Robbie Wojciechowski is going to study at Goldsmiths without any A-levels. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
Universities are changing the way they think about candidates with alternative qualifications. Not only are they beginning to accept applications from them, they're offering courses specifically tailored towards non-traditional students.
In the complete absence of A-levels or equivalent qualifications, some universities are even prepared to accept life and work experience as an alternative to formal education.
After he left school, with two AS-levels and no A-levels, Wojciechowski wrote a little series for Guardian Students called Boy Adrift about how difficult it was to take the next step in life without proper qualifications. But he did have a sense of direction – and he wanted to work in the media. He made contacts by becoming a prolific tweeter (@robbieflash) and he found jobs as a freelance journalist and researcher.
He wrote for several newspapers, and once interviewed Julian Assange. Then, after a year and a half, he found himself in a work slump and started to think about applying to university.
"My personal statement was always going to be unique," says Wojciechowski. "I started off saying 'I'm not like other students'."
He applied through Ucas as an individual and was offered places at Goldsmiths and Leeds universities. Leeds offered him a place on its extended programme, which includes a foundation year, but Goldsmiths offered him direct entry on to the bachelor's course.
Wojciechowski decided to go to Goldsmiths.
Claire Chalmers, student recruitment officer at Goldsmiths, says Wojciechowski's is a very special case. Chalmers explains that while the university is committed to offering places to students without traditional qualifications, often this means offering them places on their integrated degrees.
Goldsmiths looked at Wojciechowski's Ucas form and then called him in for an interview. It also asked him for two additional pieces of work before he was offered a place.
Many universities would have offered him a place on an integrated degree course, also known as an extended programme or a widening participation programme. It's a four-year foundation plus bachelor's degree course, aimed at students without the typical Ucas entry requirements. Provided students meet the requirements of the foundation year, they progress on to the rest of the degree.
Goldsmiths, Leeds, Bath, Manchester and Swansea universities are among those offering such courses. According to Ucas, there are 1,097 courses in the UK that have a foundation year included as part of the main course. But finding them, especially when applying through Ucas as an individual, is a taxing process.
Daniel Grist, 23, went through this procedure when he decided to apply to university after six years of being in the army. Grist left school at 16 with a handful of GCSEs and served first as an officer and then as a sniper. By the time he was 22, Grist was ready to leave the army and to think about education again.
"The plan was to go to university," says Grist, "but I didn't know how to do it." He assumed that he would need to take A-levels to obtain a place to read environmental engineering, the course he had his heart set on. But Grist was hoping there might be an alternative route into university, one that would start right away.
He was delighted when Swansea University made him an offer on an extended programme for environmental engineering. He won't have to take A-levels and once he passes the foundation year, he will be on a full degree.
Grist did all his research on his own, without the support sixth-formers have from their school university advisers. He sought advice from the army's education centre, but they weren't aware of the options available to him as a university applicant without A-levels. Wojciechowski also had to rely heavily on the advice of journalists and contacts he'd made in his working life to help him work out how to get into university.
"In the absence of pastoral support, it's blind research and motivation," says Chalmers. As individuals, candidates are responsible for providing universities with all the components associated with their applications.
"It was long-winded to get all the data," says Wojciechowski.
Grist and Wojciechowski both struggled with formal classroom learning. They had university in their long-term plans, but just weren't ready at 16 to start the process. Neither was Peter Sloane, who left school at 16 with a B in GCSE art and the rest Fs and ungraded, and went to work in a factory.
"Further education and higher education were never mentioned at my school," says Sloane. Hereson secondary school in Kent has since closed down, but when Sloane, 35, was a pupil there he felt qualifications weren't regarded as important. The line of work most Hereson pupils went into was manual labour.
"While I was working in the factory, I was reading things like Plato's Republic and Descartes' Meditations," says Sloane. "It took a while for me to figure out this could be more than just a hobby."
It was at a local college's open day that Sloane discovered he could take an access to higher education course and apply to university. Sloane took the equivalent of A-levels in English and history and successfully applied to Bristol University to do English literature. He has now finished his first year of a fully-funded PhD at Bristol, focusing on the American author David Foster Wallace. "I'd like to write the first book-length study on him," says Sloane, who wants to pursue a career in academia.
Students from the Acorn school do not have A-levels to list on their Ucas forms as the tiny private school in Gloucestershire doesn't offer public examinations. Its headmaster, Graeme Whiting, doesn't approve of the country's education system and instead offers a Steiner-inspired approach to teaching, where the focus is on holistic learning and morality.
"I believe education has the task to educate young people in a way for knowledge to become a part of them," says Whiting.
Each year, about eight students apply to university from the Acorn school. In their Ucas forms they provide progress reports from the school, along with a 30,000-40,000 word leather-bound book on an academic topic of their choosing. "All of them get into the university of their choice," says Whiting.
According to Whiting, about 20 of the 70 or so students who've gone on to university graduated with firsts and almost everyone else was awarded a 2.1.
"A-level students aren't the only people most suited for university courses," says Wojciechowski. "I wish there were more admission tutors who were accepting of alternative students. They're being missed, especially at the traditional universities."
I want to go to university, but don't have any A-levels. What are my options?
• You can take A-levels through the National Extension College, which offers a home-learning option.• An access to higher education course is specifically designed to prepare students for university. These courses are offered at local colleges and you will also be offered help with the Ucas process.
• You can apply through Ucas for an integrated degree, which includes a foundation year for students who don't meet the typical entry requirements. There is no single listing of these courses – you will have to contact Ucas for help or call individual universities to ask if they offer these courses.
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