Applying to British Universities!

The entire procedure, from choosing to study at university, selecting Britain as the country in which to study and applying to universities in Britain, is a significant challenge for many pupils. One helpful tactic here is to take each phase as a separate activity and to carry out the necessary actions to complete that phase.

At the initial stage, the pupil has to decide if they want to go on to study at university after they finish school. This is a difficult decision because most pupils simply don?t know. School counsellors, parents (sometimes), an older and more experienced person and books are some possible sources of information. The Internet is also a great place to start investigating.

Once the decision is made to go on to higher education, the next hurdle concerns what to specialize in. Three important questions to ask are:

* What are my interests?

* Do I have the abilities to do the course?

* What are the advantages of my study?

Because the British government has recently decided that universities should be more independent, the latter have started charging students fees to cover their costs. Thus, an important question the prospective student should pose is:

* Have I (or my parents) the funds to cover my education?

English is a world-language and a good part of academic research is conducted in it. Britain has excellent research universities. These are two good reasons to think about applying to British universities.

It is advisable to search for and read up on the available preparatory resources. These concern topics about the application process which are unique to UK universities.

Although I personally think other factors are far more important, you may want to consider a factor like university (or university league tables). You may want to think about whether you want to study at Oxford or Cambridge (or Oxbridge, as they are jointly called).

Preparatory resources also include information about the LNAT (National Admissions Test for Law), the UKCAT (UK Clinical Aptitude ) or BMAT (BioMedical Admissions Test). These tests are required of applicants planning to do law or medicine in Britain.

For pupils coming from countries which do not have English as the main language, most universities also require passing the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) tests. The British Council is responsible for these tests overseas.

Because undergraduate university application is a centralised online process handled by UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service), that is the first place any prospective student should look at to start the process of applying to British universities.


As well as Preparatory Resources information, the Applying to British Universities blog also has other interesting articles on the subject of How to Get Into a British University.