Late applications

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Introduction

The deadline to ensure that your application is given equal consideration by your uni choice/s is January 15th for most courses. The exceptions are Oxford and Cambridge (all courses) and Medicine, Dentistry, and Veterinary Medicine/Science (all universities), for which the deadline is 15 October.

What 'equal consideration' means is that unis must assess all applications received by the stated deadline in a fair way. Applying significantly before the January deadline does not give you an advantage (except, possibly, that if you are very lucky and all your decisions come through early you will have a distraction free January exams period). While some unis make offers very quickly to early applicants (but will also reject some), others, for some courses, specifically hold over all applications until after the deadline. It's been known for people applying in September to wait until March or even April for a decision and then get a rejection. The other point to bear in mind about applying really early is that you increase the risk of feeling uncertain later about your course/uni choices, where waiting a month or two would have given you more opportunity to make sure that your choices were the right ones for you.

If you are going to apply after the equal consideration deadline, the basic procedure is the same, so you may wish to read the notes on UCAS Apply. However, there are some additional points you need to consider, so as not to waste your choices.

Who Can Apply Late

Everyone – whether a Home/EU or an International candidate – can submit an application for immediate consideration up until 30 June. After that, all applications are held over until Clearing in mid August. In practice the 15 January deadline for equal consideration applies to international students too; the only difference is that it may take longer for a uni to fill up the places they've allocated for international applicants than it does the ones allocated for the Home/EU people. [This is why, when it comes to Clearing, you may see "international applicants only" against published vacancies at some universities.] The student from the US applying to LSE, or to Durham for History, on 16 January is wasting his/her time, but once you are beyond the top ten and/or highly competitive subjects like Economics/History/Law/English the prospects for consideration even at relatively highly ranked unis can be pretty good for Home/EU as well as International applicants. However, if in doubt, check.

Timing

There’s no immediate rush after the January deadline to submit a late application. Late is late, whether the application goes in on 16 January or 29 June. As Unis will be processing the applications they did receive before the deadline, they may not know for a few weeks afterwards whether they can consider any more. So, though it may seem odd, it can be better, at the mid January stage, to wait for a while. By the end of February unis will be notifying UCAS whether they will be in UCAS Extra and if so for which courses. After the end of February it makes sense to get your application in as soon as possible to give yourself the best chance of success, but every year thousands of people get university places having applied so late that they could only go through Clearing.

Checking What's on Offer

Though the Extra application route itself is open only to people who have used up their five choices and are not holding an offer, the Extra listings do provide for late applicants a guide (and it is only that) to which unis/courses are still accepting applications. You do not have to be eligible to use the Extra application route to be able to apply for these places. Until Extra opens, it is not possible to tell from the UCAS site which unis/courses will be in Extra, so if you do decide to apply before then, the most important thing to do before sending your application is to contact the universities that you are interested in. It's probably best to phone them and ask for a specific address to email so that you know you are asking the right person. You'll need to explain your circumstances, your grades or predicted grades, and tell them a bit about yourself. They will tell you whether they would consider you, and if they say yes then you can apply. If they say no, then don't waste your application, and find somewhere else. This advice also holds true after Extra has opened at the end of February, because the listings are sometimes out-of-date (or even wrong, especially in the very early days). This is a link to UCAS Search 2009 which will have the Extra listings as at June/July 2009. Note that this is not foolproof - the courses listed are what was on offer in Extra 2009 and may not be the same for 2010 - but gives you some idea until Extra 2010 starts up at the end of February 2010.

Other Points

All other aspects of the application process remain the same. You will need a good PS – the PS Help forum is still open after 15 January though you may wait a little longer for a review than previously – and a reference. The general advice in How to Avoid Getting 5 Rejections applies to late applicants too.

If you apply between 16 January and 30 June you can make up to five choices; if you are unsuccessful and/or decline any offers you do get, you will become eligible for Extra and/or Clearing in the same way as other applicants do, depending on the timescales.