Big Announcement!
UCAS has recently made major changes to the reference section that may be a culture shock for US counselors. If you’re a college counselor who has worked with students applying to UK universities, you’re probably familiar with UCAS, the centralized application system. UCAS handles the application process for almost all undergraduate degree courses in the UK. In this article, we’ll explain what those changes are and what they mean for US students who are considering applying to universities in the UK.
First, let’s explain what the UCAS reference is. The reference is a letter written by a teacher or other academic advisor that is submitted along with the student’s application. Currently, the UCAS reference was written as a single letter from one academic or teacher that would be sent to each individual university that the student was applying to. It provides an evaluation of the student’s academic performance, character, and potential. It is an important part of the application process and still remains to be so.
Starting this May 2023, the reference section will no longer be a single letter, but rather be split into 3 sections for the referee to complete (see below). Referees can?only use up to 4,000 characters (including spaces, headings and line breaks) or 47 lines of text total, whichever comes first, between all three sections. This will be implemented into the UCAS application for the 2024 entry applicants:
SECTION 1 (if the student has linked their application to a UCAS centre):
The first section is to provide information regarding your school. This is a great place to explain your school’s rankings, if it is a private or public school, general overview of your school’s curriculum (i.e. if your school offers AP exams), etc. This section is mandatory for schools registered as a UCAS centre.
If you are worried about copying and pasting this section for each student, the good news is that your school profile template can be saved in the system ONLY if your school is registered as a UCAS centre.
(How to link your school to your UCAS application)
SECTION 1 (if the student has NOT linked their application to a UCAS centre):
For applicants who apply independently, and not link their application to a school or college, the referee would provide an overview of their relationship to the applicant.
SECTION 2 (This section is optional)
You should only add information into this section if the applicant has extenuating circumstances that may have affected their grades or will affect their grades. Another example is if you believe this student is doing far better this year than previous years, etc.
SECTION 3 (This section is also optional):
This section is useful to inform the universities if the student has any circumstances that the university should be aware of. Some examples of this could be the student needing academic support, or the student is currently transitioning, etc.
For Sections 2 & 3: It is accepted that most references will not contain any information. If you do not provide information, referees will need to tick ‘no information to enter for this section’ or the reference section won’t be completed or submitted. Ticking this box allows universities and colleges to know that no information has been supplied under these headings.
CONCLUSION
As you have noticed, there’s NO opportunity for the counselor or teacher to provide an evaluation of the student’s academic performance, character, and potential. Why? Because the student has already provided adequate information about their academics and should have explained their achievements and knowledge in their personal statement.
As an American and being in the industry for over 10 years, this was a big culture shock to me. A teacher or counselor not bragging about how high-achieving the student is? How absurd!
But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. It allows the university to pinpoint information from a reference that is sometimes the most important. This will better support the university to determine if a student is the right fit. Not only will this be easier to read for the university, but it will also be easier and less work for the counselor or teacher to complete.
UCAS have announced that they are still fine tweaking these new processes and will provide a Q&A with more information. Stay tuned for more information!
We’d love to know your thoughts about the new changes. Comment below to share your thoughts and ideas!
2 Responses
Dear Jackie, UCAS is the service provider. It is the UNIVERSITIES who will determine what goes in the other sections. Oxford and Cambridge have been working together to provide exemplars (likely to be revealed in UCAS conference next week). For competitive courses at competitive universities, ACADEMIC TEACHER evaluations are NOT going away.
Very much off the record, I can’t tell you how displeased some people in senior positions in over-subscribed universities have been by UCAS acting so imperiously. It’s part of the global marketisation of Higher Education.
What is changing is the format.
80% of universities / 80% of courses (not necessarily mutually exclusive) just look at external exam grades of results already taken, and predicted grades for final year exam classes. But selective universities, and selective universities are coming up with – this is what WE want.
Watch out for supplemental or additional personal statements (UCAS’ next overhaul) and references for individual courses.
In typical British fashion, we love to dismantle things that are working wonderfully and replace with something more complicated and working less well. If I see any early exemplars of SUBJECT references with new format, I’ll post.
Love your comment! Thank you for sharing!