Access UCL Scheme

IMD (the Indices of Multiple Deprivation) measure relative deprivation for small geographical areas. IMD ranks every small area from most deprived area to least deprived area.

TUNDRA (tracking underrepresentation by area) classifies local areas across England based on the proportion of 16-year-old state-funded mainstream school pupils who participate in higher education aged 18 or 19 years. UCL uses the TUNDRA LSOA (Lower Super Output Area) as our measure. 

The postcode datasets UCL is using in the 2026 admissions cycle are:

IMD: Lower Super Output Area (LSOA) postcode data sourced from the November 2024 ONS postcode directory and IMD datasets: England: 2019; Northern Ireland: 2017; Scotland: 2020; Wales: 2019. (Quintile 1/Decile 1 or 2 eligible for scheme).

TUNDRA: Office for Students (OfS) postcode look-up data from September 2024 and OfS TUNDRA LSOA data from March 2021. (Quintile 1 eligible for scheme).

Please note: TUNDRA data only applies to postcodes in England. Applicants in Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland can only meet the Access UCL postcode eligibility criteria through the IMD value.

If you think your postcode eligibility has been assessed inaccurately, you must contact us at wp.accessucl@ucl.ac.uk as soon as possible and within two weeks of a decision being made on your application by UCL. Please be aware that offer conditions cannot be changed after you have replied to your offers via UCAS. Please ensure you have contacted UCL within the two-week deadline.

To be eligible for Access UCL as a care experienced student, you must meet all of the following criteria:

1. Be attending or have attended a UK state school or a UK independent school for the award of the Level 3 qualifications that you are offering to meet UCL’s entry requirements. The only qualifications that are eligible for a lower contextual offer are A levels, International Baccalaureate Diploma, Cambridge Pre-U Principal Subjects, or Scottish Advanced Highers.
2. Be aged under 25 on your first day at UCL.
3. Have been looked after by a local authority or been in kinship care as a formal agreement with the local authority, for a minimum of three months (a minimum of 84 days) of your life. The months do not need to be consecutive.

If this applies to you, please make sure you tick the 'time in care' box on your UCAS form.

Qualified applicants in the 2026 entry UCAS admissions cycle who have ticked the box in their UCAS application to indicate that they are care experienced, will be contacted by UCL with details of how to submit evidence once their application has received an initial assessment.

For care experienced students, the evidence we ask for is an email directly from a trusted third party’s professional email address or a scanned letter on organisational headed paper from a trusted third party.  This must confirm that the applicant was looked after by a local authority or in kinship care as a formal agreement with the local authority and the dates that this applied. Informal kinship care does not meet the requirements of the care experienced route to Access UCL eligibility. 

We expect evidence to be provided by the Local Authority of which the applicant is/was in care. In exceptional circumstances (or when an applicant spent time in a comparable situation in another country), we will review any other documentation provided on a case-by-case basis to reach a decision on whether an applicant is eligible through the care experienced route. 

Please note that the duration of applicants’ care experience is measured when their application and eligibility for the Access UCL scheme is assessed. If an applicant’s care experience is ongoing, they must have met the minimum duration requirement by this point.

To be eligible for Access UCL as an estranged student, you must meet all of the following criteria:

1. Be attending or have attended a UK state school for the award of the Level 3 qualifications that you are offering to meet UCL’s entry requirements. The only qualifications that are eligible for a lower contextual offer are A levels, International Baccalaureate Diploma, Cambridge Pre-U Principal Subjects, or Scottish Advanced Highers.
2. Be aged under 25 on your first day at UCL.
3. Be permanently estranged from both parents with no support from, or contact with, either parent for a consecutive and ongoing period of at least six months (a minimum of 181 days) and while undertaking the qualifications that you are using to meet UCL’s entry requirements. 

If this applies to you, please make sure you tick the ‘estranged student’ box on your UCAS form.

Qualified applicants in the 2026 entry UCAS admissions cycle who have ticked the box in their UCAS application to indicate that they are estranged will be contacted by UCL with details of how to submit evidence once their application has received an initial assessment.

