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Put simply, if you meet criteria below to show that you have experienced an element of disadvantage in your life and/or education so far, but we believe you could succeed with the right support, we will reduce our usual entry requirements, usually by one grade, to give you a better chance of securing your place to study at Harper Adams.

To be eligible for a contextualised offer you must:

• be a UK resident.

and

• live in an area where it is either unusual to go to university, using a government database which determines Participation of Local Areas in higher education (POLAR 4) or it is socially or economically disadvantaged, using the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), for each postcode.

OR

• identify as a Care Leaver as indicated on your UCAS form. For more information about this, please contact .

To find out if you are eligible for a contextualised offer complete the form on the link below and our Access Team will provide you with an individualised assessment.

Your UCAS application will be carefully checked by our Admissions Team to see if you qualify for a contextualised offer and you will be advised if this is the case in our offer communications. You are welcome to contact our Access Team if you have any questions about our work to support applicants and students from a wide range of backgrounds to make a successful application and maximise their potential once on-course.

What if I live in an area from which very few people go to university?

Don’t let that put you off! We have access to a range of data to show us where you are from and what you might have faced. If you live in a low-participation neighbourhood (the official term for it) you could well be eligible for a reduced tariff offer.

What if I have been in care/am about to leave care when I start university?

We understand some of the challenges you might face, or anxieties you might have. Harper Adams is signed up to the Care Leaver Covenant and had made a range of commitments to support you. In addition to consideration for a contextualised offer, you will receive details of a named contact person to help with your transition to university.

Note: Access to Harper is for Harper Adams undergraduate degrees only. The 5 year Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery degree at the Harper & Keele Veterinary School is not included in this scheme.

• All undergraduate programmes: 1 grade drop from level 3 standard entry requirements
• Foundation Year Programme: reduction of 1 GCSE grade from standard requirements (so 4 GCSEs at grade C/4 alongside Level 3 qualifications and 5 GCSEs at grade C/4 for those without level 3) must include English Language, Maths and a Science.
• Agriculture: in addition to the 1 grade drop, will reduce GCSE requirements to 4 GCSEs at grade C/4 for Extended Diploma applicants (in line with standard A level requirements) (must include English Language, Maths and a Science.)

If you are aged 21 and over, and are applying to university after some time out of education, we can support you to embark upon degree study to help you pursue your passion, advance your learning or change career entirely.

We have adjusted our standard entry requirements to make them more accessible for mature applicants, by reducing the number of GCSEs required:

• All courses except Foundation Year Programme: 3 GCSEs at grade C/4 or above, including English Language, Maths and where required Science. (If Science is not required for the course then any third subject would be acceptable) Level 3 requirements must still be met.
• Foundation Year Programme: 4 GCSEs at grade C/4 or above, including in English Language, Maths and Science for those with a level 3 qualification

We welcome enquiries from mature applicants who do not meet our standard requirements, and will happily review CVs and make recommendations prior to formal application. For mature applicants, the Foundation Year Programme may be a good way to get back into Higher education.

Depending on prior relevant employment history, mature applicants may be exempt from completing the placement year, following assessment by the Course Manager, meaning that a degree may be completed in three years rather than four.

• Care Leavers will be provided with the contact of a named person to help with their transition to Harper Adams and they will be provided with details of the Care Leavers Covenant.
• The Disrupted Studies Policy provides applicants who have faced additional problems during the course of their studies, the opportunity to submit information to enable the Admissions Team to make additional considerations at confirmation if they miss their offer. This would be beyond any extenuating circumstances submitted to the exam board by their school/college. Details of the policy and the relevant forms can be found in the .
• The Admissions Team will ensure that all applicants with a strong application will receive additional consideration at confirmation if they do not exactly meet the conditions of their offer (subject to places being available).

Collectively, these initiatives form just a small part of our Access and Participation Plan. Through this Plan we have identified that we need to do more to actively encourage those from areas which are disadvantaged or where it is unusual to go to University, as well as those from a Black, Asian or other Minority Ethnic (BAME) heritage, to study with us. In doing so, we hope to enrich the graduate Talent Pool for the industries we serve, as we have recently identified that students from these groups are not as well represented in the Harper Adams’ student community as we would like.  is summarised below and provides the driver for us to ensure that, whatever their background, every applicant and every student who joins us is supported to succeed and reach their full potential. Our Access and Participation Plan 2020-25 sets out how we will achieve this.

