UCAS application for 2027 entry: deadlines, choices and steps

Key dates for 2027 entry

A few routes, such as Oxford’s Astrophoria Foundation Year courses, have a January deadline; check the university’s page.

If you miss the main application deadline, UCAS says you can still apply for many courses, though it’s unusual for courses with the 15 October deadline to consider late applications.

Applying through a school or college? Check its deadline first. UCAS says schools may set an earlier one than UCAS’s, so they have time to add your reference and predicted grades.

Your choices and the fee

On your application overview you can add up to five choices: the same or different courses, at the same or different universities and colleges.

• Medicine, dentistry and veterinary courses: you can apply to at most four courses in any one of medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine or veterinary science. You can add a choice with a different deadline later, up to five in total.
• Oxford or Cambridge, not both: usually you can apply to only one course at either university in the same year. UCAS names a narrow exception for graduates applying for graduate-entry medicine.
• The fee: £34.50 for 2027 entry, covering up to five choices. UCAS says students who had free school meals funded by the UK Government, and care leavers, may be eligible to have it waived.

The sections of the application

UCAS’s guide to filling in the application lists 13 sections, in this order:

1. Personal details
2. Nationality details
3. Where you live
4. Contact details
5. Supporting information
6. Finance and funding
7. Diversity and inclusion
8. More about you
9. Education
10. Employment
11. Extra activities
12. Personal statement
13. References

Choices are added separately, on the application overview. Take particular care with these:

• Where you live: give your current address, the one where you spend most of your time.
• Education: enter all your qualifications from secondary education onwards, including results you’re still waiting for, retakes and any unsuccessful (‘U’) grades. UCAS warns that inaccurate or missing qualifications could lead to an unsuccessful application.
• International qualifications: use the qualification’s actual name and the grade on your certificate, not a UK equivalent. English language test numbers also go in Education.
• Personal statement: one statement goes to all your choices; the 2027 personal statement guide covers what UCAS asks.

Predicted grades

Predicted grades are the grades your school or college believes you’re likely to achieve in qualifications you haven’t finished yet. They’re added as part of your reference, for anything you’ve entered as pending.

• Universities use them, along with other information, to understand your potential, and each one uses them in its own way. UCAS tells schools that universities may only consider the predicted grades sent with the application.
• If you’ve already finished your qualifications, enter the grades you achieved. Your referee is only asked for predictions when something is still pending.

Your reference

Every application needs a reference: a recommendation from a teacher, adviser or professional. Don’t ask a family member, friend, partner or ex-partner: UCAS warns that your application may be cancelled if you do.

At a school or college, a teacher or tutor who knows you writes it, and you won’t see it. UCAS’s guidance for referees describes up to three sections:

1. About the school or college, such as how it predicts grades. For independent applicants, it describes the referee’s relationship with you instead.
2. Extenuating circumstances that affected your education, if there are any.
3. Other supportive information relevant to your courses, such as work experience or extracurricular activities.

The limit is 4,000 characters, counting spaces, headings and line breaks, so the typed text has to stay under 3,800.

Sending your application

Once every section is complete and your reference is in, the application can be paid for and sent to UCAS. At a school or college, you submit it to them by the date they give you, and they add your reference and predicted grades and send it for you. On your own, you pay by debit or credit card online and submit it yourself, by the deadline.

After you submit

UCAS passes your application to your chosen universities and colleges, and you’ll get a welcome email. You can then track it in the UCAS Hub. Decisions come through at different times, so UCAS says not to worry if you hear nothing for a while, and the deadlines for replying to offers depend on when you receive them.

• Adding choices: if you used fewer than five, you can add more before Wednesday 30 June 2027, as long as you haven’t replied to any offers.
• Swapping a choice: you can substitute a choice within 14 days of the date on your welcome email, once per choice and not after 30 June 2027. If the new course’s deadline has passed, it counts as late.
• Withdrawing a choice: you can cancel one choice, as long as that university or college hasn’t sent its decision yet.
• Extra: if you’ve used all five choices and hold no offers, you may be able to add a choice through Extra, a free service, one course at a time, between Thursday 25 February and Thursday 1 July 2027.
• Clearing: opens on Friday 2 July 2027 for eligible applicants, with vacancies shown in UCAS’s search tool.

Courses you add later, including through Extra or Clearing, see the same personal statement. Keep your email address up to date so you don’t miss anything.

Applying without a school

You can apply on your own as an independent applicant. UCAS says most international students apply this way, and that independent applicants are usually working, no longer at school, home educated or over 21, or simply prefer it.

1. Register in the UCAS Hub. Students applying through a school add its buzzword, a word that links the application to it; independent applicants leave it out.
2. Choose a referee. If you’ve been in education recently, it should be someone who knows you academically, ideally a former teacher: your old school may let you link your application to it, using its buzzword, for the reference. Otherwise an employer can write it; explain you need an academic reference, not a standard HR one.
3. Request the reference early, as soon as you’ve filled in your education history. UCAS emails your referee a link and password. If you don’t hear back, you can ask a different person.
4. Pay and send it yourself, by the deadline, once UCAS emails you to say the reference is complete.

Your referee has up to 3,800 characters and must finish in one session, because UCAS can’t save incomplete references.

If your old school accepts a reference-only link, you can’t unlink yourself afterwards: you’d need to contact UCAS.