UCAS

Staff at Queen's understand that choosing the right course at a suitable university is one of the biggest challenges for any young person preparing to leave school. We take enormous trouble to help our pupils make the best decisions they can.

The process starts in the final term of the Lower Sixth when the Careers Master, Director of Studies and the Heads of Sixth Form give informal talks to small groups. In June the students are given an introduction to the online UCAS application system and encouraged to begin sending for prospectuses and going on visits to universities they are considering applying to. This is an ideal time of the academic year for going on these trips and we strong urge our students to do it in the summer rather than leaving it to the autumn. There will also be overnight trips to individual Oxford and Cambridge colleges for those thinking of taking that route.

Once the autumn term is under way every pupil will have a personal interview with the Headmaster before finalising their UCAS form and sending it off. We focus on completing this process by the end of October, although the official closing date is not until January, because experience (and statistics) shows that early applicants get the best responses from universities. Nor does the support process stop there. In August when the A-level results are published senior staff, led by the headmaster, are in school to advise pupils whose results have placed them in any sort of a dilemma. Often a timely phone call or letter to the university in question can secure a place that was in the balance.