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UCAS is awful

Why on earth does a company that deals with university applications, most of which are from people still in full time education, have a telephone helpline that is only open on school days from 8.30am to 5.30pm!? This only gives me a couple of hours outside of school when it is suitable to call UCAS, and their email service just gives you an automated response. This is ridiculous. They are meant to be providing us with a service, we have paid them, and yet they don't seem to quite understand how important our university applications are. I'm pretty certain there are only about 3 people manning the phones at UCAS, and on some of the occasions i have called them not only have they contradicted themselves but they have been quite rude. we have paid them to provide us with a good service and they can't even be bothered to try and help us. And now they are taking a break for about 11 days at a time when lots of offers are due to come through, and nearing the end of the deadline for applying. I have nothing against them having time off around christmas and new year, but is it so much to ask that for a few days between christmas and new year they could hire some people to help out? I really don't see where the money we have paid is going to.

They are one of the worst companies i have come across, especially in terms of customer service. They have ridiculous opening times, they have sent me two letters and then contradicted them over the phone and been quite rude about it at times, not to mention that they forgot to cancel my application to one university, so at one point i had made 7 applications. I can find very little that is good to say about UCAS.

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Reply 1

Bdarnell

You have your points, but in the end, having the UCAS system saves us a lot of work and time. In the US there is no such centralised application system, and many students end up filling out several different applications.

Reply 2

Poica

It's frustrating, I know, at this point.

Reply 3

Tarts_n_Vicars

Does the website not answer whatever questions you have? I don't think I ever contacted UCAS once I'd done my online app...I tracked it all and accepted the offers etc via the website.

It's frustrating I understand but I don't think complaining would get you anywhere...probably just even more peed off at their reaction

Reply 4

Xanthe

Does anyone think UCAS is a bit pointless? Here's a little story for you: Last year my cousin dropped out of her Nursing degree. So we went to a local university to enquire about Arabic degrees (she wanted to study it at university). She just went to the Admissions people and they enrolled her on to the degree there and then. Voila! No UCAS, no nothing.

Why can't we just apply directly to the universities? Thye appear to be more efficient than UCAS.

Reply 5

tommyboy

Xanthe

Why can't we just apply directly to the universities? Thye appear to be more efficient than UCAS.

One answer is that it would save the majority of people a lot of work. The majority of people (of course not everyone) would be applying to a number of different universities and would hence have to fill out lots of different application forms.

Have a look at postgraduate applications in the UK, for instance (or undergraduate applications in the US), where you do apply to the universities directly. Each university asks for a different amount of references, some on a pro forma, some not. Each university asks for personal statments of a different length and with different emphasis. Each university asks for samples of written work of varying sizes (can vary enormously).

Hence, if you were to apply to, say, six universities individually you might very well have to come up with six different personal statements, six different samples of written work (if required), and ask your referee to provide six different versions of his reference!

Reply 6

la fille danse

UCAS is amazing. If you think it's that bad, try applying to uni in any other country.

we have paid them to provide us with a good service and they can't even be bothered to try and help us.

£15 is next to nothing for the service they're providing.

You would pay at least £150 to apply for six universities in the US.

Reply 7

Bdarnell

morningtheft

UCAS is amazing. If you think it's that bad, try applying to uni in any other country.

£15 is next to nothing for the service they're providing.

You would pay at least £150 to apply for six universities in the US.

very true

Reply 8

lovemachine

very true indeed

Reply 9

thorondor

morningtheft

Whether that's true or not doesn't matter one bit. So what if you pay more in the USA that doesn't make UCAS any better overall. UCAS can be as annoying and stupid as they want because for most people they are the only way that they can apply to a UK university. I'd really like to know how £15 is a good price for them to be rude, give contradictory information that nearly ruins my application, and actually get my application wrong. At the end of the day their job, big as it may be is relatively simple. Get the applications from people, send them out to the universities, and pass on any offers to the candidates. And this is all the easier since it is electronic.

Saying UCAS is not all that bad because there are worse systems in other countries has absolutely no relevance to this issue and is a totally pointless arguement.

Reply 10

schmitz

Well perhaps you could consider the figures. This year 59,881 people applied for undergraduate courses starting in 2006. That is a huge logistical problem to be directed through the one website and, with the majority of people applying to 6 unis (apart from medical students), a lot of potential paperwork saved. Yes, it is true that there are some problems with the website but I'd rather have that than the alternative which would be a decentralised system that would not provide the instantaneous responses that you can receive from UCAS through the website.

