Presentation given at the Post BAC orientation day at the Lycee Franco Allemande LFA by the PSAB Parents of the Section Anglophone of Buc Jan 2013 (http://www.psab.fr)

1. University:
the best time of your life!

2. Seriously its not all about you!
● Parents have worries (aside from paying for it all)
● Drinking
● ALCOHOL!
● Or even 'my child has gone to England and has come back drinking
nothing but tea'!
● Drugs
● But the worst...for French fathers
● My darling daughter, the apple of father eye, may bring back...an
ENGLISHMAN!

3. So what's it all about

4. GUYS GUESS WHAT I DID TODAY
I went to Royal Holloway University
in Surrey and it was the most
RIDICULOUSLY STUNNING
CAMPUS I’VE EVER SEEN. It was
built in the 1860s so the original
building is all red brick with loads of
gothic turrets and chimney stacks
and loads of balustrades and
collonades...

5. Why you want to do it
● Traditional
● Get as far as way from your parents as possible
● I like the subject
– If you want to study veterinary science, there are only seven places
you can go in the UK.
– If you want to study Burmese, there can only be one.
– For many, though, particularly if you are interested in one of the
major subjects such as English, chemistry, law or mechanical
engineering, there may be 30 or more similar courses so do your
homework.
● Employment

6. What is involved
● BA / BSc – BA(Hons) / BSc(Hons) – Bed / LLB etc
● 3 – 4 years
● Sandwich courses
● MA/MSc
● 1- 2 years
● PhD
● 3 years

7. Choosing a university
● Which universities offer your chosen subject?
● Where are they ranked in the League Tables?
● Which facilities are important to you?
● Have you got a copy of the prospectus(es)?
● Is there an open day you can attend?
● What are the costs likely to be?
● Does the university cater for your hobbies or interests?
● What are the career prospects like?
● Is there a culture of students taking placement years or year abroad
programmes, if that is important to you?
● What is the campus like – location, single site, low travel costs?

8. What do you want to do?
● BA Adventure recreation
● BA Animation
● BA Hausa and Arabic
● BA Special effects
● BSc Dairy herd management
● BA Packaging design
● BA Playwork
● BSc Police studies and citizenship
● BSc Disaster management
● BA Viking studies

9. Which one?
● Types of University
● Old Polytechnic
● Collegiate
– Oxbridge
● “Redbrick”
● Scotland
● Cost factors
● London

10. What is UCAS?
● The organisation responsible for managing applications to
higher education courses in the UK.

11. Why you must visit this Autumn half-term.
(Alternatively, the prospectus lies)
● Get an appointment to speak to the admission tutor, they usually say yes,
get your face known!
● Universities only exist in a place where the sun always shines – go in
January, you will be studying there through grimmest part of the year.
● You have to spend the next 3-4 years there.
● Graduates always get interesting jobs. There may have been one student
who twenty years ago became an astronaut, but what are the usual
employment routes available to graduates from the course? Speak the the
Employment office.
● Famous bands or top media personalities hang around the Students' Union
– but when did the chart-topping act whose photograph features in the
prospectus actually come to the campus? Turn up at the SU and look at the
posters.

12. When to apply
● Completed applications, including a reference, should be sent
to UCAS by the following dates.
●
15th October for dentistry, medicine, veterinary science and veterinary
medicine and for all courses at the University of Oxford and the University
of Cambridge.
●
15th January for all other courses except those above and art and design
courses with a 24th March deadline.
●
24th March for art and design courses except those listed with a 15
January deadline.
●
30th June - the final deadline. All applications that we receive by this date
are processed and sent to the universities and colleges.

13. UK Medical schools testing
Registration begins in 108 days
● Key Dates
●
Registration opens: 1st May 2013
●
Testing begins: 1st July 2013
●
Registration closes: 20th September 2013
●
Bursary & exemption deadline: 20th September 2013
●
Booking/rescheduling closes: 2nd October 2013
●
Last testing date: 4th October 2013
●
UCAS Application deadline: 15th October 2013

14. Funding: EU Students, England
● If you come from the (non-UK) EU, EEA or Switzerland.
● You may be eligible for a tuition fee loan.
● If you're an EU student applying for help only with tuition fees
you need to complete an application form by the deadline date
● If you qualify for additional help as well as a tuition fee loan, the
application process is different, so it is important to check what you qualify
for.
● After you have graduated you will start re-paying the loan once you are
earning more than £21,000 per year.
● International students normally resident in countries outside the
EU and EEA pay near-full-cost tuition fees in all of the UK
universities.

