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Foundation course minimum entry requirements

I've been interested in doing a foundation course for quite a while and I am currently in the middle of applying for around 4/5 foundation courses but all of them require 180 UCAS points, but also say grade C in English Lit/Maths at GCSE level. I'm so confused because I did call UCAS the other day to ask whether I would be able to do a foundation year and the man on the phone said that he didn't think there would be a problem due to the fact that there were no specific requirements, but the website is telling me differently.

I don't have any UCAS points as I only did my AS levels at college and I got 3 U's, due to personal reasons such as being made homeless, living in a hostel, falling out with all of my family, almost getting addicted to many drugs and just not being able to face going to college within the last few months due to depression and just no motivation whatsoever. (Obviously I won't mention EVERYTHING in my application here, but I'm hoping that my circumstance will maybe consider me a little bit more rather than just thinking I pissed about and was lazy.)

I'm looking into doing a Philosophy degree with a foundation year, as I did philosophy, classical civilization, and psychology at college and did enjoy them all. If I got any offer whatsoever I would brush up on all of my knowledge, perhaps take some courses and etc.

I don't want to know about going back to college or access courses or BTEC's because I'm not even considering going back to college or the like, I just want to go to university as soon as possible to get it over with, plus I'm already going to be doing an extra year so I don't want to drag it out over around 6 years, as I'll just be thinking about it all of the time.

Thanks in advance for any help, if anyone else has any experience with foundation years then it would be very much appreciated!

Reply 1

Juno

Original post by katienurd

UCAS can't tell you the requirements for each uni. The man should have really said that, but since it's such a strange question to ask UCAS then he probably didn't know what you were asking. It's like phoning Asda to ask the name of the machinery Heinz use to make baked beans. They probably can find out, but a call centre employee is not going to have that information - and they would have to ask the unis to find out, so it would be easier and make more sense if you asked the unis directly.

You would need to ask unis directly to see if they will consider your circumstances. Unfortunately, even a foundation course can't teach everything, which is why they have to ask for a certain amount of existing knowledge. If you really have no prior qualifications then you would probably be better doing an Access course at a local college. This is a one year course that is equivalent to A Levels, and many also include GCSE maths and English. I know you say you don't want to know about college courses, but with the details given in your post I think getting straight to uni is unlikely.