How to apply

Warwick offers intensive, challenging and stimulating undergraduate degrees and our successful applicants will be those who can convince us that their qualifications, motivation and experience will suit them well for such degree courses.

You should be able to demonstrate how your previous study and experiences have given you a keen interest in the subject to which you have applied.

There isn't a right or a wrong way to write your application, but there are a number of things that you should consider to make your application stand out from the crowd. Knowing what the assessors look for is the key to catching their eye.

Selectors will take into account a number of different factors when assessing your application:

• Your academic profile (qualifications and predicted A-level grades) and any other entry requirements
• Your personal statement
• Your academic reference

You can help to make your academic reference relevant by making sure that the person who will be writing your reference knows why you want to study the subject you have chosen to apply for.

You can also make your application stand out from the crowd by paying careful attention to what you put into and how you write your personal statement.

The most important aspect of our assessment of applications is your academic performance, including both achieved and predicted grades.

Personal statements are unlikely to be the single most important factor in deciding whether you receive an offer. However, personal statements may be used alongside other factors as an additional way of ensuring you are well prepared for your chosen course. We may use personal statements for the following reasons:

• For applicants returning to study, or with non-standard qualifications, to ensure depth and breadth of subject knowledge and interest.
• To select between similarly qualified applicants, either when you apply or after the results of your qualifications are released.
• For joint-honours courses, to ensure applicants demonstrate an interest in each of the subjects they are planning to study. For courses with three subjects we expect you to demonstrate an interest in at least two of the three subject areas.
• For courses with interviews, applicants may be asked questions on topics discussed in their personal statement.

See our advice for your personal statement

Your application is assessed by academic Admissions Tutors in departments, and professional Admissions Tutors in the Undergraduate Admissions Team.

We ensure that decisions are made as fairly as possible, and we take as much information about you as we can into account, judging it against the course criteria:

• Existing academic achievements and the context within which they have been achieved (including any exceptional circumstances)
• Predicted grades
• Your personal statement
• Your academic reference
• Finally, we also assess your application in competition with others

Remember that selectors want to hear about you and your interests and potential – there is no one-size-fits-all approach!

As a consequence of the high level of competition for our courses, and because we want to consider your full profile and your potential as an individual rather than simply looking at your actual or predicted grades, it may also take some time to communicate a decision to you.

You can check for updates to your application through UCAS.

You should be aware that decisions are made on a highly competitive basis and therefore we are often unable to make offers to all applicants who meet, or even exceed, the typical entry requirements.

You can read more about the University's Contextual Admissions policy and eligibility criteria on the Contextual Offers webpage.

See when you will hear back after you have applied to Warwick.

You will need to consider whether you wish to study for a single or joint honours degree. Joint honours degrees allow you to broaden your education as well as increasing your skills, showing that you are a flexible thinker and can work across different subject areas. Warwick offers a variety of joint honours degrees from Physics with Business Studies to History and Sociology.

If you want to combine two or more subjects in your degree, you should consider how much of each subject you would like to study. You might choose to study two subjects in equal amounts, or you could study one subject but add a second subject as a smaller element of the course. For example, German and Business Studies would involve roughly equal amounts of study of each subject, while German with Film Studies would see you studying both subjects but spending more time studying German than Film Studies.

Several degrees are interdisciplinary, for example PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) and MORSE (Maths, Operational Research, Statistics and Economics). The strongest applicants for these degrees are able to demonstrate an interest in all aspects of the course, and to appreciate the links between them.

You should think about the length of course you would like to study. Many departments at Warwick offer undergraduate Masters degrees (4 year courses) and there is the choice with some degrees of having a year in industry (an intercalated year) or spending a year overseas.

Many professions do not require you to have a degree in a particular subject. However, if you have a particular career goal in mind you should find out whether your chosen course carries professional accreditation. This means that you may be exempt from elements of professional examinations if you choose to pursue a professional qualification as a graduate. For example, students taking our Accounting and Finance degree may choose modules which lead to professional stage exemptions from the examinations of major accountancy bodies.