We’ve worked with over 180 universities and colleges, 700 teachers and representative bodies, and nearly 15,000 students to build on the findings from the Reimagining UK Admissions report 2021.
Following an extensive review of the UCAS Undergraduate reference process with our adviser and provider advisory groups, including The Admissions Development Group, and broader validation with our key customer groups, reference requirements will be changing for 2024 entry.
Universities and colleges have told us that it’s becoming challenging to meaningfully compare applicants’ academic references as the content varies from referee to referee.
Advisers report increasing pressure to invest more and more time in compiling the references with an expectation that this will increase applicants’ chances of success
References are there to reinforce what’s on that application form. What we want are the exceptional circumstances that may surround an applicant. The new structure hopefully won’t take an adviser so long, it’ll be much shorter, much more succinct and we won’t miss anything.
The reference is most valuable where it is providing us with additional, contextual information about the student (especially where their educational journey has been, in any way, non-standard). There is considerable variation in what is included in the current reference so the hope is the reformed statement will be fairer to all applicants.
To help advisers focus their references on the areas you want to know more about, we’re replacing the free text approach with three structured sections.
Advisers will have the following three structured questions for all undergraduate applications starting with the 2024 entry cycle:
No technical changes will be required by you or your software vendors, and the reformed reference will feed through to web-link and xml-link via the existing reference field.
The outputs will clearly display what answers refer to which questions under the following headings. For more information, please see our recent development webinar.
Over the next few days Advisers will have oversight of the new reference guidance for 2024, on ucas.com.
We have updated the reference guidance for Advisers. Our guidance outlines each section for UCAS registered centre references as well as independent applicant references.