When do Universities confirm your place?

Applying to go to university is a stressful time, not only do you have to worry about writing the perfect mission statement for university. You also have to worry about selecting the right course, the right university and you even have to do exams on top. 

With all of this stress piling up you then have to worry about the first choice university offering you a place to study with them. Constantly worrying and checking if you have any offers adds to that pressure so if you are interested in finding out when do universities confirm your place this is the article for you.

In general, universities will confirm your place on results day. The examining board will have sent your results to the universities a few days before so they can make their decisions about confirming your place. If you have never used UCAS track on results day you should know that it often crashes so if you cant access your offers right away don’t panic. You may receive confirmation results via email too so be sure to check you have the right email address in UCAS track and log into it on results day.

If you don’t receive a confirmed offer on results day don’t panic this can happen and there are reasons for this which we will cover further down in this article.

When do Universities confirm your place?

As mentioned above, most people will have their place confirmed on results day. If you have met all of the requirements for the offer you should have a confirmed place, if you haven’t on results day it could mean that the university is going through all of the applications confirming other peoples places and you are somewhere in the line to be confirmed too.

If you have finished your A-Levels and have the results for the entry requirements and you still haven’t heard from the uni it could be the case that you have listed other qualifications on your application that you haven’t sat and the university is waiting on those results too to offer you a place.

If you find that this is the case you should get in contact with the university right away to let them know that you did not sit the exams for these qualifications. Once you have done this your place at university should be confirmed quickly and you should be able to start university quickly.

If you have had to make adjustments to your application or you have had to make a different course choice through clearing then confirmation can take longer.

Why hasn’t my place been confirmed yet and what should I do?

As mentioned above you could simply be in a queue of people and the university is going through their list updating it as quick as possible to confirm each person’s place at university.

According to Universities UK, over 1.8 million students studied an undergraduate degree in 2018-2019 so as you can imagine it takes the universities time to go through each application. Having a vast number of students landing on the UCAS website also crashes the site so students can’t get their places confirmed right away.

If you are waiting to have your university place confirmed on results day and can’t get on the UCAS track website don’t panic, this happens nearly every year. We know it can be an anxious time waiting on confirmation from your university but try to relax and if possible check back on the UCAS website later.

If the university hasn’t confirmed your place after results day you can get in contact with UCAS or the University to see what is going on. With that said if you have all of the requirements for your course, you don’t have to do this. Have a little patience and your offers will be updated shortly.

When do universities confirm places for students with unconditional offers?

Unconditional offers are usually provided to students when universities consider you a top candidate for one of their courses and they want you to join regardless of your performance in exams. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t study hard though because if the worse were to happen and that course gets pulled you may be in a bad situation, but this is something that rarely happens.

Unconditional offers are different from conditional offers so having a place confirmed by a university is usually down to individual circumstances. A place for an unconditional offer could be confirmed before results day because your offer isn’t based on the results that you will receive.

If you do have an unconditional offer and you accept it just know that you won’t then be able to choose your insurance offer or you won’t be able to enter clearing either. So make sure this is the course and university that you want to attend.

What should I do if I haven’t met all the requirements for my university offer?

Firstly, don’t panic. Many students don’t match the entry requirements due to not getting the exam results they were expecting. Although this is disappointing, it doesn’t mean that you won’t get a confirmed place at university.

Some universities and their courses could still consider you for a place on the course so keep an eye on the UCAS track for any updates. If you don’t get accepted to the course of your choice or your insurance offer you will then be put into something called clearing.

Clearing will give you the chance to go to university based on your grades and the closest matches to the course that you picked from other universities. It’s important to know that you don’t have to only select from these choices. If you want to see what else is on offer pick up the phone and call the universities that you would be interested in attending, give them your grades and clearing number and see what other courses are available. By calling up the universities you will be able to get informal offers on the phone.

Once you have made your clearing choice, add it to your UCAS application and you will then be considered for a place at that university.

What should I do if I haven’t heard back from any university?

If you haven’t heard back from any of the universities on your list you can get in touch with them or UCAS. They will then be able to provide you with more information on your application and should be able to give you a timeframe in which a decision will be made.

What do different university offers mean?

When applying to courses at university you will see your UCAS track update to one of the following offers:

• Unconditional offer
• Conditional offer
• Unsuccessful application
• Withdrawn application

An unconditional offer means that you will have a place at that university regardless of conditions such as results or points. This usually happens when a university sees you as an exceptional student and wants you to study at their university. 

A conditional offer is one of the most common forms of offers at a university and it means that if you meet the entry requirements for the course then you will have a place come results day. This is a positive offer but it does require you to study hard and get good grades.

An unsuccessful application, unfortunately, means that you won’t get a place on the course that you have chosen this can be down to not meeting the entry requirements or simply there was more demand for the course than spaces. If you do get an unsuccessful application you may get feedback on your UCAS track but if you don’t you can always call the university to see why your application was unsuccessful.

Withdrawn applications are applications you have withdrawn from yourself.

I’ve got my offer, what do I do now?

Congratulations your university has now confirmed your place. This is an exciting time, all of your hard work has paid off and now you can start to think about life at university.

At this point, if you have decided to move to your university you will need to start thinking about moving out of your home, the essential items you will want to take with you, join Facebook groups of the university you have chosen to go to and you may even want to start making plans about your storage needs. When you live away from home at university it can be an inconvenience to carry all of your items home every term so many students choose to store their bigger items in a self storage unit.

At Urban Locker, we have the best deals on student self storage and if you have just been confirmed to your university you may want to consider looking for storage now as many other students will have the same idea and places get taken up really quickly