self teaching for law 2020

i’ve been self teaching myself a levels and i’ve emailed the unis individually of my and they've all said it’s okay for me to apply as long as i provide a professional reference so i’m just confused as to what this should include and how long it should be (it’s from my old work) and will the unis or ucas get in contact with my reference or check my work background etc? also i want to go to manchester uni and the grades needed are aaa but i’ve also chosen other unis where they’re aab/abb and obviously i need to include what i’m hoping to achieve in my statement but i’m not sure what to put as i feel if i say ‘i’m hoping to achieve aaa’ then the other unis will know that i’m planning on going somewhere else and may not offer me a place?

I think the reference from your old work will involve them going through the process that your teacher reference would at school. That is, having to complete the application on Ucas after you've got to a certain point in the process (personal statement and grade history complete etc). I applied to university whilst working a couple of years ago and got my line manager to be my reference and this is what I had to do.

On grades, I wouldn't be worried at all about 'aaa' prediction putting off other universities. My one worry would be that you don't put predicted grades in the correct part of your application. Obviously for someone at school they get their predicted grades put on by their teacher during the reference part but I'm not sure how it works with someone who's not in school/college. If you don't have the predicted grades in a more obvious place of the application then the universities might decline you in an automatic fashion inadvertently...

I'd suggest you repost this thread in the applications and ucas part of the forum: https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=6 You're more likely to get a fuller, more knowledgeable response there.

Best of luck

hi, thank you i’ll do that! what does my reference need to say though as i’m confused and so will the unis not be in contact with them? what do you mean by an automatic fashion? i was thinking of putting them in the 2nd to last paragraph, where did you put yours or did you have predicted grades? thank you!

Hi

Bit of a disclaimer: this is what I remember from a couple of years ago and I obviously might be mis-remembering or the process might have changed in certain respects. If you read anything and it doesn't look correct, you may well be right as you're currently in the thick of applying.

That being said, this links gives the general order of applying through UCAS: https://www.ucas.com/undergraduate/applying-university/filling-your-ucas-undergraduate-application. You end up filling everything down to point 9 and then need to forward the application to your reference. This consists of inputting their email, they receive a link to your application and they'll fill in what they can. Alongside a bit of text about you, a part of this is putting in predicted grades.

I was fortunate that I already had my grades and just needed a reference. I just asked my line manager to treat it as a work reference and if any of the universities didn't like that, their loss. More difficult with you as I don't know how comfortable a work reference would be inputting predicted grades for you when they only know you in an employment environment. Maybe you could ask your reference to put in the predicted grades for you and ask them to make it clear in their reference that their doing so on your behalf? You could also make it clear what is happening in your personal statement too.

By automatic fashion I mean that you could complete the application with your work reference not inputting predicated grades. Then your application may be thrown straight out by universities as they're not going to sift through the personal statement to see what you predict of yourself.

Thank you! So does my reference literally just need to be a small paragraph about how i'm great in a team through how I have been at work etc? So will the uni have no further contact with my reference after I send my application? I was going to say in my personal statement I am hoping to achieve aaa or does my reference have to do this? Also I am on the UCAS apply doing my application am I meant to be doing it on the other UCAS that you linked me? Thank you again!

So will the uni have no further contact with my reference after I send my application?

I was going to say in my personal statement I am hoping to achieve aaa or does my reference have to do this?

Also I am on the UCAS apply doing my application am I meant to be doing it on the other UCAS that you linked me?