UCAS

The Universities & Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS, pronounced you-cas), is an agency operating in higher education in the UK. It acts as a clearing house for applications for virtually all undergraduate degree programmes in UK universities and other degree-awarding institutions.

UCAS was formed in 1993 by the merger of the Universities Central Council on Admissions (UCCA), the Polytechnics Central Admissions System (PCAS) and the Standing Conference on University Entrance (SCUE).

As nearly all British higher education institutions are members of UCAS, nearly all those wishing to study for first degrees in the UK have to apply through UCAS. This applies to all categories of applicants - UK residents, residents of the Channel Islands and Isle of Man, European Union citizens and international applicants. They submit a single application via UCAS's website with a limited list of universities or other higher education institutions where they would like to apply to listed (normally six, in no order of preference). The application is then forwarded by UCAS to those institutions, who decide whether to make an offer of a place (which may be firm, or conditional on performance in examinations still to be taken) to the applicant. Final decisions are made, in general, in mid-August, when the results of the UK examinations become available.

UCAS imposes a uniform and fairly rigid timetable on the undergraduate applications process, though the system is sophisticated and allows for many different routes. Its advantages for both applicants and institutions are that it eliminates duplication of effort, and provides a fair and consistent framework within which both applicants and institutions can compete.

Additionally, the UCAS has a tariff system (more commonly known as UCAS points), which allows qualifications to be converted into points (an A at A Level, for example, is worth 120 points) and then added together to give a total that is can be used as a requirement to get into a course (a course may require 260 points, for example). The UCAS Tariff covers all UK qualifications, but also covers some foreign qualifications too. In the 2006 entry season the Leaving Certificate (Ireland) will be admitted to the UCAS Tariff so that it can be placed on direct parity with other awards that are on the tariff list. This will allow students who undertake the Leaving Certificate in Ireland to follow a simpler and more consistant access to British universities, currently each university in the UK decides the merit of the award in accordance with its own criteria.

The major exception to the rule of application through UCAS comes at the very end of the admissions season, when courses are about to begin. After the announcement of A-level results, UCAS runs a process called clearing to match applicants without places at their chosen institutions with courses elsewhere that still have places available. However once UCAS's clearing operation is complete, institutions with available places do advertise publicly, and some students find places by direct application at that stage.

The statistics on numbers of applications provided by the UCAS process provide a sensitive indicator of the relative popularity of institutions and academic disciplines, and on national and regional patterns of supply and demand for higher education. They are studied in depth by university managers and those concerned with higher education policy.

UCAS has never operated within the field of postgraduate education, where application procedures are much less uniform. However, UCAS does operate the Graduate Teacher Training Registry (GTTR), which acts as a clearing house for PGCE courses (which provide initial teacher training for graduates). There are also national clearing houses for applications for a number of other particular types of postgraduate education, including clinical psychology.

In recent years UCAS has been involved in a number of scandals. In 2002 it incorrectly interpreted results data it has been given by the Scottish Qualifications Authority which led to UCAS informing universities and students that the students had obtained higher marks then they actually had. In 2001 UCAS accidentally made publicly downloadable from their website a database of applicants' personal details.

External links

UCAS
The UCAS Tariff both current and (immediate) future
Personal Statement for University Applications

UCAS is also an abbreviation for Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics.