How to accept university offers
A few words on how the replying process works. If you get notification of a decision from any of the universities that you’ve applied to using the UCAS application form, and at least one of those decisions involves an offer, UCAS should send you a letter and booklet called ‘Replying to Offers’ – and if they don’t, get in touch with them ASAP and request one! You can reply to offers online using UCAS’ ‘Track’ service, and for more details of how that works, see the UCAS website (and, indeed, the booklet itself once your receive it).
The forms of reply you can give are pretty clear-cut. You get to reply to one offer with an ‘F’ or ‘Firm Acceptance’. Then you get to reply to one offer with an ‘I’, or ‘Insurance Acceptance’. The rest of the offers you have to acknowledge with a ‘D’ or ‘Decline’. And that’s it. Only in exceptional circumstances will the rules be any different. So here’s a bit more information about these types of reply.
Firm Acceptance
You should give Firm Acceptance to the university or college that you most want to get into – but that desire should of course be weighed against what you think your chances are of actually getting in. So there’s no sense in Firmly Accepting a conditional offer which you don’t think you’re going to actually be able to meet. You have to take this decision extremely seriously – it could determine where you spend the next three or four years of your life. UCAS recommends that you attend an open day for everywhere you hope to get into university.
Insurance Acceptance
This is what it sounds like – a ‘backup plan’ of sorts, which lets you get into your second choice if you fail to meet the offer for your first choice. However in the vast majority of cases it’s the only contingency option available, and you’ve got to take it every bit as seriously as giving ‘Firm Acceptance’. UCAS says that attending open days is an essential part of getting into university - and here I must emphasize that a bit of early reconnaissance is just as important for the university that’s made the offer which is your ‘insurance’.
Withdrawal Symptoms
You can withdraw your university application altogether at any time, and end the whole UCAS application process. But bear in mind that if you withdraw your UCAS application after getting offers, you can’t go into Clearing and if you want to apply again to somewhere else, you’ll have to wait until the next UCAS application cycle; that is, presumably next year. Obviously sometimes withdrawing like this might be necessary, but it’ll always be a disappointment, especially if you’ve spent a lot of time and effort writing a top-notch UCAS statement. So make sure you really need to withdraw (or really want to) before doing it.
But let’s be optimistic and assume that you’re not withdrawing your UCAS application – you’re dead set on getting into university right now! Here are some of the different forms of accepting (or not accepting) university admissions offers.
CF – You firmly accept a conditional offer and you don’t issue an insurance acceptance reply to any other offer. This might be because you haven’t received any other offers; however, the best advice is that you accept an offer as insurance if you possibly can.
UF – You firmly accept an unconditional offer; you neither have nor need the option of an insurance choice this way, because it’s basically irrelevant.
CF/CI – You firmly accept one conditional offer and accept a different conditional offer as insurance.
CF/UI – You firmly accept a conditional offer and accept an unconditional offer as insurance.
One last thing to note: you can accept an offer before you’ve heard back from all your choices, but you’d better be sure it’s the right university or college for you – you’ll kick yourself if a brilliant offer comes along and you’ve already accepted an offer somewhere else!
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