Will universities know that I've already been to uni for a week (please read)

Honesty is the best policy , in the era of IT hiding information is impossible one should never hide as well, it would be always best to explain your genuine reason or problem which may have hindered you continuing your uni last year , pls note that brain is very complex organ & doesn't perform normal under certain circumstances, who knows even same university may re-consider u back if u r determined now.

I'm not really interested in having to explain why I dropped out, I honestly don't even feel like what I got was a university experience at all (socially or academically) I mean for Gods sake I only had one zoom call lol. Honestly I just want to know if there's any way they can find out given my circumstances (no UCAS or student finance application)

Now I don't want to include this on my UCAS application because it would just cause several issues for reasons, but here is the situation:

So my situation is I went to uni this year (Sept 2020) but dropped out after a week. I literally attended 1 "lecture" (zoom call) but several factors, mainly the terrible university and COVID, made me drop out very quickly. Now I don't want to include this on my UCAS application because it would just cause several issues for reasons, but here is the situation:

- I did not get student finance for this year (I did apply but very late and it still wasn't granted when I dropped out so I cancelled the application)
- I did not even apply through UCAS to this uni (it was a direct clearing application)

For those 2 reasons, as far as I can tell, unis shouldn't be able to tell that I went to this uni, I mean there's 0 evidence of it as far as I can tell, unless there's something else I'm missing? Any advice is much appreciated, thanks.

Hi, I can answer this. Yes, they can identify this. (No, I’m not going to detail how.)

There is no need to jeopardise your offers by trying futilely to hide this. Uni’s will not care that you left after 1 week of a very poor and disrupted period of ‘study’. They absolutely will care that you have lied by omission on your application.

There is very, very little chance they would even ask you any follow up questions about this. They. Do. Not. Care.

It's just I'm applying for a different course as well, so I feel like they will definitely ask the question of how serious I am about the current course I'm doing, and also I feel like I won't be able to get away with talking about how passionate i have been about the new subject in my personal statement, it will seem incensere since they will see that just 3 months ago I was at university studying something completely different.

You don't need to go into detail but surely you could really quickly tell me what system they could use to see I've been to university already?

Uni’s don’t care about change of subjects at the best of times. They care that you meet their entry requirements and then pay their fees. It’s not in their interests to second guess your motivation. Course changes come up a lot and that’s even before the bananas year we’ve just had. Your PS and ref will be enough to convey your interest in the new course.

I work in admissions so it doesn’t help me or anyone in my profession to give any details at all.

The only reason a Uni would care about you leaving another course after a week is if it was related to disciplinary action. Being evasive about it is a sure sign to raise suspicions. Just be honest. It was the wrong subject and the teaching environment was poor.

I’m going to finish here as I suspect you’ll either follow my advice or just go on regardless because I didn’t tell you what you wanted to hear. Here’s the relevant requirement from UCAS:

“If you studied at a uni or college but didn't finish the course, you still need to enter these details. Include the start and finish date, and state that you didn't receive any qualifications there.”

Do you think I should talk about it in my personal statement then? I feel like not including it in my personal statement but including it in my study history will just seem like I'm trying to avoid talking about it