The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), is an agency operating in higher education in the UK. It acts as a clearing house for applications for virtually all undergraduate degree programmes in UK universities and other degree-awarding institutions.
In all normal circumstances, all those wishing to study for first degrees in the UK have to apply through UCAS. This applies to all categories of applicants - UK residents, residents of the Channel Islands and Isle of Man, European Union citizens and international applicants. They submit a single application and a limited list of universities of other higher education institutions where they would like to study. The application is then forwarded by UCAS to those institutions, who decide whether to make an offer of a place (which may be firm, or conditional on performance in examinations still to be taken) to the applicant. Final decisions are made, in general, in mid-August, when the results of the UK A-Level examinations become available.
UCAS imposes a uniform and fairly rigid timetable on the undergraduate applications process, though the system is sophisticated and allows for many different routes. Its advantages for both applicants and institutions are that it eliminates duplication of effort, and provides a fair and consistent framework within which both applicants and institutions can compete.
The major exception to the rule of application through UCAS comes at the very end of the admissions season, when courses are about to begin. After the announcement of A-level results, UCAS runs a process called clearing to match applicants without places at their chosen institutions with courses elsewhere that still have places available. However once UCAS's clearing operation is complete, institutions with available places do advertise publicly, and some students find places by direct application at that stage.
The statistics on numbers of applications provided by the UCAS process provide a sensitive indicator of the relative popularity of institutions and academic disciplines, and on national and regional patterns of supply and demand for higher education. They are studied in depth by university managers and those concerned with higher education policy.
UCAS has never operated within the field of postgraduate education, where application procedures are much less uniform. However, there are national clearing houses for applications for a number of particular types of postgraduate education. Examples include Graduate Teacher Training Registry, which acts as a clearing house for the PGCE courses that provide initial teacher training for graduates, and the clearing house for training courses in clinical psychology.
In recent years UCAS has been involved in a number of scandals. In 2002 it incorrectly interpreted results data it has been given by the Scottish Qualifications Authority which led to UCAS informing universities and students that the students had obtained higher marks then they actually had. In 2001 UCAS accidently made publicly downloadable from their website a database of applicants' personal details.