15. Funding: EU Students, Wales
● If you come from the (non-UK) EU, EEA or Switzerland.
● You may be eligible for a tuition fee loan and a tuition fee grant.
● If you're an EU student applying for help only with tuition fees
you need to complete an application form by the deadline date
● If you qualify for additional help as well as a tuition fee loan, the
application process is different, so it is important to check what you qualify
for.
● After you have graduated you will start re-paying the loan once you are
earning more than £21,000 per year.
● International students normally resident in countries outside the
EU and EEA pay near-full-cost tuition fees in all of the UK
universities.

16. Funding: EU Students, Scotland
● If you satisfy eligibility requirements you will be able to apply to
SAAS for payment of your tuition fees.
● You are, on the relevant date, an EU national (other than a person who is
a United Kingdom national who has not utilised a right of residence).
● You have been ordinarily resident in the EU, EU overseas territories,
elsewhere in the EEA or Switzerland for the three years immediately
before the first day of the first academic year of your course (the relevant
date) 1st August 2013
● You are taking a course of full-time study in Scotland and plan to graduate
in Scotland.*

17. Funding: EU Students, NI
● From 2012 Queen's University Belfast will charge £3,465 to students
who normally live in the Republic of Ireland or other non-UK EU
countries on full time undergraduate programmes. Students will not
have to pay up front for tuition.
● EU students can apply to the Student Finance Services European
Team for a loan of up to £3,465 to cover the tuition fee.
● If you are an EU student applying for help only with tuition fees you
need to complete an application form by the deadline date.
● If you qualify for additional help as well as a tuition fee loan, the
application process is different.
● After you have graduated you will start re-paying the loan once you
are earning more than £21,000 per year.

18. University in Ireland
● EU Students will pay Student Contribution (€2,250 in 2012) plus the
Students Union fee (€8) plus Student Sports Centre fee (€77), but will
not be liable for tuition fees if approved for the Free Fees scheme.
● Recognised School Leaving Qualifications
● Baccalauréat
● Baccalauréat avec Option Internationale
● Minimum Matriculation
● Overall 10, with English plus specific programme requirements.
● English Language Competence
● 12 at coefficient 5 or 14 at lower coefficients or equivalent competence in English

19. Making the grade (1)
● All being well, you will receive offers from your five UCAS choices.
● You can hold onto any offer you receive until all your chosen universities
have made their decisions and then you have to choose which one(s) you
want to accept.
● You can accept one offer as your Firm Acceptance (often called your UF
choice if the offer was unconditional or your CF choice if it was conditional).
● If your Firm Acceptance is CF, then you can accept a second offer as your
Insurance Acceptance (often called your CI choice) and then you must
decline any other offers.
● Most applicants who have more than one conditional offer will accept as CF
their first choice university and then a university which has made a lower
offer as their CI choice.

20. Making the grade (2)
●
Once you have accepted an offer, you and the university are bound
together by the rules of UCAS.
● If you firmly accept an unconditional offer then you have a definite
place at that university.
● If you firmly accept a conditional offer and then meet all the
conditions, the university is obliged to accept you and you are
obliged to go there to study.

21. Making the grade (3)
● In making your Firm Acceptance, assuming you have conditional offers, you will have
to balance your desire to attend a particular university against your estimate of
whether you can meet the conditions.
● If you expect to get ABB (or 320 tariff points) at A level and the offers are all BCC
(or 260 points) or below, then it is easy: choose the place you want to go.
● If, however, you think you will get BCC and your offers are ABB, BBB, BCC, and
CDD, the decision is more difficult, especially if you really want to go to the
university that offered ABB.
● This might be the time to focus on your forthcoming exams.

22. Making the grade (4)
● This is where the Insurance Acceptance comes in.
● If you want to, you can just have a Firm acceptance and decline the rest.
However, most applicants with more than one offer choose an Insurance
Acceptance as well.
● If you are accepted by your Firm choice then the Insurance choice becomes
irrelevant.
● However, if your Firm choice turns you down because you don't meet their
conditions, you might still be accepted by your Insurance choice, so you do get a
second chance before heading for Clearing.
● Therefore it makes sense to choose a lower offer for your Insurance choice so as to
maximise your chances of getting at least one of your two choices.

23. Clearing
● If you find that you don't have a university place, then you will
be eligible for UCAS Clearing, a way of matching universities
without students to students without universities.
● Essentially, it is up to you to find a university that is prepared to
accept you. The best way to do this is to check their website or
ring a university and tell them what you want to do. Usually, if
they have vacancies, they will take your details and either give
you a decision straightaway or very soon afterwards.
● Just keep going until somewhere offers you a place.