Right I'm going to tell you how British students apply for admission to universities in Britain /
thaťs the students who want to do an undergraduate course leading to a degree such as the B.A.
that's the Bachelor of Arts / the B.Sc. the Bachelor of Science I or the M.A. which is the Scottish
equivalent to the B.A./

   well first of all there are no separate entrance exams for different universities / except for
Oxford and Cambridge / the students in Britain take national school-leaving examinations / now in
England they're called A levels and in Scotland they're called Highers / there's a slight
difference in these exams / the A levels are slightly more specialised and so people tend to take
fewer /

anyway acceptance to a university depends on the number of these exams you have and the grades /
and it varies according to each university / I would say at a very rough estimate that you would
need about say five Highers for acceptance to a British university /  and about / or about three A
levels / thaťs a very rough estimate /

anyway the students choose the universities and the courses that they're interested in by looking
at prospectuses / now these are booklets produced by the universities which give information about
the courses that they offer / and these prospectuses are available in the schools careers offices /
or libraries / or directly from the university /

now all applications are processed through one central body called UCCA / that stands for the
Universities Central Council on Admissions / in other words the students don't apply directly to
the universities themselves / except for Oxford and Cambridge / they have to apply

one year in advance / that is between September and December of the year before the October entry
date / you know that the academic year in Britain is from October to June /

well there's one standard form to fill in called the UCCA form / and on this form you put details
of your education qualifications any relevant work experience etcetera / plus the exams that you're
going to sit during the school year / you also put down a list of the universities that you're
interested in / and the courses / and it has to be a maximum of five universities / you can´t put
them in order of preference / but they're listed according to their code number / the code number
is given in the UCCA handbook / however you can mark the university that you strongly prefer /

then you send off the form to UCCA with a fee of six pounds / and once you 've sent the form you
can't change your list / and by the way you can only send one form per year /

UCCA then sends copies of your application form to the universities on your list / and the
universities reply to the student directly / either offering them a firm place / if they meet their
requirements / that is they have the right number of exams and grades / or a conditional place /
that is acceptance on condition that the students pass the exams that they're going to sit / and at
the required grade /

so then the students sit their school exams and they wait anxiously for the results to see if
they've met the requirements / and then they let the university know the results / and if they're
accepted / they're ready to start in October of that year /

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