Ucas form : Leaving last uni choices til later

[Firelemon]

Hi is anyone able to confirm my understanding that it’s correct that DD can submit her form with 4 choices and leave the 5th empty to decide at a later date ( as long as we put this last choice in before the Jan deadline) . I have been suggesting we do this as we will have a much better idea on epq level in a month or so and/or whether she has any offers in hand by then both of which might affect the choice she makes but school are asking her to complete all 5at the same time now .

Retired Head of Year/UCAS Advisor here.

You cannot add a 5th choice after the form has been submitted to UCAS. Your daughter should discuss with school when they intend to send her form off - most schools have an internal deadline for students to complete their form and Pay/Send, then the school has control of the form, attaches the academic reference and actually sends the full form to UCAS. They may extend the school deadline for your DD until she has an idea of her EPQ level, though I have to say that universities focus on predicted grades over EPQ, (which is very good to evidence additional independent study and interest and is worth mentioning in the personal statement but does not carry the same weight or UCAS points).
I would suggest a discussion with the UCAS Advisor/Head of Year about this. They may agree to hold off sending her form until nearer the UCAS deadline in January or may advise her to add the 5th choice now...see what they say.

UCAS Extra opens in February as a sort of early Clearing for those who change their mind about their choices/do not hold any offers. Students can look for courses with vacancies but can only apply for one course at a time, having withdrawn from any offers they might hold.

Just saying that you CAN do this if you are applying individually and not through a school. UCAS certainly allow it and it's on their website somewhere. My DS applied for Oxford by their 15/10 deadline then added the rest later. We had to pay a small fee - but very small- something like £7.
Any 'rules' prohibiting you doing this are just the school's, not UCAS's. Maybe talk to the school if you are desperate to hold off for a bit.

You absolutely CAN add your fifth choice later. From: www.ucas.com/undergraduate/after-you-apply/making-changes-your-ucas-undergraduate-application

If you didn't use all five choices, you can add more choices one at a time from your application as long as it's before 30 June and you've not accepted any offers or been declined by your choices.

Apologies for my incorrect advice - as the advisor in all my years nobody ever wanted to add an extra choice!
I would still advise a good chat with school to see what they say.

ds initially applied with 3, he was going to add two more before the January deadline, but didn't need to in the end as he got an unconditional offer (Scotland and he had the required grades already) from his 2nd choice mid January.

The school were unsure about whether it was allowed, but said if he was certain it was to do whatever he wanted (they didn't take much interest in his application throughout the whole process 😡)

So dc2 did this. She completed 4 choices. Once she got an offer (around Dec time I think) she felt confident in gambling /choosing a uni with higher requirements (but still submitting before the Jan deadline).
Underused option I think, which indeed costs a little extra

Yes my dd's school is fine for dc to apply for 3 or 4 and depending on the offers received add a final choice before Jan deadline. It's quite normal.

Thank you all - that’s really helpful . I think I m going to encourage her to hold off on the last choice then

Hang on, am I reading this correctly? Are people saying that you can get offers from universities before the deadline? I assumed that no applications were looked at until after the UCAS deadline in January. But do they start looking at them as soon as they arrive?

Universities will start giving offers before the deadline particularly where they are for high calibre candidates, are recoursing courses or giving unconditional offers. They must wait until the gathered field of the 15th January to offer the bulk.

Recruiting courses. Not recoursing

Ds is doing this. He’s putting in four and holding off on the fifth until he knows what his first choice says (if the offer early)

My DS got all 5 offers before the Christmas holidays. 2 years ago.

Oh dear 🤭 let's hope you retired a while ago.

This is copy and pasted direct from UCAS
Adding more choices
Extraa* is our free service – available for you to apply to one course at a time between 25 February and early July.
If you didn't use all five choices, you can add more choices one at a time from your application as long as it's before 30 June and you've not accepted any offers or been declined by your choices.
If you only originally applied to one choice (so paid at the reduced fee), all you have to do is pay the extra £4.50 to allow you to add more.
If you accepted an offer and are made unsuccessful by the uni/college before 30 June, if you have not used all five choices, you can contact our Customer Experience Centree* to add more

Very recently. It never occurred as an issue in the many years I dealt with UCAS applications. Our policy of discussing each application individually with each student had a great deal to do with it.

They've changed the date to the 25th January.

"
"Universities are expected to give equal consideration to every application that lands in their inbox before the 25 January deadline. No matter whether you send in your application at the start of September or on 25 January, your application will be given just as much priority. But, once the deadline passes, universities are free to start allocating places – starting with those who applied by 25 January"

You can still apply for immediate consideration after the 25th deadline up until 30th June.

Yep. On the Oxbridge thread some DC have offers already as obviously their applications had to be in earlier.

Ah thank you! I haven’t been directly involved for a couple of years so that must have changed. Good to know!

the gathered field commitment must still remain the same.

Oh no! Sounds like it was a private school. I imagine if you didn't think it was allowed it would never have been discussed as an option. 🤦🏻‍♀️

It's been possible to hold off using all your choices for years. Its It's useful for some students especially those who are uncertain what they want to do or those who need a little more time to see how well they are doing academically.

The reason that universities are required to give equal consideration to all applications received before the January equal consideration date is that its thought to help promote fairness between applicants from different backgrounds. If applications were considered immediately on receipt then private schools applicants would be at a big advantage.

It’s not just private school students who may be advantaged. In Scotland it is your attained results which you apply with for many institutions hence a large number of unconditional offers.

but yes. One deadline gives fairness to all in a complex model

And it doesn’t cost more to put your choices in gradually

Tbf, it does, if you started off just paying for the one, but only by a relatively small amount and I woukd assume that most year 13s woukd start off with more than the one anyway.

The school were unsure about whether it was allowed

@Blanketpolicy it obviously all worked out okay for your DS, but it's a bit worrying that the staff advising him failed to inform themselves even to the extent that that a random member of the public could do by having a read of the UCAS website.

So, again, it doesn't cost more to fill in slots later. If you only fill in one, you pay less, and then pay the difference when the rest are added, but that isn't more. Really bugs me that people so often say it costs more, when in fact only putting one costs less!
For admin faff, it is easier therefore to put at least two initially, because then only one payment has to be made. Schools can sign it off and do their bit etc, and then the candidate has control of the account.

And yes, whilst I understand schools wanting it cleanly done and dusted by having all 5 done at once, it is abject that they have so little knowledge as that. As for the first respondent.

I think one should be wary of leaving some slots empty if just indecision and way of stretching the whole horror out for longer, but, as alluded to above, there can be very good strategic reasons for delaying a few options.

You are mistaken, please make sure that you are really careful before posting like this-people may take your statement at face value and affect their child's choice adversely.

😂😂😂