Informing us about circumstances that have affected your educational performance

We understand that sometimes a person’s academic progress and attainment may have been impacted by circumstances that were beyond their control; we may take this into consideration if those circumstances are unlikely to have a bearing on your ability to subsequently succeed at university.

Extenuating circumstances may be considered at either A: the application review stage and/or B: the point of reviewing your final results.

Please note that this is separate from our standard Contextual OffersLink opens in a new window policy, which has specific eligibility criteria; you do not need to fill in an extenuating circumstances form to be assessed for a contextual offer.

Important

We cannot say in advance whether an application is likely to be successful or not on consideration of extenuating circumstances.

Submitting an extenuating circumstances form does not guarantee that the University will make you an offer or that we will accept you if you do not meet the conditions of your offer.

If you have a disability or long-term health condition, we will generally not consider this a mitigating circumstance unless:

• there were no appropriate adjustments made for studies or exam performance or
• you had an acute episode of illness which had a particular impact on a period of study or your exam performance.

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A: When applying to Warwick and advice for referees

Form A allows you to provide information explaining how your recent education, academic progress, and/or attainment (for example your GCSE grades) have been negatively impacted by circumstances beyond your control and which may be helpful to us when reviewing your application at the point of offer. Relevant circumstances may include:

- Bereavement

- Significant ill health

- Domestic or social difficulties

Ideally your referee should include any such information within your reference – if we have received this information in your UCAS reference you do not need to provide it again. Please see this page for guidance on references.

If it was not possible or appropriate for the information to be provided by your referee, or if you need to send further supporting attachments, then you or your referee should complete Form A.

The information will be considered alongside your application and used to determine whether we can make you an offer (where we might not otherwise have done so purely on academic grounds), and/or whether in very exceptional circumstances, a discretionary reduced offer might be appropriate.

Deadline:

Extenuating circumstances Form As must be received within two weeks of submitting your UCAS application; information received after a decision has already been communicated will not be considered unless this was within two weeks of you applying via UCAS.

B: After you have received an offer

If extenuating circumstances affect your performance in your final exams or assessments, you will be able to tell us about this by completing Form B. Form B will be opened to offer holders in July 2024.

How we consider extenuating circumstances

The information you provide will be treated in confidence, and only shared with necessary members of the Undergraduate Admissions Service and relevant academic members of staff. All submissions will be reviewed by a panel of at least two staff members, to ensure fairness and consistency.

In the form we ask for details of a third party whom we can contact regarding the information you have submitted. Depending on the circumstances you have mentioned this could be a teacher, medical professional, social worker etc., but we ask that you do not name friends or relatives as referees. If the nature of your circumstances is highly confidential, and as such only close friends or relatives are aware, please let us know when submitting your form so we can advise you further.

This form should not be used to submit information in relation to general educational disruption or changes to examinations as a consequence of COVID-19.