Speaker 1: If you wish to study an undergraduate degree programme at a British university, you are required to apply via UCAS. Each applicant has a maximum of five choices on their application. Most will choose to apply to the same or very similar courses at five different institutions. However, some students may choose to apply to the same university multiple times or to a variety of different course areas. It is important that you are familiar with the key dates of the cycle and that you do not miss any of them. The application window will open in September of the year before your chosen course is due to start, and most will close on January 15th. If you wish to make an application to Oxford or Cambridge, or you'd like to study medicine, dentistry or veterinary science, then your application deadline is even earlier, on October 15th. It is still possible to make late applications after these dates, but the university is under no obligation to consider them and therefore we always advise that these dates are met. In order to begin the process, you will need to visit the UCAS website and register your details. This will then generate you a username, password and UCAS ID number. It's worth noting these down as they will be required many times over the coming months. If you're making your application whilst still at school or college, then you will also need to enter in their buzzword. This will allow your form to be matched to your current place of study and for your teachers to check over it and then add in your reference. The application itself is split into six different sections which can be completed in any order that you would like. Section one relates to your personal details, and whilst information about your date of birth and address may seem straightforward, try not to get complacent. A mistake here such as a misspelling of your own name will not create a strong impression with university's admissions staff. Section two is where you will input your university choices. At this stage in the process you don't need to rank them in order of preference. UCAS will actually list them alphabetically for you and then you can make a final decision as to where your first choice is at a later stage in the cycle. Make sure that you double-check all of the details you're entering are correct and that you've listed the correct course and institution code. Section three asks you to input the details of any formal qualifications that you hold, and for most this is their GCSE grades as well as any qualifications they obtained in year 12. For each you will need to know not only the subject title and the grade you secured, but also the exam board that you sat them with. All of this information can be found on your exam certificates, so it might be worth vacating these and keeping them to hand. Section four deals with your employment history and allows you to record any paid work that you may have undertaken. Don't panic if you don't have anything to include here, it will not be seen as a negative on your application and you can leave this section blank, but you will need to remember to mark it as complete. Section five is the personal statement and the element of the application that causes students the most worry. This is essentially a mini essay where you set out why you've chosen to pursue this particular course area. As you'll only make one application for all five of your choices, you will only get one personal statement and so we therefore recommend that your selected courses are as similar as possible to ensure that your statement remains focused. If you would like further support writing this, then please watch our personal statement video. The sixth and final section is for your reference. This is normally completed by someone within your school or college, but if you've left education or you feel that someone else may be more appropriate, then you're welcome to approach them instead. The reference acts as a support to the application overall and to confirm the information you've provided is correct. You do have the right to request to see a copy of your reference prior to submitting your form if you would like to. Once you've finished each section, you need to mark it as complete and a little tick will appear. Until you actually submit your application, you're able to revisit sections and make any amends. Don't forget that once you've made changes to your application, you need to hit save. Once everything is complete and you are happy that your application reflects you and your commitment to your chosen course area, you can press pay and send. There is a small admin fee applicable at this stage and then the form will be sent to UCAS who will process it for you before passing it on to your chosen institutions. You will be able to follow the progress of your application throughout the entire cycle by logging on to UCAS track.