How to pick your 5 UCAS choices

Your UCAS application lets you apply for up to five courses. Choosing them well is one of the most important decisions in the whole process, because it decides what offers you’ll have to pick from in the spring.

This guide covers the rules first, then how to build a set of five that gives you real options.

The rules

• Up to five choices, for one application fee. For 2027 entry the fee is £34.50, whether you use one choice or all five. You may not have to pay it if you got free school meals at secondary school or you’re a care leaver: check UCAS for the details.
• Medicine, dentistry and veterinary courses: at most four of your five choices can be for these. The fifth can be any other course, and many people use it for a related subject such as biomedical science.
• Oxford or Cambridge, not both: you normally can’t apply to both universities in the same year.
• One personal statement goes to all five choices, so they need to make sense together (more on this below).
• You don’t have to use all five at once. If you apply with fewer, you can add more before 30 June, as long as you haven’t replied to any offers. Choices added after 13 January count as late, though, so it’s best to use all five by then.

Step 1: Pick the subject first

Before thinking about universities, settle on the subject. Because every university sees the same personal statement, your choices should be the same subject or closely related ones. Psychology at five universities works well. Psychology, law and nursing is very hard to write one convincing statement for.

If you’re torn between two subjects, look for courses that combine them, or pick the one you could write about with real enthusiasm.

Step 2: Mix ambitious, realistic and safer choices

This is where most people go wrong. A common mistake is applying only to the most competitive universities, ending up with no offers, and having to rely on Extra or Clearing.

A good set of five usually includes:

• One or two ambitious choices: courses where the typical offer is a bit above your predicted grades. Worth a try, but not guaranteed.
• Two realistic choices: courses where your predicted grades match the typical offer.
• At least one safer choice: a course where your predicted grades are comfortably above the typical offer. This is likely to become your insurance choice later: the back-up you’ll hold in case your results come in lower than expected.

Our UCAS choices planner does this check for you. Save the courses you’re considering, add your predicted grades, tick your five, and it labels each one as ambitious, realistic or safer, and warns you if the mix is lopsided.

Step 3: Compare the things that matter to you

Entry grades tell you how hard a course is to get into, not how good it is. Before settling on your five, compare things like:

• Student satisfaction: do current students rate the teaching?
• How many students stay: a low continuation rate can be a warning sign.
• Graduate jobs and salaries: what graduates of this course actually go on to do.
• The course itself: modules, how you’re assessed, placement years and years abroad.
• The place: distance from home, cost of living, city or campus.

Each subject page on this site shows the first three from official data, and you can compare up to three universities side by side. Not sure where to start? Try our Find your uni quiz.

Step 4: Check the real entry requirements

Before you finalise anything, read each university’s own course page. Look for:

• the typical offer for this year
• required subjects, such as an A in Maths or a science at A-level
• admissions tests or interviews, which are common for medicine, law and Oxbridge
• contextual offers: many universities make lower offers to students from certain schools, areas or backgrounds, so check whether you qualify

Mistakes to avoid

• Five ambitious choices. Even strong applicants get rejected by competitive courses. Without a safer choice, you can end up with nothing.
• A “safe” choice you’d never go to. If it becomes your only offer, you’ll regret it.
• Choosing on the name alone. A famous university isn’t automatically the best place for your subject. Check the subject rankings.
• Ignoring required subjects. If a course needs A-level Chemistry and you don’t take it, the application is wasted.
• Mixing unrelated subjects. Your personal statement will be weaker for all of them.

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