About UCAS and university admissions
The university and college admissions process is an area that a lot of people are in the dark about even when they need to start getting involved in it. Many applicants to higher education courses don’t really know anything about UCAS until they come to fill in their application forms – and even then, the nature of the admissions service and the wide range of things it does aren’t always apparent. So here’s a brief summary of what UCAS does. You might be surprised – there are quite a few secondary functions that UCAS performs which can be very useful to applicants but which many applicants never hear about!
UCAS stands for ‘Universities and Colleges Admissions Service’. The service was formed in 1993 when a number of other services and agencies responsible for admissions merged together. UCAS is now the organization responsible for dealing with all higher education course applications in the UK. As a centralized body, and in addition to its main role, UCAS is the source of the UK’s most reliable statistics on the relative popularity of different courses and higher education institutions. This means that the service is closely connected with the movers and shakers of education policy in the UK.
Managing course applications isn’t a small job. Every year in the UK there are over two million applications for full-time undergraduate courses, and UCAS deals with the lot. The service also runs events throughout the year, some of which are aimed at prospective students and some of which are for educators and other professionals who are involved (directly or otherwise) in the university admissions process. The service isn’t just there to process applications paperwork; its remit also includes offering support and advice to prospective students, their parents and pretty much anyone else with an interest in the higher education applications process and getting into university.
One relatively recent (and fairly important) change in UCAS policy is that the service doesn’t accept paper applications any more; applications (including personal statements) have to be sent electronically via the online UCAS application form.
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