UCAS information
The Universities and College Admission Service or UCAS is used to collect and distribute information for UK college applications to almost all the colleges for understudies in Britain. Almost all of Britain's Universities and Colleges are members of UCAS so all the British students and even international applicants who wish to study in one of these schools in UK must send their applications to UCAS.
How to Apply?
Sending your UCAS application must be done online. You must submit your single application to their official website and you must include the list of your chosen courses (up to 5 courses per application) for which you are applying and in no particular order. The 5 chosen courses are kept confidential so when your application reaches a college or University, there is no way that they could see what your other 4 choices are. When you apply for any courses aside then you must send your application not later than the middle of January for the year that you wish to start studying in a college or University. If you wish to apply for medicine, veterinary science, or dentistry courses, you are only allowed to make up to four choices only. If you wish to apply for Designs and Arts courses then you are only allowed to make up to three choices and should be in order of your preference. Arts and Designs are considered as Route B courses and the applicants who wish to apply for these courses must send in their application by March of the year that they wish to start their studies in a college or University.
Oxford and Cambridge applicants
If you wish to apply for a course in Oxford or Cambridge, your applications are treated differently as these two Universities are highly selective and are very prestigious. Applications for courses offered by Oxford r Cambridge must be sent by October on the year before the year that the student wishes to start his or her studies in the said University. As a candidate, you must choose between Oxford and Cambridge and apply for the University that you like the most as you are not allowed to apply to both Universities at once. So, if you wish to apply for a course in Oxford then you must not apply for any of the courses offered in Cambridge.
After sending your application to UCAS, you would receive your AS2 Welcome Letter after about a week and with this letter, you would find your UCAS number which is a 9-digit number and is also known as a UCAS Code. With the UCAS number, you can track your status by logging in to UCAS' official website and use it as your application number. With online tracking, you get up to date information about your application.
How do you know if you are accepted from your five choices?
If you have sent your applications on time, you should receive offers and/or rejections from your chosen 5 courses by the 28th of March of the year that you wish to start studying for a college or University. When, at this time, you have not received any offers or perhaps all your chosen courses have rejected you, you could still apply for the other additional courses that can still accept more applications through UCAS Extra which accepts application until April.
What to do after receiving offers?
After receiving your offers from your chosen courses, you should respond to them by accepting two choices. From your 5 choices, you must only accept two and the rest should be turned down. From these two, you must select one for "Firm Acceptance" and the next for “Insurance Acceptance”
What is UCAS Point System?
The UCAS Tariff or UCAS Point system is used to report your evaluation presented in numbers. You would get certain points on the different types of qualifications and in comparison with other applicants.
For a complete list of UCAS point system, please refer to this link to help you fully understand how the UCAS point system works http://www.ucas.ac.uk/students/ucas_tariff/tarifftables/
The Easier Way to Check for your points
If you want to know how much points you have gathered but want to do it the easier way, you can try using a UCAS calculator to make your calculations a lot easier. Merlin's UCAS Point Calculator is a great tool for this purpose and you can check for your points by just filling in the blanks on their online calculator and just clicking "Calculate" after. You can find the Merlin’s UCAS calculator on this link http://www.merlinhelpsstudents.com/studentlife/beforeuniversity/ucas/ucaspointscalculator.asp
UCAS for Postgraduate education?
UCAS only caters to undergraduate studies not until 2007. UCAS introduced UKPASS which is still relatively new but more and more undergraduate providers are joining in on this service being offered.
Also, UCAS also operates the Conservatoires UK Admissions Service or CUKAS which is joined by the Conservatoires UK. So if you wish to apply on colleges or Universities for music that uses CUKAS, you must send in your applications to CUKAS. Not all colleges and Universities for music are members of CUKAS though, so for these schools you must send in your applications to them on your own as they themselves handle their own admissions.