Transparency information

This workbook contains data tables relating to the attainment of 2021-22 qualifiers.

Campus Tour Afternoons and Open Day dates are listed on our website. If You  would like to join us at an event please follow the instructions to register online.

If the qualifications you have completed or are currently studying are not listed please contact the Admissions Team who will be happy to advise you on your eligibility. We are happy to consider a wide range of qualifications and  different combinations, so just drop us an email or give us a call and we can talk it through!

Placement years are a really important, compulsory, assessed part of some of our undergraduate degrees. We have found employers really like this feature of our courses and it helps graduates to find a job after they have completed their studies. In a small number of circumstances, those with significant relevant experience working in industry, upwards of at least 2 years, may be exempt from placement, however, this experience would need to be assessed by the Course Manager against the learning outcomes required for placement. We recommend however, that even those students with experience complete a placement year. If you have any questions regarding the placement year please contact the Admissions Team.

We welcome applications from candidates who have chosen not to enter higher education directly from school/college, particularly if they are gaining further practical work experience.

A year between school and college can sometimes be beneficial in developing your maturity and motivation. If you are thinking of taking a year out you can apply in the usual way in your final year at school/college, indicating the year of entry on your UCAS form. If you later decide that you wish to begin university earlier, please contact the Admissions Officer by email as soon as possible. Also remember that  you can  apply to us during your gap year. Please note that if you apply for deferred entry, you will need to fulfil the terms of any offer during the application cycle, so unfortunately you are unable to use a “gap” year to obtain any required work experience.

Validation is the process through which courses are initially developed and then improved to give students the very best experience, taking into account employer feedback and subject developments.

If you have a foundation degree or HND you may be able to convert it to a full degree with an extra one year of full-time study, depending on your existing qualification and whether you top-up to a BSc or a BSc honours degree. Having a full degree really does open more doors to graduate level employment or running your own business. If you are interested in a top-up degree, please contact the Admissions Team for advice regarding your eligibility. Unfortunatley we can only consider UK HNDs or Foundation degrees that significantly match our own foundation degree courses.

A list of the term dates can be found on the Key Information page.

If you are applying for any of these courses, work experience is very useful and will enhance your application, but is not compulsory.

For applicants of Land and Property Management courses a minimum of one week in a rural chartered surveyors or land agent prior to starting the course, would be particularly beneficial, but is not essential.

Work experience is essential

If you are planning to study Veterinary Nursing , you’ll need some more detailed work experience to support your application. We will send you links to all the required forms to complete and return if we are in a position to make you an offer of a place.

Please note our work experience requirements apply equally to all applicants and exceptions cannot be made. Work experience must be completed within the same application cycle and if an applicant chooses to defer their entry,  a "gap year" cannot be used to gain the required experience to meet the conditions of any offer.

For the 2025 application cycle

A minimum of 4 weeks (20 days) work experience carried out since July 2023, is required. This should comprise at least 2 weeks (10 days) in veterinary practice (preferably 5 days of this should be in a block) and the remainder in an animal related placement. You are welcome to do all of the four weeks in a veterinary practice if you wish to. Ideally some of this work experience should be completed prior to application. Work experience must be completed and evidence of this submitted by 3rd July in the cycle in which you apply.

What constitutes a 'week'?

35 hours (in a block or separate, however must cover different times of the day to experience different client types)

Acceptable types of experience

10 days must be within a small animal veterinary practice. The experience does not need to be in an RCVS approved training practice, although this would be beneficial.

Examples of alternative animal related placements may include: livestock farm, stables or livery yard, wildlife centre, zoo, dog training school, groomers, dog day care, rescue or boarding kennels/cattery, experience in a hydrotherapy unit or rehabilitation centre, time spent working alongside a veterinary physiotherapist, chiropractor or osteopath, time spent in a large animal/equine/farm veterinary practice.

For offer making purposes, we will only consider work experience that has taken place in the period 2 years immediately before the course start date. This is to ensure that you have recent experience on the most up to date practices and procedures.

