How to work best with your university counsellor, UCAS places still available, and a true superpower.
😊 Welcome
This week we look at how to get the very best from working with your school or college’s university counsellor. We also look at the number of courses still available in UCAS Clearing and how to access them. Finally, we discover a true superpower!
✍️ “Help me, it’s all getting a bit complicated!”
AKA... How to work best with your university counsellor
Depending on where you are in your journey, you may or may not yet have worked out that UK Higher Education is complicated. And if you haven’t already, you are soon going to find out that the same is true of the application system.
So naturally, you’ll want to find someone to help you navigate it, right?
Your first port of call should be your school or college. If you are studying in the UK or at an international school abroad, your school will almost certainly have this covered. At the very least, they will have identified a teacher, perhaps the Head or Deputy Head of Sixth, or similar, who will have UCAS guidance as part of their job. They may even have a full-time university counsellor, whose entire role is to support students in their next steps. Depending on the school they might be called a careers teacher, a university counsellor or something similar. For the purposes of this article, I’ll call them a university counsellor.
So, what should a university counsellor be doing for you?
💡 Did You Know?
At the time of writing (Monday 21st August), there are still plenty of courses available on UCAS through Clearing, so it’s not too late for those of you who are still seeking a place at university.
If this is you and you are still not certain of your options:
Check the UCAS hub for vacancies in subjects you are considering.
Check that the entry grades they are showing are a broad match for your results (they don’t have to be exact).
Write down the courses and universities you are interested in, plus their Clearing phone number.
Make sure you have ready: your UCAS number, Clearing number, a list of your qualifications and grades, and an answer to the question “Why do you want to study this course?”.
Call each university and discuss your options with them.
If they have a place for you, they will make you a verbal offer and give you a deadline by which you should accept the offer. They will probably also confirm this by email.
If you get an offer that you like, do everything you can to check if it is the right thing for you. Visit the university if you possibly can. Check out their website and social channels. Chat to some of their current students (via Unibuddy on their website, if they have it, or on social media, if they don’t).
Once you are ready to accept, go on UCAS and apply to the course via Clearing.
The university will then match you up with the verbal offer and will confirm your place (on UCAS and by email).
📢 Quote of the week
“If knowledge is power, then learning is a superpower.”
Jim Kwik, author of "Limitless"
No explanation needed for this; it pretty much speaks for itself!
Thanks for reading!
Jonathan
🎯 In case you missed it: How to change your course after results day
📅 Next week: How to choose an Independent Education Counsellor
