Applying for highly competitive courses

Whether you are brand new to the university application process, or have been working in the education sector for as long as I have, you’ll undoubtedly have heard teachers, advisers and university staff talking about “highly competitive courses”.

It’s a term bandied about with little thought. On one hand teachers use it to make sure students take their applications seriously, and don’t make assumptions about their chances of getting into university. On the other, it is used by universities to make their courses seem more attractive; the more unattainable a course is, the more people want to get into it!

So, as students, applying through UCAS for the first time, how do you know which courses are genuinely “highly competitive”, and if they are, do you really need to do anything different with your application?