What happens once UCAS gets an application?
Here we explain what we do with your child's application and the different decisions a uni or college can make.
Here we explain what we do with your child's application and the different decisions a uni or college can make.
Receiving a conditional or unconditional offer is good news, but it’s important to know the difference and commitment they’re making if they accept one.
Once they've received decisions from all their choices, your child needs to reply to any offers they have. Make sure they’re accepting the right offer, for the right reasons.
Before replying, they need to:
Your child can accept an offer as their firm or insurance choice.
In either case, they are committed to that course at that university or college.
This has the same level of commitment as a firm choice, but only comes into play if your child doesn’t meet the conditions of their firm choice – it’s like a second chance to get a place. It makes sense for the insurance choice to have less demanding conditions than the firm choice.
Your child will have a deadline to reply to the offers they receive, which depends on when they received the last one. The table below shows the official deadline dates, but it’s really important they check their application to see their personal deadline.
If they don’t reply to their offers by their deadline, any offers they have will be automatically declined on their behalf – this is called decline by default.
Narrowing down a potential five offers to decide their firm and insurance choices can be difficult. This is where you can serve as a valuable sounding board.
If they’re unsure what to do, talk to them about what they want to get out of a course and their university experience.
Has this changed at all in the last few months? How do these offers align with their goals or preferences?