UCAS Application Problems

Hi guys

So a little bit of background. This year I decided to go back to uni. I Have been out of education for 11 years. I used to study law, hated it, dropped out and now I have decided I want to go back to Uni to study engineering.

Now I originally phoned up a few places to try and get in through clearing and the replies back from the universities I would be happy to go to were basically "your exam results are good but you need to do more recent study".

Well I have recently been in contact with every admissions tutor for the courses at the universities I would like to go to and most of them have given me the option of applying through UCAS and mentioning in my ps that I would like to attend their summer school.

They have all guaranteed me that if I do this they'll make me a conditional offer based on performance at their summer school. (This is great for me as it will allow me to save up for uni as I can still work full-time.)

Now in order to have extracted these kind offers I have basically told every uni that they're my first choice and that I only want to go there and it's my dream to go there etc etc

So here's the thing. If I now put down 5 choices, since they have all pretty much guaranteed me an offer they will know I have been telling porkies. Now I believe you have to apply separately to their summer schools so do you think they could reject my application for summer school even if they've given me a conditional offer based on it?

I know what my first choice would be, so do you think I should just apply there and then accept their offer and that would be that or should I still apply to other courses just in case?

Also I'm having a few concerns over my UCAS reference.

As I've been out of education for 1000 years I won't be getting an academic reference from anyone. I had originally planned on going back to college to do an HNC and to use that to apply to uni in 2013 and so would have used my tutor from that course as my reference. When I spoke to a lot of these admissions people they basically said you're far to qualified to do an HNC they're for people who failed at school and have no motivation!( I know).

Also recently I've pretty much told my boss where to stick his job so I don't think I can rely on him for a glowing employers reference. I've noticed on the UCAS form that I can tick a box that says "no reference required" and says that if you get the prior consent from the courses you're applying to you don't need a reference.

Do you think it's worth phoning the admissions people up and trying to get them to release me from having to provide a reference or will this set off alarm bells in their heads that I may be trying to hide something?

Sorry for the length of this post, I'm pretty unsure how to play this and could do with some help.

Thanks in advance.

OP

bump

OK can't say I'm in the same situation or anything but think I may be able to help a tiny bit! For the bit about summer schools, why would they reject you from the summer schools, if they have agreed this with you? When you apply through UCAS unless you mention a University specifically in your Personal Statement they cannot see where else you apply and so they wouldn't know (until you rejected them) that you were even necessarily applying anywhere else.

For the reference, speaking to the admissions tutors seems like a good idea though it can't be uncommon because I think when you register with UCAS they give you the option to apply independantly which then means you are not expected to have an academic reference.

Hope that helped a bit! Best of luck :smile:

Reply 3

punani

OP

14

Original post by bigfishlittlefish9

OK can't say I'm in the same situation or anything but think I may be able to help a tiny bit! For the bit about summer schools, why would they reject you from the summer schools, if they have agreed this with you? When you apply through UCAS unless you mention a University specifically in your Personal Statement they cannot see where else you apply and so they wouldn't know (until you rejected them) that you were even necessarily applying anywhere else.

For the reference, speaking to the admissions tutors seems like a good idea though it can't be uncommon because I think when you register with UCAS they give you the option to apply independantly which then means you are not expected to have an academic reference.

Hope that helped a bit! Best of luck :smile:

Cheers

Sounds like a plan.

Reply 4

logiadoevus

2

Original post by bigfishlittlefish9

. . .it can't be uncommon because I think when you register with UCAS they give you the option to apply independantly which then means you are not expected to have an academic reference. . .

When you apply independently, you are expected to have a reference just like everyone else. You enter your referee's email and then they log on themselves and fill it in.

Reply 5

punani

OP

14

Original post by logiadoevus

When you apply independently, you are expected to have a reference just like everyone else. You enter your referee's email and then they log on themselves and fill it in.

