Understanding UCAS Data Processing

Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) is the UK central body that receives and processes admission applications. Applicants apply to UCAS. UCAS then distributes the applications to the institutions. Institutions communicate the admission decision to UCAS rather than directly to the applicant.

UCAS provides an XML-Link interface which participating institutions can use to import applications and send back admission decision details to UCAS. UCAS then communicates the decision details to the applicants. PeopleSoft Campus Solutions enables you to connect to UCAS to import full-time undergraduate (FTUG) applications, process the imported applications, and send back the admission decision details to UCAS.

For more information, see www.ucas.ac.uk.

To import and process UCAS applications:

  1. Set up options, including the authentication details to connect to UCAS.

  2. Import reference data, such as ethnic codes, country codes, and application statuses, from UCAS.

  3. Review the imported reference data.

    In some cases, you must map the reference data to the Campus Solutions data, for example, UCAS country codes to Campus Solutions country codes.

  4. Import applications and applicant data from UCAS.

  5. Review and correct errors in the imported applications.

  6. Enter admission decisions for the imported applications.

  7. Communicate the decisions back to UCAS as transactions.

  8. Import any changes to the applicant or applications data maintained by UCAS.

    Data changes that you import from UCAS could be offer responses.

Each combination of an institution and a UCAS course is referred to as a choice.

When the applicant responds to an offer and when his or her exam results are available, the institution confirms or rejects the conditional offer by comparing the applicant's exam results with the conditions. Campus Solutions enables you to import the exam results, match the results with the offer conditions and process Confirmation decisions.

An applicant who does not have an admission offer becomes eligible for Clearing.

The UCAS Admissions Guide and Decision Processing Manual provide more information about Confirmation, Clearing, and Extra. This guide and manual are available to subscribers from the UCAS website.