The BEAST that is UCAS

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DG is about to embark upon another of his ill-thought out schemes, this time he is applying for university! Hurrah! So, I need advice on how to write a gorgeous UCAS form and personal statement, but not the kind of dull advice they give you in the accompanying booklet. Someone must know some ways to skank your way through the UCAS machine. Surely there are there some Megadrive-style cheat codes I can put on the form that guarantee me a first and a harem of first-year students? Or failing that, erm, anyone care to write me a glowing reference?

― DG, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

New educational answers!

― DG, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

WHat are you applying for and where. What are your grades and ILE will provide you with the perfect personal statement.

Big tip I found - if you've got a funny name you will get in.

― Pete, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, it looks like I'll be trying for some politics or philosophy or economics course, I haven't quite decided which yet, at a college affiliated with the Uni of London, none of those silly polytechnics for me, ha ha. I, of course, have only 4 GCSEs (Maths, English, double SCIENCE), but then I have been rather ill, though am not any longer.

― DG, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am also 21 and will therfore be applying as a 'mature' student ha ha.

― DG, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Best get an Access course under your belt then liketdy spit. The University of London doesn't let any old rabble in you know.

― Pete, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hey, I'm not any old rabble, I'm brilliant and am a better pick for a uni than some knucklehead who only wants a degree and isn't bothered about actually LEARNING anything along the way. Me being ill is a, er, 'valid' excuse (ha ha ha Pete) as detailed here.

― DG, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"DG goes back to College, and he's having the time of his life".

Starring Chevy Chase.

― Ronan, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm unemployed, I'm getting increasingly bored with it, and I want to join a uni 'alternative music society' so I can be rude to the hordes of Charlatans fans that are the other members.

― DG, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

universities have alternative music societies???

― gareth, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You remember Chris from the flowchart gig, Gareth? He spent weeks moaning about the Lancaster uni AMS, bloody Shed 7 fans etc etc.

― DG, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Urgh, people in college with crap music taste. The jukebox in the bar plays Thin Lizzy-Whiskey in the Jar, any of U2s mull of kintyres , The Who-My Generation, OCS.

― Ronan, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It praps won't be helpful here to point out the hilarity that the personal statement elicits in admissions tutors (when their pants aren't being bored off). Don't: write about yourself in the third person; tell an off-colour anecdote about something saucy that happened in your last Saturday job and then try to explain how it really helped you to understand liberal politics; mention (and name) your large collection of cuddly toys (as an 'interest').

You've probably got a head start anyway, Mr DG, because the most common moan I hear about personal statements these days is that they're coached into standardisation by zealous 6th form tutors. If you're serious, and you've been out of education for a while, it might be worth trying to find some way of demonstrating an ongoing commitment to study; courses, however apparently piddly, or some area of interest you've pursued. I'd also second Pete in suggesting you at least look into access courses; IME if they're good they give a marked head start on degree.

― Ellie, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I hear universities are packed with Ryan Adams fans too.

― Tom, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Leave me alone.

― Ronan, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'd already planned to write an entertaining statement anyway, having read a few back in 6th form that were deadly dull or plain (inadvertently) hilarious, like one girl's who wanted to get on to a film course after stating her favourite film was 'Beverley Hills Cop'.

― DG, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Just to encourage you DG my ex applied aged about 25 with no A levels or owt and ended up at Kingston Uni and is now doing a PhD at UCL. I cannot remember what he put on his UCAS form but I was very helpful and supportive at the time, shame he then got so absorbed with the student lifestyle that he neglected me. Bah.

― Emma, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't want to faff around with A-level courses at night school or anything, I just want to get straight on with a degree course. GRRRR! I WILL WIN!

― DG, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

DG I think you need to be realistic. As Pete mentioned an Access Course is your best bet this would take you 1 year instead of 2 years for e.g A levels/ GNVQ advanced.

I know you want to go straight to Uni, but with 4 GCSEs - even Luton University - would turn you away. All University courses have admissions criteria and you would need something post GCSE to get in i.e Access Course/A Level/GNVQ etc.

