DSA paper form - how to get Uni to fill in

[Feezer]

Looking for some advice. DC needs to complete the 'full' paper form as they are not applying for student finance. The Uni have to fill in part of it - does this mean they really have to wait until they are a student at a particular Uni? It's a paper form so us filling it in, printing it and sending it to the first choice, expecting them to complete it and send it back to us seems very unlikely? Or are we missing something?

@Feezer DSA shouldn't be filled by the university. You get a medical doctor or educational psychologist to fill in the form. Then scan the document onto your laptop. Then go on student finance and click upload and upload the scanned pdf images of the form. I'm not sure what you mean? What university is it? The university doesn't need go fill in any section. Only your DS and doctors. Perhaps information from school where he's done A-level and/or GCSEs around any support and acess arrangements they gave him.

Then DSA look through the forms and any extra medical evidence you can upload, then they decide whether your application is successful or not. If it is successful then you'll have a Needs Assessment with an advisor and they'll go through different support and assistive technology that might be helpful and write a report.

Also make sure to contact the universities Disability Service. If he ticked yes on the UCAS form to having a disability then they should have already contacted her. If not go on the uni website find the service, either email them (should have an email on the website) or any forms they have on it just to register with them. Make sure the email contains 1. DSA forms you've done 2. Any extra medical evidence you have over the years 3. Any specific forms the uni have attached or linked on the website (they may also have specific elements for medical staff to sign).

Also try and have a meeting with one of the Disability Advisers at the university, you can do this before university starts. It can be really useful to make a Learning Support Plan which can then have specific support (also say yes for them to share this with potential lectures etc so that they're aware of any support and he doesn't have to explain it to everyone as they'll be able to see plan). I'd recommend when you have the DSA Needs Assessment at the end say yes to them sharing details with the uni of what support they are giving you. It will make your DS's life much easier in terms of sharing info to ensure that she gets him support. Hope this makes sense and is helpful.

Yes, lots of detail, thanks. However, as I said, DC needs to fill in a full paper form and this has a section for the uni to complete. It is this aspect which seems challenging.

@TheLivelyViper on the paper form the Uni may have to confirm attendance.

OP I would suggest contacting the Disability Team at first choice and insurance choice for advice. They maybe happy for you to put their details on the form in a particular section. If YP doesn’t get the grades for that Uni you simply let the Study Needs Assessment centre know which Uni they are going to.

From memory I think we spoke to disability services and they talked us through what to do. It's a while back now but I think we had the option of doing our part and they did theirs and sent it on. Or we could enclose an SAE and they sent it back and we forwarded it but I definitely remember speaking to disability services at the uni and them being helpful. We had to do the paper form as the student wasn't applying for finance for tuition or maintenance just the DSA element.

@Feezer Maybe the forms I saw this year for uni starting in September had details of what course and then the course code. You should be able to see such details on UCAS and not need to directly be filled in by the uni. There will be details on when the course will finish etc but you can fill this in yourself to the best of my knowledge.

If DS has already applied for student finance loans, they have already checked with the uni about confirming attendance.

Can you post a picture of the section for the uni? As the forms (which were paper forms) I saw had details about uni but could be filled by the student. Then the people I know where able to scan the documents and then upload onto student finance with other supporting evidence (past letters from consultants etc), and I had GP fill in the diagnosis and medical part of the form. Seperatly I contacted firm and insurance Disabiltiy Services team but they'll likely have advice on the form if you want.

I would call the disability services at the firm and insurance universities. If that doesn’t help, call SFE.

@TheLivelyViper the long form, which students not applying for other finance need to complete, has a section for the institution to complete.

Yes, the form needs a signature and stamp from the Uni, so definitely cannot be done by the student. @Spirallingdownwards thank you for that. It does seem incredibly clunky!

We had a similar situation with my son’s DSA application form a couple of months ago. Similar situation - we had to use the paper form as only applying for DSA, not finance.

In our case, first choice uni said to just send it in, with that section completed (so uni and course details) but missing the university signature and stamp, with a note explaining we lived too far away to get it completed by hand. And Student Finance would reach out directly to the university to confirm.

So we did that, and then 3 weeks later, got a strange letter back from Student Finance saying they couldn’t find our course details, and a vague instruction to react out to the university to “get in touch and confirm”. We tried again to reach out to the university, but when they responded they didn’t know what to make of, and just gave us the original advice again.

At this point, we were beginning to panic, as more weeks went past. However I got on the phone jointly with DS (must be with DS) and we phoned Student Finance, and it was all sorted out that afternoon.

So in short, the paper process isn’t perfect (probably due to small volumes of people going that route), but send it in as complete as you can, and then if you need to speak with Student Finance directly to sort it out after a few weeks then they are really helpful.

Oh sorry I wasn't aware there was a different form. That seems quite a long process to have to physically send to the uni. I did have to send forms to student finance though, passports etc. It must be because I've only seen the one for those applying for tuition loans and/or maintenance. Sorry for the wrong advice 😅 anyways hopefully you can get it sorted. I find the DSA needs assessment to be quite good and uni disability services normally (unlike other ones they don't try and trip people up, instead just offer anything they think will help).

I work in a disability team for a uni, we are happy to accept a completed online pdf and then we print/stamp and scan in so it can be emailed.

We are also happy to email to DSA, but not all unis will.

The full form is used mostly for post grad.