Replying to Offers

Take time to consider ALL your offers

It’s really important that you understand the decisions made by universities and colleges – and, above all, that you are happy with your own decisions – before you reply to any of your offers in via UCAS.

You can wait until you have received all university responses before making your decisions, so don’t feel pressured to reply immediately – check your own deadline for replies, and take your time.

Once you’ve heard back from all of your choices

You can decide whether to accept or decline the offers.

When accepting offers, you need to choose which category to accept them under. As we said above, it is important to keep an eye on the date by which you have to do this.

• Unconditional Firm (UF)

If you have unconditional offers, you just need to choose one as your Firm offer and the place is yours! Your Firm choice must be the course that you want to start in September above all the others. You then decline the other offers. It is usually very difficult to change this decision once you’ve made it.

• Conditional Firm (CF)

This is the course that you would ideally like to start in September, providing you meet the conditions set by the university in your offer.

• Conditional Insurance (CI)

This is your back up choice. This choice should have lower entry requirements than your Firm choice so that if you fail to meet the conditions of the Firm offer, you may still be able to meet the conditions of your CI.

• Unconditional Insurance (UI)

This is your back up choice. You have already met the conditions for this choice, so you would definitely start this course if you failed to meet the conditions of your CF.

UCAS Guide to Offer & Reply Combinations

You can find out more about types of offers here and and offers and reply combinations here.

Key dates: Check your deadline for replying

Everyone's reply deadline is different - keep an eye on your UCAS application for yours!