University Applications

[Blaquaza]

Applications can vary. Certain Universities look for particular things. Most Universities expect students right out of high school. So they look for grades, participation in extra curricular, attendance, etc. They may contact your prior school, look at your goals, but for sure initiative. They look at how much you want it. After putting in an application, put in a call an talk to someone. Ask questions. See if or when they may have tours. Just let them know or see how much you want to see and attend the school.

Tours right now are what I'm prioritising. Every other day it seems like I'm applying for some kind of residential or other. I think pretty much half my summer at this point is gone if all of the applications are successful. :P

I started my first year of University in September so I am familiar with all that application stress. I don't know how it works where you are from but I used a company called UCAS to process my application. UCAS controls all university applications throughout the UK and it helped because it told us what we needed to put down. Depending on your course, Universities ask for different things. All universities will look at your grades for the previous courses you did and along with that, they look at you as a person. I had to write a personal statement for uni where I explained my characteristics, why I want to go to uni, any extra curricular activities, such as volunteering or long term clubs and also they would want to know what you are like in general and what you do in your free time.
I am doing Graphic Design so I can really only say for definite what those courses look for completely but I needed to go through an application process, then an interview process where they look at my work and get to know me so they can decide whether I am good enough and if the course is right for me.

So, from what I went through, I'd say universities want to know your grades, what drives you to be who you are and the passion you have for the course you want to do at their university. Try to sell yourself as much as you can. Try to stretch out the truth as much as possible. If you did something that you think is important to you, put it in. I put in that I got commissioned a painting and sold it for £80. It's something a little different so it stands out.
Good Luck :)

That reminds me, we haven't even started UCAS and that whole section of applying yet. Thankfully I think out schools does a really good job at helping people with their personal statements and such from what I've seen, because even from the beginning of the year there was a mad rush to check them all. I'm going to apply for a mix of universities, but the only ones I know of so far (because I remember checking when I had nothing better to do) is that the course I want to do in university - linguistics, or failing that some kind of English - requires an interview if I apply to Cambridge and it's successful.

There's only one relevant thing I'll be able to write about so far, and that's a course I haven't even been on yet. That's the problem I'm having; I'm looking for more subject-specific enrichment type stuff in order to make myself stand out, but it's just so hard to find. And congrats for selling the painting! That's a great way to earn money whilst showing your passion, and I'm sure the customer was really happy too. :D