Getting into Varsity: Comparability, Convergence and Congruence ...

Undergraduate programmes normally begin in September, and in most cases, applications must be submitted by the middle of the preceding January (although, in practice, most institutions will accept applications after this date); however, there are some exceptions to these procedures. Applicants for pre-clinical medicine, dentistry and veterinary science courses may make no more than four choices (although a fifth choice can be used to apply for a different course). Their applications must be submitted in October of the year before the course commences. This deadline also applies to all applications to Oxford and Cambridge, and applicants are restricted to applying to one of these two institutions. Applicants from outside the United Kingdom or European Union, regardless of nationality, may apply at any time between mid-September and the end of June in the year before the course commences, unless applying for Oxford or Cambridge or courses in pre-clinical medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine or veterinary science, in which case they should apply by the U.K. deadlines.

Although GCE A-Levels or equivalent qualifications are the main entry requirement for university, a very small number of courses require applicants to sit an admissions test. These courses include pre-clinical medicine, veterinary medicine/science and law at many of the older universities; English, history, PPE (philosophy, politics and economics) and economics and management courses at Oxford; and modern and medieval languages, mathematics, computer science, natural sciences, engineering and economics at Cambridge. Some of these tests are published and administered by third parties, such as the BioMedical Admissions Test (BMAT), which is owned and administered by Cambridge Assessment. Many of these tests can be administered in test centres, in schools or online, and the scores may form part of the application. Others, such as Cambridge's Modern and Medieval Languages Test (MML), are owned by the university and administered by colleges at the time of the interview, that is, after the first phase of selection.

The admissions procedures for professionally oriented courses such as pre-clinical medicine, medically related professions and education are very likely to involve an interview, as are those for Oxford and Cambridge. It is also common for applicants for any course who have an