Reply 11

Flicker

Xanthe

Why can't we just apply directly to the universities? Thye appear to be more efficient than UCAS.

Appearance is deceptive...I don't know any university with good admin...My brother, sister and I have clocked up 9 universities between us, and my mum works at another, and the admissions in all of them is a shambles...would hate to have to apply directly, they can just about cope dealing with one external body!

Reply 12

essjaydee_88

The thing that annoys me most about UCAS is the way it says "Decision: sent". It's the application that's been sent; the decision hasn't been made yet. Simple stuff...

Reply 13

Bdarnell

Well, it used to say "referred", but people could not understand that concept, and subsequently UCAS changed it to "sent."

Reply 14

essjaydee_88

Bdarnell

Well, it used to say "referred", but people could not understand that concept, and subsequently UCAS changed it to "sent."

It's wrong either way. My decision hasn't been referred. My application has. After I saw "sent" I expected decision letters to arrive.

Reply 15

heminder

Xanthe

Why can't we just apply directly to the universities? Thye appear to be more efficient than UCAS.

indeed...

morningtheft

quite so...

perhaps UCAS should be for international students applying to universities in the UK...

Reply 16

Cunning Linguist

i think people are being a little "tight" on ucas. i think they're doing a great job. (ok maybe not great) but it can't be easy for them too. they have like a million applicants to get through every year!

i think people should appreciate a little more what people do for them.

i mean i'm sure a few days of track not working won't wreck people's life!

Reply 17

beanie

Xanthe

Why can't we just apply directly to the universities? Thye appear to be more efficient than UCAS.

If 60,000 people applied directly to universities it would become a very complicated process. I think it's better to have everyone apply via one system then applications don't get lost/completed wrong as all universties would probably have very different requirements. UCAS is saving us loads of uneeded stress.

As far as I'm concerned UCAS do a good job and we don't really need track updating over Christmas, its only a week or so and really, even if it did update most peoples probably wouldn't change. We are waiting for a maximum of 6 words to change over a period of about 6 months, so a few days won't hurt.

Reply 18

schmitz

Many universities will send you their own confirmation of an offer or rejection anyway so the fact that Track is down for a little while shouldn't make too much of a difference. It's when the same problem happens in the summer that you need to be worried! :eek:

Reply 19

tuna USA

Maybe I'm not the best one to comment since I haven't had any trouble with UCAS (although my UCAStrack number is still in the mail), but I did have a lot of application questions (since I had no idea what UCAS and the UK application process was about) and I never waited on the line more than 10 minutes to get a representative. Then again, I always called at around 6AM my time, which is 11AM or noon in the UK so all of you would have been in school and presumably not calling UCAS.

Anyway, applying to schools in the US is a pain in the ass, and I tell friends about how I applied to 3 schools in the UK (and making it 6 would have taken an extra 15 seconds) in half the time it takes me to complete a single US application.

For the US, you have to enter all your personal data seperately for each school. And it takes longer because besides the basic "name, phone number, address, birthday", they ask whether you visited the school, when you visited, whether you know anyone who is an alum, what year they graduated, what academic distinctions you have earned, what extracurricular activities you took part in, any jobs or hobbies you have during the school year, any internships or programs you went to over the summers, etc. Then, instead of a single personal statement for all schools, which makes a lot of sense for a variety of reasons (besides that its really easy, it means that people won't be able to ******** as much about why they want to go to a particular school), I just finished an application for Northwestern University where I had to write a 500 word essay, a 300 word essay, and four ~50 word short answer questions. And they're not all really pertinent... most are basically creative writing assignments.

And then remember that thats all for one school. Application fees are usually $40 to $65 per school, which is more than a single what you apply to up for 6 at UCAS.

But then I suppose the American system has some advantages. Schools themselves get to choose what they're looking for, plus if you have a parent who went to the school you get a few points. Plus you can apply to as many schools as you want under our system, and if you want to apply to every single Ivy League school, that's your perogative (you're paying for it in application fees anyway). To an American, it's extremely strange that you guys aren't allowed to apply to both Oxford and Cambridge. Also, 6 schools is about the minimum that most people apply to- 7 to 9 or so would be the norm.

I really like UCAS though... I was able to apply to LSE, UCL, and Warwick, in less time than it took to apply to any single American university.