UCAS rating
Accurate: ***
Comparative: **
Comprehensive: ***
Detailed: *
Independent: **
Understanding:
Problems: UCAS’s various publications, its website and helpline cover only courses, colleges and codes.
Strangely, UCAS’s independence is a bit of a handicap, because it means that, although it often seems they deal only in hard facts, in fact they deal only in official information provided by the universities. A very different thing.
What they’re good for: UCAS is very good on what courses are available where and what you’ll need to get in (especially their website — it’s not the easiest to use, but persist, there’s plenty of stuff in there). UCAS is essential, of course, for the application process itself and all the paperwork that has to fly all over the country. On these matters, they are very helpful and surprisingly efficient. (They’d be even better if their systems were simpler and they wrote instructions in plain English.)
Verdict: Good on what’s available where. Essential for the basic data and the process, but it ends there.
Last updated on: 21 May 2008