Question about uni applications

So I’m in year 12 and have just got my predicted grades, AAB. I want to study psychology at uni and the requirements are either AAA or AAB. However I missed out on all the information that my school told us about conditional offers, applications and how the whole process works. How and when do you get offers for universities (basically what is the process), are my predicted grades enough, and should I ask to be moved up to an A for my B subject or just leave it as it is? I also have done an EPQ, and have several qualifications which boost my ucas points very high. I’m feeling a little lost about the whole process though, if someone could help me out about the questions I stated before, that would be much appreciated )

So I’m in year 12 and have just got my predicted grades, AAB. I want to study psychology at uni and the requirements are either AAA or AAB. However I missed out on all the information that my school told us about conditional offers, applications and how the whole process works. How and when do you get offers for universities (basically what is the process), are my predicted grades enough, and should I ask to be moved up to an A for my B subject or just leave it as it is? I also have done an EPQ, and have several qualifications which boost my ucas points very high. I’m feeling a little lost about the whole process though, if someone could help me out about the questions I stated before, that would be much appreciated )

Hey there @a.bains !
Pretty much you have to make a shortlist of 5 universities or less that you want to apply for. You can apply for less than 5 but it's always recommended to apply for 5 to give yourself the best chance of getting in. If it's still the same as when I applied, it's a lower cost if you're applying for just one university and anything more than that is a higher cost. Every course will have their entry requirements and are likely to offer you similar to these based off their high entry requirements against your predicted grades. Predicted grades aren't everything but let's say your predicted grades are CCC and you've applied for an Oxbridge course that's entry requirements are A* A* A*, they're going to look at that more harshly. You can also get what's called an 'unconditional' offer. This means that regardless of what grade you get, you've still got a place at that university. These are way more rare than they used to be but it's still possible. They're more common when a high-predicted grades student applies for a course with low entry requirements.

You're recommended to apply for one aspirational university, 2/3 safe universities and a couple or just one "low-grade" university. It doesn't mean you have to do it like this by any means, that's just what's recommended. For example, I chose two aspirational universities, two safe ones and one low-grade one. You can kind of tailor it to how confident you are in your ability and where you'd really like to go. Very rarely, if you ask your teacher to put your predicted grades up will they actually do it. They have to have some sort of factual evidence (past papers, mock exams) that that's what you might come out with. An EPQ does boost your UCAS points, so whereas some universities may write their offers as entry grades, some of them choose to write it out as UCAS points. Your EPQ grade will count towards the amount of totalled UCAS points you'll receive.

Offers can come in any time after you've submitted an application, some of mine took a couple of weeks and some of them took longer. It was no more than 3 months to get all my offers back. From there you have to pick a 'firm choice' and an 'insurance choice'. Your firm is the one of the 5 you want to go to (usually your highest offer or just the university you'd prefer) and your insurance is your backup choice incase you don't get into your firm. Your college should talk you through writing your personal statement that goes along with your UCAS application and help you out with any pointers but it's essentially a piece of writing that introduces yourself to prospective universities and lets them know why you want to do that specific course. You should make it general to all five universities unless you're only applying to one.

Hope this helped! Let me know if you have any more questions...
Lucy - Digital Student Ambassador SHU

It's quite simple in the end as your school should still be guiding you through it as you apply. If you have a uni/careers advisor in school book a meeting with them to understand the process. The UCAS deadline to send your applications is in January, so you can apply anytime before that and different unis will take different times to reply, but they have to have done it by May at the latest, at which point you reply to the offers by choosing a firm choice (your first-choice uni) and an insurance choice (usually as a backup with lower grades in case you miss out on your firm). The EPQ could help get you a reduced offer, but check the entry requirement pages of the unis you want to apply to in order to be sure. Predicted grades are usually just a guideline as unis know your final grades can differ, but what unis look at more is your AS level results and if those are good along with a good personal statement and reference (which is usually written by your school), you should get some offers.