For estranged students, the evidence we ask for is:

1. A short statement written by the applicant that briefly outlines the circumstances of their estrangement and their current living situation.
2. Supporting statement(s) from trusted independent third parties who can confirm permanent estrangement.  This person (not a relative or family friend) should have a good standing in the community (for example a teacher, a doctor or local authority representative) and should have known about the situation for a substantial period of time. We ask for an email directly from a trusted third party’s professional email address or a scanned letter on organisational headed paper from a trusted third party.

The statement(s) from the trusted independent third party should include the following information about your situation:

• Details of your current living arrangements (for example, who you live with).
• Details of when the estrangement began and confirmation that it is ongoing.
• Details of any financial support you receive because you are estranged. If the third party would not be able to confirm this, you can email us scans of documents confirming financial support related to estrangement instead.   

Please note that the duration of applicants’ estrangement is measured when their application and eligibility for the Access UCL scheme is assessed. An applicant must have met the minimum duration requirement by this point.

To be eligible for Access UCL, applicants need to be studying at a UK state school (or at a UK independent school if they are care experienced) for their A levels (or equivalent qualifications).

If an applicant is eligible for the Access UCL scheme and receives an offer, this will be at a lower level than the standard offer for applicants studying A levels, International Baccalaureate Diploma, Cambridge Pre-U Principal Subjects or Scottish Advanced Highers. Other qualifications are not eligible for a lower offer.

Resits are generally considered for most UCL courses. Any courses that do not consider resits will outline this in the online prospectus. If you are unsure whether the course you wish to apply for accepts resits, please contact the UCL Admissions Team for further guidance.

For Access UCL purposes, applicants who have been home-schooled or self-taught for the award of the Level 3 qualifications they are offering to meet UCL’s entry requirements will, in many cases, be considered for Access UCL on the same basis as those who attend(ed) a state school.

Home-schooled or self-taught students sitting qualifications at an independent centre as an exam only student may still be eligible for Access UCL. However, paid tuition at an independent educational establishment will usually invalidate eligibility for Access UCL. 

If you are home-schooled or self-taught and you think you may be eligible for Access UCL, you must email us (wp.accessucl@ucl.ac.uk) before you apply or as soon as possible after you have submitted your UCAS application. We must receive your email within two weeks of your UCAS application being submitted, or our automatic systems may flag your application as ineligible, and it may be assessed according to the standard entry requirements.

In this email you must include your full name and UCAS personal ID and fully explain your circumstances. This should include whether you are a home-schooled or self-taught applicant and the nature of your engagement with any educational institutions (such as being an exam-only student registered at an independent exam centre). We will manually assess your Access UCL eligibility and may contact the educational centres involved to verify your situation.

No. There are two instances in which UCL may not contact an applicant to verify this status:

1. Those who are automatically identified as eligible through their home postcode or Free School Meals status and attendance at a state school will not be contacted for verification of their care experienced or estranged status.
2. Where it is determined prior to verification being requested that an applicant has achieved or is predicted to achieve results that would not meet the minimum entry requirement for a contextual offer for the programme, a verification request will not be sent.

Please note that the request for verification and the initial assessment of an application may take place in either order and therefore receiving a request for verification does not indicate that an applicant may be qualified for entry and does not indicate the likelihood of an applicant receiving an offer.

Mature students are assessed against the same Access UCL eligibility criteria as all other applicants. Please note that if you have achieved an undergraduate degree or are in the final year of an undergraduate degree, you will not be eligible for Access UCL.

Being a forced migrant does not, in itself, meet the Access UCL eligibility criteria. However, UCL does not restrict Access UCL eligibility based on fee or immigration status, therefore a forced migrant who meets the eligibility criteria will be considered eligible in the usual way.

Please email the Access UCL Team at wp.accessucl@ucl.ac.uk to confirm your new address and update your address via the UCAS hub. The Access UCL Team will then contact your school to confirm your new address and reassess your eligibility for the scheme. All notification of changes of address must be received by UCL by 30 June in the year of application.

Please note that UCL is not able to consider a change in postcode if an application has already been unsuccessful.

If you have not found the answer to your questions, then please get in touch with the Access UCL team at wp.accessucl@ucl.ac.uk.