What to study and where to go

Deciding what course to do at university can feel pretty overwhelming. The UCAS website is the best place to start as it details all the courses on offer across the UK (with the exception of Open University courses, for which you apply directly to the OU).

Things to bear in mind when choosing a course:

Do you have a particular career in mind?

Many degrees give good skills that can be used in a variety of different jobs, but for something like medicine or architecture you need to do a specific degree in it.
What subjects do you enjoy and what are you good at? Doing a medical degree might get you a great job but if you don’t like science and history is your best subject, you’ll have a much better time studying that, and get more out of it.
What Highers are you doing? It’s best to think about what degree you might want to do before you pick your Highers, sometimes you need to have taken particular subjects to get onto courses. Don’t worry if you don’t know, you can always delay university and take extra Highers whilst working. Or you can use your Highers to help you decide what course to do.

Where would you like to live?

This is an important one too, maybe you want to be in the middle of a big city like Edinburgh or maybe you would prefer a campus like Stirling. Do a bit of research and visit places to help you decide. Think about what your interests are, if you love live music then somewhere like Glasgow or London will be ideal, but if you are into golf or being by the sea then St Andrews might be better.
Make sure you go to as many open days as you can to get a taster of what university life might be like. Look at the student union website to get a feel for social life and have a look at halls of residences too so you can picture where you might be living.

When to go

Although many people go on to higher education after leaving school, there is no rule that says you have to. It’s popular to take a gap year first where you work, travel, volunteer or do a mix of all these things. Some people work for a few years, some people go to university after having children or even after retirement. So don’t worry if you don’t feel ready yet.

Applying

If you want to do a full-time course (a degree, Higher National Diploma or Diploma of Higher Education), you need to apply through UCAS. The application is online and there is a small processing fee. The website has lots of hints and tips on filling in the application. These open around the middle of September and close around the middle of January, but check with UCAS if you want to apply later, there may still be time but if you are applying for a popular course it may well be full up.

Applications for Oxford and Cambridge are slightly different, the UCAS website tells you more.

If you want to do a part-time course you might be interested to know that there are no entry requirements for undergraduate degrees at the Open University and different courses have different registration closing dates throughout the year because they start at different times. Applications are made directly to the Open University.

If you don’t get onto the course you want you can try and go through Clearing. This is where universities open up the spare places left on courses after the Highers and A Level results have come out. Again, the UCAS website tells you more.

More Information

UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) Website - For more information about higher education courses at college or university, and to apply online, go to the UCAS website.

The Open University for Scotland - For more information on distance and part-time learning visit the Open University in Scotland website or call 0845 300 60 90.