply went live, so students are able to start completing their application. However, it's only from the 8th of September completed applications can be sent to UCAS and obviously independent applicants can send directly to UCAS. However, if students are linked to a centre, it's the center's responsibility to send it to UCAS on behalf of the student. There are other two key deadlines I'd like to point out. The 15th of October is the deadline for Oxford or Cambridge. You could only apply for one or the other. And for most medicine, veterinary and dentistry courses. And on the 15th of January is the deadline for the majority of undergraduate courses. For those who are experienced on our register centres and using the adviser portal, I really wanted to share what's coming for over the next few months. And this is based directly on customer feedback. If you want to take a look at the changes, please click on the link below. But I do want to just share with you some of the enhancements that we've made. So within the applications list, we've really done a dynamic dashboard. We've identified the application status for all your applicants, we've identified the reference status for your referees and an overall view of your application to really understand what you need to do and when you need to do it. On the individual application itself, we've also introduced a dashboard of the student progress and the adviser progress and we've obviously refreshed the action buttons as well. I really wanted to share with you what's new and probably what's more importantly, what isn't new. So what isn't new is that apply will stay as it is all the sections, all the questions will remain as they always have done and the business rules aren't changing. More information can be found on UCAS.com. What we are doing for this year, is we are removing the Track opt-in tick box at the student declaration stage. At the point, the students enter the buzzword which is set by the register centre, they are given permission to share their data with their school, college or centre from the point that they are linking to the point that they are placed at the university. This year, application fees have changed. So there is an one pound increase for multiple choices of the application form to 26 pounds. I'd like to share with you some information about what we call the UCAS Hub. It was launched last year, for students and it was designed as a information and advice platform for those exploring their options after school or college. The reason why we have introduced this tool is we were hearing from students who were overwhelmed by all the choice, by all the information and advice they had to research. So we have introduced the hub and it organises the research. It saves time and efficiency, it saves the course of search. It has a to-do list, it has a personal statement builder and it really does deliver information advice in an engaging way. What I've done here is hone in on some of the resources that you need for the here and now for 2021 cycle. So what we have is we've identified a hub for you, for students and parents and providers around what's happening, the latest announcements and statements around COVID-19 and I've specifically given you a link to the specific adviser hub for you. On UCAS.com, we have a dedicated adviser page. And what we have is an adviser timeline, which gives you the information for the here and now, all the information you need to know ready for fall 2020 and for 2021. We've teamed up with Which, so resources for teachers and counsellors. And this really is great because it gives you lesson plans, for example, for personal statements, but it also gives you direct information around references on what to include. We have training online, digital training modules and how to use the provider as a portal for those registers centres. But I've also given you information about the UCAS Hub I've just spoken about for the students. Please do log on, register as a student, and see for yourself the information advice that we offer. Thank you so much for listening. As I say, all the information advice and more information advice is available on UCAS.com. Thank you for listening. Goodbye.