How to accept your undergraduate offer

A conditional offer means we will offer you a place if you meet certain conditions, which are usually based on your exams.

Our offers are normally expressed in terms of A-Level grades, or their equivalent, depending on what qualifications you will be sitting. You may be asked to achieve specific grades in named subjects.

Our Made Offer Terms and Conditions can be found here.

An unconditional offer means you have met all the academic requirements for your chosen course and we are happy to accept you. We may contact you if we need proof of your qualifications, by email in the first instance. 

We are aware of the trend for some universities to make unconditional offers to applicants who are yet to complete their A-Levels or other Level 3 qualifications.

In general terms, we only make unconditional offers to applicants who have already met our entry requirements. We feel that unconditional offers based purely on predicted performance are unhelpful both to applicants and their advisers.  Our courses are challenging and it is important that students are resilient and equipped to take advantage of the many opportunities provided by our undergraduate programmes. 

If you have applied to Swansea University and have received an unconditional offer from elsewhere we would encourage you to contact us on 01792 295111 to discuss any concerns you may have.

This information is intended to help advise you if you have received a conditional offer from Swansea and an unconditional offer elsewhere.

All Made Offer Terms and Conditions can be found on our Admissions Webpages. 

A choice can be withdrawn either by you or us. The reason will be displayed on your UCAS Hub. An offer may be withdrawn by us because you didn't respond to emails or letters from us, requesting important information, or if you didn't attend an interview for a course that requires it.

This means that, unfortunately, we have decided not to offer you a place.

We may decline your application for many reasons, one of which could be that the course is full, so it may not be based on the quality of your application. If you would like to find out why your application was unsuccessful, please contact us and we will try to give you useful feedback which may help with future applications.

When you have heard from all the universities that you have applied for, UCAS will ask you to narrow down your original choices to a 'firm' choice and an 'insurance' choice.

If you receive two or more offers, you should consider holding an insurance offer which has grade requirements lower than your firm choice. If you fail to meet the conditions of your firm choice, but you have accepted a suitable insurance offer, you will still have a guaranteed place at university.

You don’t have to make an insurance choice, but it is sensible to have a back-up.

Your firm choice should be the university that you consider is best for you, not necessarily the one with the highest offer. Your insurance university should also be a place where you would be happy to live and study.

We Recommend:

• If you haven't already done so, come and visit us, either on an organised Open Day or informally. Talk to current students and academic staff if possible, and take in the Swansea atmosphere.
• Be realistic about what grades you will get; make sure that if you choose an insurance offer, its requirements are lower than those of your firm offer.
• Visit the UCAS website, where you will find information about the application procedure and some helpful hints.
• Talk to your family, teachers, advisors and friends about your options.
• Contact us if there is any other information you need which might help your decision-making.

You will need to inform UCAS which two courses you are choosing through your UCAS account. When you have done this, UCAS will reject all your other offers on your behalf.

If this has been included in your offer, we need you to send us evidence of your results, before the start of term. We will usually need copies of your highest qualifications at Level 3 - normally this is A-Levels, BTEC qualifications or Access to Higher Education Diplomas for example.  Please send them via email to admissions@swansea.ac.uk, quoting your UCAS ID. We can accept PDF copies, or clear, legible photographs.

These are requirements for many professional courses, particularly but not exclusively healthcare-related programmes.

If you have accepted an offer from Swansea University which makes reference to these checks, the Admissions Team will contact you with more information during the spring before you are due to commence your studies.

We are happy to consider requests for deferred entry for most courses.  There are some exceptions – such as Graduate Entry Medicine, and some other professional programmes.  This is because of the intense competition in these areas for a very small number of places. 

For all other courses you are welcome to request deferred entry, but please contact us as soon as you decide to take a year out, so that we can offer your place to another candidate.

Please see our Accommodation web pages for further information on how to apply and the types of accommodation available.

If you have changed your examination subjects from the ones you listed on your application form, please contact the Admissions Office to tell us. If you don’t let us know, your application will be delayed in the summer when your examination results are released while we try to find out the result of the missing exam. This could have an effect on you receiving your choice of accommodation if there are delays with confirming your place.

If there are any extenuating or mitigating circumstances that have impacted your studies or exams you’d like to tell us about, please initially drop us an email on admissions@swansea.ac.uk, citing your UCAS ID.

We will always try to accommodate any challenges or circumstances you’ve faced during the decision-making process, as well as on results day itself.

Once you’ve emailed us, we’ll let you know if we need any more information and how we can take these into account.

There is no need to wait until you know your examination results before making an application for financial support. Please read our Fees and Funding pages for further information.

Universities typically indicate that they are making an unconditional offer because they have been impressed with the candidate’s application. As flattering as it can be to receive such an offer, we would suggest that you consider why a university is behaving in this way. In this situation, you are being invited to enrol on a degree programme without having to demonstrate prior achievement or a relevant base of subject knowledge. This says quite a lot about the university and their lack of confidence in being able to attract strong students.

While it can be reassuring for applicants to know that one of their UCAS choices is willing to give them an unconditional offer, it is important to fully consider the implications of accepting offer in these circumstances.

When deciding which offer(s) to accept, we would encourage you to base your decision primarily on the course and university that you feel represents the best long-term opportunity for you, rather than on whether their place would be automatically guaranteed.

Don’t panic. At Swansea University, we’re proud of our flexible approach.

We make offers where we feel applicants demonstrate they are capable of meeting our entry requirements and succeeding on their chosen course.

If you accept Swansea as your firm choice but narrowly miss the conditions of your offer, we will do everything we can to consider whether we could still admit you anyway. Our Admissions Selectors will revisit your application, including your personal statement and your reference, to make a case to still offer you a place – if not on the course to which you’d originally applied, but an alternative we think would be suitable for you. If you were to fall into this category on A-Level Results Day, we’ll let you know early that morning via email.

We value the commitment that a student makes in opting to hold Swansea as firm choice or insurance choice and recognise that these applicants have fully researched their UCAS options and choices.