7.Choosing Your Place

Firm and Insurance Offers

Once you have decisions from all of your choices, you can hold a maximum of two offers:

1. one as a ‘firm’ acceptance. This is your first choice.

2. the other as an ‘insurance’ acceptance. This acts as a back-up if you do not end up meeting the entry requirements for your ‘firm’ choice.

You must then decline any remaining offers and these offers will drop off entirely from your UCAS application (i.e. you cannot subsequently choose to take these offers up in future).

The deadline for making your firm and insurance decisions will depend upon when you receive your last response, but generally is around the first week of June. The process of selecting a Firm and Insurance choice is done by the students through their UCAS accounts.

How to Select Firm and Insurance Offers

Your firm choice should generally be aspirational but within your predicted grade range, to a maximum of one grade above predicted grades. Insurance should be at least one grade below predicted range.

It is important to note that students will automatically go to their insurance choice if they do not meet the firm choice requirements, assuming they meet the grade requirements. So, the insurance choice needs to be considered carefully Once results are out in the summer, you have to manually decline your offer if you do not want to proceed with your insurance choice, which will then allow you to enter Clearing (see below).

Please consult with a member of the Sixth Form team before making your firm and insurance choice.

UCAS Extra

UCAS Extra applies for students who have applied to university and been rejected by all their choices. It is another chance for you to gain a place at university or college, between 23 February and 4 July

If you did not use all your choices in your initial application, you do not need to use UCAS Extra, you can just sign in to your application and add another choice. You need to do this before 30 June, and it is only applicable if you have not accepted or declined any offers. If you originally only applied to one choice and want to add more, you’ll be asked to pay an extra application fee. If you don’t hold any offers after 5 July, you will be able to add an additional choice using Clearing.

Finance

UK students can apply to the Student Loans Company from March to arrange student funding. All UK students are entitled to a loan covering tuition fees, which is paid directly from the Students Loan Company to the university In addition, all UK students can also apply for a separate loan to cover living costs and accommodation. This second loan is means tested, based on household income. P60s or tax returns have to be supplied at the time of application. For living costs, there is a sliding scale of loan available depending upon household income, but all students are entitled to a minimum amount. Some universities also have some bursaries available, but these differ depending upon the organisation. Loan applications need to be made by May to guarantee funding is in place at the start of the student course. The school cannot advise parents on eligibility for finance. Further information can be found here:

Government portal for finance applications

Information on Student Finance

Accommodation

Most universities guarantee on campus accommodation for first year students, once they make the university their firm choice. These days, university rooms tend to be a fairly standard offering, with the main choice you will need to make being between ensuite or cheaper accommodation with shared bathrooms. Some universities (but not all) also offer a choice between catered and non catered halls.

Accommodation is usually offered on a "first come first served basis" and needs to be arranged directly with the university, via their university portals. The student is usually asked to pick a number of ranked choices (sometimes around 10), in order of preference. It is really helpful to view accommodation as part of the university open days so you can get a better understanding of what is on offer, but as an alternative, all universities provide information about accommodation online.

University allocated accommodation includes broadband, utilities, cleaning and contents insurance. The insurance doesn't usually cover possessions away from the accommodation and you do need a separate TV Licence for each room if you use any of the BBC services on either a laptop or mobile phone.

The university allocates accommodation to students once places are confirmed on results day, and you will not find out until then where you have been allocated.

Accommodation fees are paid in three instalments; September, January and April.

In the second and third years of the university course, students are generally expected to find accommodation in the private rental sector Universities provide assistance with this, including help with negotiating rental agreements. It is worth noting that some universities and cities struggle to fulfil student accommodation demand, so this should be considered when choosing offers.