- If you want to take a gap year
but still apply to university at the same as everyone else,
then you can defer your entry.
("Something Elated" by Broke For Free)
To apply for deferred entry is really easy
you just tick a little box on the UCAS application
but before you do that, make sure you check
that the courses you're applying for
actually accept students who have deferred entry.
Some subjects, really competitive subjects,
some universities, some courses don't like students
who have deferred entry, they want students
who come straight from school,
so there's no gap in their studying.
So before you apply for a course and deferred entry,
make sure that they are going to accept you.
Because you're gonna need to explain this
on your personal statement,
why you decided to take a gap year,
why you decided to defer your entry
and if you can't come up with a good reason
or you can't explain it well enough
in your personal statement, then you're gonna be
in a little bit of a tricky situation.
You're gonna need to have plans
or at least an idea of plans in place.
You can't just turn up at the interview and say,
"I'm gonna play computer games for a year."
Because, unless you're applying for computer games design,
they might like that, I don't know.
You have to have a plan,
you have to do something productive,
something useful, something good with this year.
Just sitting 'round, playing computer games
and working at the local supermarket
probably isn't going to be good enough reason
to defer your entry for a year.
If you change your mind after you've applied,
it is possible to change it.
If you want to defer your entry,
then contact the universities directly
and see if they will allow you to make that change.
If you've applied for deferred entry
but then don't want to take that up anymore,
this a little bit of a trickier situation,
because the university might not
have places for you straight away.
If they've allocated your place for a year later,
there might not be space for you to start this year.
If you want to take a gap year,
the advantages of deferring entry are
that you're going through the process
with all of your friends at the same time.
So you're applying at the same time,
getting offers at the same time,
you have the whole experience on results' day
of the stress and the anxiety about what is going to happen.
And when your teachers come to writing your references,
you're much fresher in your mind
as opposed to having to remember you a year later,
trying to remember exactly what you were like.
Applying at the same time and deferring entry
is going to be much easier application process.
Your other option is taking a gap year
and then applying a year later.
So you have your grades in hand.
Now, you can go through the process with your peers,
writing your personal statement, but don't actually apply.
Leave your application till September
and get it in right when the UCAS applications open.
Because you're already applying with your grades,
you can pick and choose your universities
a little bit better because you know
whether you're gonna meet the grade requirements or not.
And because you've done this,
the universities might give you an unconditional offer.
You might also have firm plans in place,
because you've had more time to work out
what you're doing on your gap year.
Because when you apply for the UCAS deadline in January,
you may not know what you're doing over the summer.
But if we leave it for a year and apply
when the next round of applications open in September,
you might have got your gap year plans already sorted out
so you can better answer questions
in your personal statement and in an interview,
as to why you're taking a gap year
and what you're going to get out of it.
If you're gonna take a gap year, you got two choices.
You can apply with everyone else and defer your entry
or you can get your results and then apply
and then take your gap year, knowing that you got a place
waiting for you when you come back.
Gap years are fantastic, amazing things,
but only if you use them properly.
("Something Elated" by Broke For Free)