We are committed to ensuring that Higher Education is accessible to everyone, regardless of their background or experiences. One of the ways we do this is through our contextual admissions schemes.
What is contextual admissions?
Contextual admissions means that we use additional information to understand and recognise your potential to succeed at UEA. Using this insight, we could provide you with an offer with reduced entry requirements to study at UEA.
How could UEA apply contextual information to my application?
If you are eligible for one of our contextual admissions schemes, you could be made an offer to study with us with lower entry requirements than the ones advertised on our website as our typical offer.
If you are applying for a course that requires an interview or audition, UEA may use contextual information as part of the screening process to decide who to invite to interview or audition (please note that interviews and auditions are not guaranteed). To check if your course requires an interview or audition, please use our course finder.
Our MBBS Medicine course (A100) does not use contextual data as part of the screening process.
Our schemes
If you are living in England and applying for an undergraduate course you may be eligible for contextual admissions through one of our schemes. You don’t need to do anything to be considered – our admissions team will process your contextual offer automatically, based on the data we and our partners already hold.
GCSE & Subject requirements
All GCSE and subject requirements will remain for all contextual offers
Eligibility:
- Any students who are 18 or 19 years old on 31 August 2023, living in England, who may have had a disrupted educational journey. This is defined by UCAS in their Multiple Equality Measures (MEM).
Qualification requirements:
Students who are studying three A levels, or a BTEC extended diploma. Other qualifications cannot be considered at this time, as similar comparable data is not available through UCAS. We review our contextual admissions policy each year, so this may change in future.
Offer details:
- A level students. A 2 grade reduction from the advertised typical offer (e.g for a course with AAB entry requirements, a contextual offer would be made at BBB)
- BTEC students. A 1 grade reduction the advertised typical offer (e.g a course with DDD entry requirements would receive a contextual offer of DDM)
Exceptions:
This scheme does not apply to;
- MBBS Medicine
- MBBS Medicine with a gateway year
- BA Translation, Media and Modern Language (3 year)
- BA Modern Language (3 year).
Eligibility:
- Students currently studying at East Norfolk 6th Form College
- Students who have taken part in Future Forward (engagement requirements apply)
Qualification requirements:
Students who are studying three A levels, or a BTEC extended diploma. Other qualifications or a mixture of qualifications cannot be considered at this time, as similar comparable data is not available through UCAS. We review our contextual admissions policy each year, so this may change in future.
Offer details:
- A level students. A 2 grade reduction from the advertised typical offer (e.g for a course with AAB entry requirements, a contextual offer would be made at BBB)
- BTEC students. A 1 grade reduction the advertised typical offer (e.g a course with DDD entry requirements would receive a contextual offer of DDM)
Exceptions:
This scheme does not apply to;
- MBBS Medicine
- MBBS Medicine with a gateway year
- BA Translation, Media and Modern Language (3 year)
- BA Modern Language (3 year).
Eligibility:
- Students who have taken part in the Preparing for Medicine Programme (engagement requirements apply)
Qualification requirements:
- Students must meet, or be predicted to meet, the academic entry requirements for the course applied for.
Offer details:
- A guaranteed interview for MBBS medicine, or MBBS Medicine with a gateway year at UEA
Exceptions:
This scheme applies to Medicine only.
If you are studying an Access to Higher Education course at City College Norwich, East Coast College (Yarmouth & Lowestoft) or the College of West Anglia (Kings Lynn) you could be eligible for a reduced offer. You can read more information on entry requirements, subject requirements and support on our mature student webpages.
Eligibility:
Reduced access offers are not available for our foundation year, medicine, midwifery, physiotherapy, or social work courses.
To check if you can apply for a particular course with an Access qualification please use our course finder.
FAQs
How could I get a contextual offer?
There is no need to apply. We receive all of the information we need from your UCAS application, or from our Outreach team if you have taken part in one of the eligible activities.
What data is used for contextual admissions?
For our nationwide scheme, we use data from UCAS called MEM, which indicates when students might be from groups that are underrepresented in Higher Education. This includes:
- Eligibility for ‘free school meals’ (at age of 15 years old)
- School type
- Income deprivation affecting children index (IDACI)
- Postcode data (POLAR4) data that shows areas with low progression to higher education
When would I receive a contextual offer?
When UEA receive your application from UCAS, we will review this to see if you are eligible for one of our schemes. If you are, you will either receive your offer from us with reduced grade requirements, or an invite to interview or audition where we have used your contextual information to make this decision. In your offer we will let you know that your offer is a contextual one.
Questions?
If you have any questions about contextual admissions for 2023 entry, please contact the admissions team by calling +44 (0)1603 591515 or via Live Chat.