Despite taking six years off between high school and college to travel the globe, Sara Summerton followed the same process to apply to a British university as other American students.
“Every American would have to go through the same exact same process to apply to a U.K. university — applying through UCAS,” says Summerton, of Centennial, Colorado, who is now a first-year student at the University of Manchester.
The Universities and College Admissions Service application, the form commonly known as UCAS, is a centralized system for applying to U.K. universities.
“The application process isn’t complicated, but it’s very different to the U.S. in a number of ways,” says Alex Craik, an undergraduate admissions officer at University College London. “The big differences are only being able to make five choices, and needing to have selected specific programs of study at specific universities to make those five.”
[Learn five facts about earning an undergraduate degree in the U.K.]
UCAS is often compared with The Common Application in the U.S., except the personal essay requirement on UCAS is limited to 4,000 characters compared with 650 words on the Common App. The application fee for UCAS is 23 pounds — roughly $28.
“I felt the UCAS was pretty straightforward, actually. There’s only one essay that you have to write, but it’s pretty strict on word count,” the 25-year-old Summerton says.
Although some British universities do accept the Common App, undergraduate officers at U.K. schools say they prefer to receive applications through UCAS.
“The majority of students are accepted via this route. It’s a more efficient way,” says Iain Harris, an international recruitment officer at the University of Northumbria.
In applying with UCAS, there are two key dates. Oct. 15 is the deadline for applying to most medical, veterinarian and dentistry programs or to the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. For most other undergraduate programs at U.K universities, the deadline is Jan. 15.
[Read how college costs are driving U.S. students to British universities.]
Some universities, U.K. recruiters say, may consider applications submitted after the Jan. 15 deadline, depending on the program.
Summerton submitted her application in March 2016, for example, to several schools for a degree in physics.
Before applying to U.K. universities, the Colorado native called several British universities to understand how the application process worked and the academic requirements for each program.
“I ended up being accepted at Manchester, Newcastle and Edinburgh, just on my AP and ACT grades alone,” says Summerton, who took six Advanced Placement exams and received a score of 5, the highest achievable, on all except one.
Students can find entry requirements on U.K. university websites and many list qualification equivalents, experts say.
The University of Birmingham requires a minimum of a 3.0 or above for a high school GPA, a SAT score of 1290 or higher plus three SAT subject tests or three AP exams with fours or fives depending on the programs, said Carl Adaway, international officer at Birmingham, in an email to U.S. News.
“U.S. school is a 12-year system, but in the U.K., school is a 13-year system. Hence the additional SAT subject tests and/or AP requirements,” Adaway said.
[See photos of the top schools in the U.S. News Best Global Universities rankings.]
Members of the Russell Group — an association that represents 24 public research universities in the U.K., including Birmingham, Manchester, the London School of Economics, Imperial College London and Cambridge, among others — require higher standardized test scores compared with other U.K. schools, experts say.
With the emphasis on AP test results, Summerton says, the only documents that the U.K. universities verified were her APs.
“They don’t seem to care about your high school GPA as much as your test scores,” the Manchester student says.
Summerton recommends U.S. applicants call the university, especially when it comes to how to fill out your test results on UCAS.
“I remember speaking to someone at Newcastle, who walked me through how they wanted to see that on UCAS. So call the university, they’re great,” the Manchester student says.
Adaway advises U.S. students to take the following steps: “Ultimately, do you research, choose your subject, review the prospectus for each university you’re interested in, choose your university and submit your application via UCAS.”
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Steps for U.S. Students Applying to U.K. Universities originally appeared on usnews.com
