What happens after your students submit their UCAS forms?

The equal-consideration deadline for UK university applications has passed. What happens now?

Your applicants’ next steps will depend upon whether they have met the deadline, and the decisions they receive.

Met the deadline?

If your applicants met the deadline, they should now expect decisions to start coming in. They could receive unconditional or conditional offers, be told they have been unsuccessful, be invited to interview or audition, or be told that more information is needed.

Read more here about what to do if they missed the deadline.

What do the decisions mean?

Unconditional offer: The university wants to offer your applicant a place and has all the documents it needs to do so. This is unlikely if your applicant is still studying.

Conditional offer: The university wants your applicant to attend but is waiting for the outcome of something. This is usually academic results or a language test. It will specify what it needs in the applicant’s offer letter. If it isn’t specified, you should contact the university for more information.

In the offer letter, it will also describe exactly what it needs the applicant to provide to confirm their place. You should contact the university to clarify if this is not specified.

Unsuccessful: Unfortunately, the university is not able to offer the applicant a place. It may explain the reason for this, but it’s not required.

Interview or audition needed: The applicant has been invited to an interview or audition and the outcome of the application will be decided based on this.

More information needed: The university may get in touch to ask for more information, or to see a transcript of grades achieved so far, to help it make a decision. There’s normally a deadline attached to this, so make sure the applicant meets this, in order to avoid being rejected.

How long do decisions take?

Universities will be working through a high volume of applications. For any applications submitted by 31 January (18:00 GMT), universities have until 16 May to make a decision. So let your applicants know not to worry if they don’t hear back straight away.

What happens when they receive their responses?

Once they have a response from each of their choices, they need to make a decision. They will be able to find the 2024 deadlines for choosing firm and insurance choices on their application, and this information will also be on your adviser portal (if you are a UCAS-registered centre). If applicants don’t reply, all offers will be automatically declined.

If they receive two or more offers, they will need to pick a firm and insurance choice and reject the other offers.

What are firm and insurance choices?

Firm choice: If an applicant meets the conditions of a university’s offer, they will be able to study at that institution. If your applicant receives an unconditional offer and makes this their firm choice, they cannot pick an insurance choice.

Insurance choice: This is the university they will go to if their grades aren’t high enough for their firm choice. It’s important that the insurance choice has lower grade requirements than the firm choice, but the student should still be happy to study there.

What if they didn’t get any offers?

Applicants can still look for other opportunities through UCAS Extra. Through this route, they can only apply to one new course at a time, so it’s important that the applicant understands why they weren’t successful. It’s important to help the student research their choices, so they can still find a great study option. They should consider:

• Do they need to apply to lower-tariff providers?
• Did they miss out information or put incorrect information in their application?
• Did they not take the right subjects for their previous choices? 
• What happens if they missed the deadline?

There are lots of reasons why your students may not have met the deadline. Although it sounds scary, this is not the end of the world (or their aspirations to study in the UK). We know that applying to university – especially in another country – is a huge decision, and sometimes your students might need that bit of extra time to help make the right decision for them.

Find out more here about what you can do as an adviser to help them.

For regular advice on supporting students throughout the application process, as well as important key dates and deadline reminders, sign up for UCAS updates.