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ONCE YOU START investigating which institutions offer which courses you will inevitably find out more about the requirements for entry to the course.
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What do institutions require for admission to higher education course?
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In assessing your eligibility for admission onto a higher education course, some universities and colleges only ask for certain exam grades, possibly supplemented with an interview, the submission of written work or their own test.
However, many universities and colleges are operating on the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) tariff system, which recognises a wide range of academic achievements and extra-curricular ones, such as music grades, in a numerical score.
Some institutions use a mix of grades and points so that they can be more flexible with the offers they make for admission to a course.
Each course has its minimum requirements, whether these are described as grades or tariff points and you can see these on the UCAS website, in The Official Universities and Colleges Entrance Guide – commonly known as the Big Guide – and in university and college prospectuses.
Remember that the requirements in paper publications are collected a year in advance and they can change.
All offers are unique and applicants with identical tariff points or exam grades may be treated differently because one has more to offer than another, perhaps in terms of extra-curricular activities or raw potential.
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Why do entry requirements for similar courses differ?
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Entry requirements will differ from course to course and institution to institution because higher education is a market.
Some courses are very popular and each year they receive many more applications than there are places available while others are not oversubscribed in this way.
Setting different entry requirements for different courses is one way for universities and colleges to manage the demand for different courses.
When there is low demand, the entry requirements are generally lower, and when there is high demand, they are higher.
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Why do some institutions or courses require additional admissions tests?
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Additional admissions tests are set in subjects like medicine, veterinary science and law, but even history tests are being introduced by a few institutions.
Applicants are tested for different aptitudes and skills, depending on the subject. For example, the Bio Medical Admissions Test (BMAT) is designed to evaluate thinking skills, and admissions tests for history will ask applicants to apply ideas or propositions from supplied text to an historical situation.
Oxford and Cambridge universities routinely set admissions tests for some subjects, as well as interviewing candidates and asking for written work. Most institutions, however, don’t set tests but rely on the UCAS tariff or exam grades.
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Will my previous qualifications, skills and knowledge be taken into account when assessing eligibility?
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Students with previous qualifications above and beyond those asked for at entry, and/or those students who are able to demonstrate that they already have the equivalent skills, knowledge and understanding that will be covered by a part of the course, may be able to have this previous learning formally recognised through the university’s or college’s accreditation of prior (experiential) learning scheme (recognition of prior learning (RPL) in Scotland).
Also, Access to Higher Education courses are designed to prepare mature students who have few, if any, qualifications for higher education.
The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) regulates the way 'authorised validating agencies' recognise individual courses or award certificates. More information on the accreditation of prior learning (APL) can be found on the QAA website.
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We welcome your comments and feedback on this article.
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