Going to University?

Please see this handy resource set for students between Years 12 and 13 to guide their post-18 options research:

This page contains guidance for:
1. UCAS Information
2. Personal statements
3. Searching for a course
4. Useful links
5. Student finance
6. Budgeting

UCAS information

All students have a Unifrog log in – Unifrog is excellent for university research, so please use this resource.

Please click on the link below for UCAS information for students and parents.

Any UCAS questions you may have, please don’t hesitate to contact Hayley at hweightman@sawtryva.org or Miss Hay at lhay@sawtryva.org.

This is a step by step guide as to how to fill in your UCAS application:  Completing a UCAS Application.

The UCAS guide for parents is full of very useful information, please click this link.

Follow the UCAS and Whichuni X feeds as they have a lot of useful information on them.

Russell Group: Informed Choices has a lot of useful information https://www.informedchoices.ac.uk/start. 

Helpsheet for Choosing a University includes a very useful resource for deciding what is important to you when choosing a location and course.

Course and Location Analysis Sheet is a useful sheet for analysing a university course and location.

The following links will also help you in guiding your decision-making:

https://www.ucas.com/chat-to-students
https://www.ucas.com/connect/blogs
https://www.ucas.com/city-guides
https://www.ucas.com/what-are-my-options/create-your-ucas-hub-today
https://www.ucas.com/explore/subjects?scheme=undergraduate

UCAS Personal Statements

Miss Hay has produced some excellent resources to help you write your personal statement. Please work through them:

Personal Statement Video 1

Personal Statement Video 2

Personal Statement Video 3

Starting to write a personal statement can be daunting. However, there are some really good websites that can help:

UCAS Personal Statement Toolkit

UCAS Personal Statement General Guide

Unifrog – How to write your personal statement like a boss

Personal Statement Subject Guides

UCAS have a handy personal statement tool which asks you questions and compiles them into a personal statement for you. It’s a very good place to start and we would advise that you see this as the start of your statement, and after you have answered all the questions, copy it into word then begin to refine it: https://www.ucasdigital.com/widgets/personalstatement/index.html#/main

For a good overview on how to write a personal statement, please click on the links below:

https://www.ucas.com/undergraduate/applying-university/how-write-ucas-undergraduate-personal-statement

The Complete University Guide to Personal Statement

https://www.whatuni.com/advice/ultimate-guides/how-to-write-the-perfect-personal-statement/39162

Please also remember to ask for help.

UCAS Help – Searching for a Subject/ Course

• To search by GRADES/ points: https://university.which.co.uk/courses

Put in your grades or work out your points by clicking on ‘UCAS points’ and browsing by category or A-Z subject.

Provides plenty of information about the subject and then a list of all the courses

• If you don’t have any ideas on what to study, put in your A Levels and it will give you ideas

https://university.which.co.uk/a-level-explorer

https://www.whatuni.com

I want to be….. Then click on subject

Can add grades to refine the search too.

https://www.ucas.com/search

Click on subject guides for each subject area

Click on what courses are available and you get a list of courses by relevance

Down the left hand side are more tick boxes to filter the search

Try putting a subject title in the search bar, all the relevant course come up

Click on ‘view’ at the side of a course to find out more eg entry requirements.

Some course require work experience, here is a useful list:

https://university.which.co.uk/teachers/help-your-students-get-into-uni/work-experience-getting-onto-degree-courses

Useful websites for researching universities and courses

Discover uni – Very good for finding statistics out about a course

http://www.applytouni.com/

https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk

https://www.push.co.uk/students.html

http://sacu-student.com/?page_id=2779

https://universitycompare.com

http://www.universityfinder.org.uk/

https://university.which.co.uk

https://www.whatuni.com

https://www.informedchoices.ac.uk/start

Degree Apprenticeships

The Sixth Formers’ Guide to Degree Apprenticeships 2025

There is some excellent information on the above link, please click on it.

Student Finance & Funding

Please click on this link for Martin Lewis’ guide to Student Finance 2025 – 2026

https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2025/09/five-student-need-to-knows

This video was from a couple of years back, but is very good. Values may have changed.

https://www.gov.uk/student-finance-calculator

https://www.gov.uk/get-undergraduate-student-loan

https://www.gov.uk/student-finance-register-login

Scholarships, Bursaries etc

Most universities have a section on funding on their websites, so please do look there.

https://www.savethestudent.org/student-finance/student-bursary-scholarship-sources.html#howapply

https://www.savethestudent.org/student-finance/student-grants-bursaries-scholarships.html

Home

https://www.blackbullion.com/blog/ultimate-guide-student-funding-2024

https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/student-advice/finance/university-bursaries-and-scholarships

https://search-study-uk.britishcouncil.org/scholarship/search-results.html?qualificationid=2&subjectid=D&nationalityid=210

ALL of the topics on this page will be explored in far more depth and with support & guidance during our registration programme.