I have done a quick search on the web, and here is a directory of London Access Courses

Many adults in the U.K have the potential and ability to study for a degree or professional qualification but have been unable to do so because their education was disrupted due to family, financial, social or personal circumstances. They may have few, if any, formal qualifications, have been out of education for some years and thought that they had missed any opportunity to pursue goals of higher education.

Over the last twenty years, specially designed programmes - Access Programmes - have been prepared to provide new opportunities for adults to have a second chance and go on to degree or diploma programmes in higher education or in other professional areas.

All the best.

― DJ Martian, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Thank you very much Mr Martian, that's jolly nice of you.

― DG, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Having had a look through the page DJ Martian posted though...well...I'm buggered if I'm going to Redbridge or Barking colleges. I think I'll stick with my original plan of trying to charm my way onto a course.

― DG, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Deeg, I've got a feeling you'll need at least *something*. Going through clearing in Admissions at A Certain University I Worked At you could get in with as little as 4 points in certain courses but!

a]Going for second best or just for what you think is all that you can do is never a good option. I didn't try hard and was very badly informed and it's the biggest regret of my life

b]You'd stand a much better chance with some kind of pre-course like Access courses. Not only would it get you back into some kind of academia but also make it a LOT easier for when you DO actually apply.

c]Personal statements are all wank.

― Sarah, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

But! If I enrol in education for an access course I no longer receive my benefit so I will be skint. I CAN'T go to Redbridge College as the Greenfield family have some, er, 'history' there (nothing to do with me for once) and there's no way on Earth you could get me to go to Barking college. Everywhere else would be prohibitively expansive to travel to. I'm not being difficult for the sake of it, you know.

― DG, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

you should still be able to get dole while doing access (below certain number of hours per week i think)

also! can go to a mediocre or poor university for 1st year, and then transer DIRECTLY into 2nd year of much better university (this works). people will drop out of even the hardest thing to get into, which will leave spaces in the 2nd year.

― gareth, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Aha! Thank you Gareth, that's the kind of sneaky shit I'm looking for. *cackle*

― DG, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

if you do a full time access course then you will be eligable for whatever grinding poverty the labour party put in place to replace means tested loans. which may be a better solution, I know for a fact my uni, sheffiels, has access courses for a variety of subjects

Part-Time Mature Access Programme

The University runs its own Access course which includes foundation courses in Arts and Social Sciences, Maths and General Science, Return-to-Study Skills and around 14 subjects available for second year study. Entry is possible at either first or second year level depending on academic experience.

Mature Access Programme
Division of Adult Continuing Education
196-198 West Street
Sheffield, S1 4ET
Tel. 0114 222 7058

― Ed, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Cheers Ed, but I can't afford to leave London. Should I go to uni it would be from home here in EAST LONDON wot is not ESSEX, if I scoot up to Sheffield it would require bags of cash and a complete social life overhaul, not to mention the fact that myself and the divine LC have promised never to move away from each other (aww bless etc).

― DG, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

yet another reason Dunedin rocks- they let absolutely any munter into university, all they care about is money. it really takes the fear out of applying you know

― Menelaus Darcy, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

dg and lc- a regular john and yoko situation?

― Menelaus Darcy, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't know about that. She is my bestest fwend though.

― DG, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Deeg, i've told you, you should come to RUSKIN, you get FREE MONEY, somewhere to live and basically the equivilent of a first year of a degree. then you can toddle off to the second year of a degree course somewhere else. closing date for january entrants is dec 3 though, let me know and i'll send you stuff, and you could be in academe in 7 weeks time ;)

― carsmilesteve, Saturday, 17 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

that doesn't sound bad you know Deeg. although you would have to live in, ugh, Oxford.

― gareth, Saturday, 17 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

nine years pass...

http://tarhearted.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/02/my-face-for-the.html

― hwy not write Ohkhaye!" Onktean? (Latham Green), Monday, 1 August 2011 13:54 (fourteen years ago)

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