We were talking about an academic reference. Thanks for the neg btw, you always remember your first. :tongue:

Reply 6

rattusratus

14

when i applied to summer school they accepted everyone no referance needed and i didn't even have to pay :biggrin:

(yeay 30 free uni credits) so i wouldnt worry about not getting accepted to summer school because ive never ever heard of anyone being rejected, be aware though that summer results don't come through until the end of September and you often cant enroll until you have your results which may mean missing the first few weeks of your course

i applied using summer school and my condition was 2 academic reference from university, so i used 2 of the class tutors - my conditions where not based on grades but grade need to be proved before enrollment

hope that helps

Reply 7

punani

OP

14

Original post by rattusratus

when i applied to summer school they accepted everyone no referance needed and i didn't even have to pay :biggrin:

(yeay 30 free uni credits) so i wouldnt worry about not getting accepted to summer school because ive never ever heard of anyone being rejected, be aware though that summer results don't come through until the end of September and you often cant enroll until you have your results which may mean missing the first few weeks of your course

i applied using summer school and my condition was 2 academic reference from university, so i used 2 of the class tutors - my conditions where not based on grades but grade need to be proved before enrollment

hope that helps

Thanks, appreciated.

Reply 8

logiadoevus

2

Original post by punani

We were talking about an academic reference. Thanks for the neg btw, you always remember your first. :tongue:

When you apply independently, you are expected to have an academic reference. I didn't specify that simply because reference in UCAS should by definition be academic. So there :tongue:

Reply 9

punani

OP

14

Original post by logiadoevus

When you apply independently, you are expected to have an academic reference. I didn't specify that simply because reference in UCAS should by definition be academic. So there :tongue:

Only partially true. If you don't have recent academic study then you're not going to get an academic reference worth anything, so you will have to rely on an employer reference talking about how you will be suitable for academic study.

When I told my previous employer I was going to university he didn't take it too well so I don't think he'll give me a glowing reference and that's when I noticed the box you can tick for "no reference required". This was the basis of one of my questions in the op.

SO THERE :tongue:

Reply 10

logiadoevus

2

Original post by punani

Only partially true. If you don't have recent academic study then you're not going to get an academic reference worth anything, so you will have to rely on an employer reference talking about how you will be suitable for academic study.

When I told my previous employer I was going to university he didn't take it too well so I don't think he'll give me a glowing reference and that's when I noticed the box you can tick for "no reference required". This was the basis of one of my questions in the op.

SO THERE :tongue:

That's still not relevant advice though for the vast majority of cases - you should really get an academic reference, if at all possible. But yes, technically, it's not 100% cases, but you know what I mean.

Reply 11

punani

OP

14

Original post by logiadoevus

That's still not relevant advice though for the vast majority of cases - you should really get an academic reference, if at all possible. But yes, technically, it's not 100% cases, but you know what I mean.

The reason I started this thread was because I wasn't in the vast majority of cases and was looking for advice applicable to my circumstances.

Anyway.....................thanks for your input.

Reply 12

Juno

20

Unis will assume you're applying somewhere else but won't be able to see it. but even if you are applying to somewhere else it doesn't necessarily mean that they're not your first choice, so stop worrying about that! Everyone needs a back up plan. But they're not going to reject you just because you're applying somewhere else.

For your reference, well, an academic reference is better but in your circumstances it sounds like it won't happen (unless you take up a course at night school or with the OU or similar, but it sounds like you don't need to). Have you not got anyone else you could ask? If you were applying for a job which required 2 references, where would you choose? If you haven't been in your job too long you might be able to get a previous employer, or have you done volunteer work etc?

You might be able to get in with no reference, but you're already in quite unusual circumstances so won't want to make it worse. And if you have no job to go back to you're kinda relying on this chance. So from that perspective, even a bad reference (I mean substandard, not "punani is the worst person we've ever come across") would be better than no reference at all.

UCAS Application Problems

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