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Reporting Severe extenuating Circumstances to UCL and King's

Hi,

I am a gap year student who is retaking my A-levels and reapplied to universities. However, I believe my studies had been severely impacted and might be impacted further during A-level exam period due to circumstances that I will summarise below.

I have firmed the unis of UCL and have King's as my insurance.

I am not sure whether it is worth or how to inform these universities of these circumstances.

The circumstances in summary:
- I had left and fully cut off contact with my family from February 2025 due to severe verbal, psychological abuse, control and coercion from my parents and fear of escalation of abuse turning into physical harm from them. I had sent a final message to my family explicitly stating no contact and no tracking of my location.
- Before February, I had been planning thoroughly on how I could secretly leave my family without escalating the abuse and I had significantly poor mental health, of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation.
- I managed to get a place to live in until a week after results day, I will either have to go into emergency housing, rent another place for a short period of a month (however I have only have to stay until I go into university accommodation).
- From February to now, I have been actively having to balance between living independently, job searching to sustain my universal credit payments and to earn money to sustain myself, revising for my A-level retakes, and engaging with legal procedures.
- Potentially, in May or June, I would have to attend court to issue orders against my parents.

Reply 1

You need to ask your school/college to email each Uni with a statement of how your circumstances are still impacting your studies - and you need to ensure they do this before you sit your exams,
Original post
by tellow
Hi,
I am a gap year student who is retaking my A-levels and reapplied to universities. However, I believe my studies had been severely impacted and might be impacted further during A-level exam period due to circumstances that I will summarise below.
I have firmed the unis of UCL and have King's as my insurance.
I am not sure whether it is worth or how to inform these universities of these circumstances.
The circumstances in summary:
- I had left and fully cut off contact with my family from February 2025 due to severe verbal, psychological abuse, control and coercion from my parents and fear of escalation of abuse turning into physical harm from them. I had sent a final message to my family explicitly stating no contact and no tracking of my location.
- Before February, I had been planning thoroughly on how I could secretly leave my family without escalating the abuse and I had significantly poor mental health, of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation.
- I managed to get a place to live in until a week after results day, I will either have to go into emergency housing, rent another place for a short period of a month (however I have only have to stay until I go into university accommodation).
- From February to now, I have been actively having to balance between living independently, job searching to sustain my universal credit payments and to earn money to sustain myself, revising for my A-level retakes, and engaging with legal procedures.
- Potentially, in May or June, I would have to attend court to issue orders against my parents.

It sounds like you have been experiencing some incredibly difficult situations at home and this has led to you experiencing suicidal ideation. HOPELINE247 are here to support you with these thoughts and a trained suicide prevention adviser is available to speak to 24/7 via a call on 0800 0684141, Text 88247, email pat@papyrus- uk.org or webchat here: https://www.papyrus-uk.org/

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