Further information

It is the responsibility of the applicant to provide the evidence of the experience when requested. This evidence must include a satisfactory signed reference from each veterinary practice attended.  If an offer of a place is made, we will provide instructions on how to send us your work experience evidence. Please keep a log of your experience and then enter it into the record system to submit it all together, in one go. This is important. If you try to add information at a later date it won’t match-up and may be missed, meaning your application could then be rejected for having insufficient work experience. Do ensure you complete all sections fully and accurately, and please be aware that we audit a random sample of work experience each year so any irregularities would affect your application.

The RCVS has a website facility called which can be used to find practices based on a postcode search. When contacting veterinary practices to enquire about a work experience place, it is important to stress that you are applying to study Veterinary Nursing at degree level at University and that it is an entry requirement for the course. This may give you priority over those wanting general work experience while at school. It is best to write or email in the first instance, then follow up with a phone call. It is important to show enthusiasm and be persistent, but without pestering.

No other courses have compulsory work experience requirements, but bear in mind that work experience always gives you confidence and a competitive edge when academic requirements have already been met or exceeded. It will also be helpful when on course as you can apply what you have learnt during work experience to your theoretical studies and view learning from a different perspective.

We understand that securing suitable work experience may be a daunting prospect, especially if you do not have any contacts within your course area. We also understand that it may be difficult to get the variety of experience required. However, please note that we ensure that all applicants have the same levels of work experience in each course area, as experience has taught us that students perform better on their course and during their placement year if they have practical experience which they can relate to and take examples from.

We recommend that you collate information and references in relation to your work experience and build up a portfolio to demonstrate what you have done. We would advise all applicants, where possible, to obtain references on letter headed paper at the point the experience is completed so you have a full record of the depth and breadth of experience obtained and to avoid having to contact experience employers retrospectively.

We will do our very best to process applications within a few days of receipt. You will receive an email acknowledgement when your application has been successfully received by us, which could be a few days after you have sent it to UCAS. We may need to contact you for some further information if we are unable to consider your application without it, so please ensure that you regularly check your emails. We might ask for things such as copies of certificates, details of work experience completed or anything else which may be missing from the UCAS form. Our Foundation Year Programme courses and international students require an interview before a decision can be made on your application, and we will arrange this with you if necessary. The latest date by which all universities must advise you of their decision is usually early May (for on-time applications).

If you have any questions at all about your application at any stage, please get in contact - we are a friendly bunch and we are here to help you!

We are very sorry but we are only able to discuss the details of an application with the applicant themselves or with the person nominated as a contact on UCAS. If you need to discuss your application further with us, it is best if you try to do this yourself, otherwise we may be limited in what we can talk about. 

Some applicants might need an interview. We currently only routinely interview applicants for our Foundation Year Programme courses and International applicants who require a visa to study.

We aim to keep our interviews as relaxed as possible - we are not trying to catch you out! The main purpose is to ensure that you are suitable for the course and that the course is right for you.

Interviews for our Foundation Year  Programme courses will take place virtually via Microsoft Teams. Applicants suitable for interview will be sent an invitation by email with clear instructions on how to participate. 

Interviews for other courses will only be required on an ad-hoc basis should the Course Manager wish to discuss any aspect of your application.

All potentially suitable international applicants who require visa sponsorship will need to be interviewed virtually via Microsoft Teams.

Your interview will be with a member of the course team to which you have applied. International applicants may also be interviewed by our English Language Support Team Manager.

You can expect to be asked about:

• the reasons behind your course choice and career aspirations
• any work experience you have completed and what you felt you gained from it
• questions relating to the area you have applied for (such as latest developments or media stories).

Following your interview, we aim to make decisions within 2 weeks, although in most cases you will hear from us much sooner than this. All decisions will be shared with you via UCAS so we recommend you check this regularly. You will also receive an email from us containing other important information.

If you did not require an interview, you can expect to receive a decision within 10 days of receipt of your application. If we have requested additional information from you, it will take a little longer to review your application.

If you receive an offer from us you will need to wait until you have heard from all of your chosen universities before you are able to make your firm and insurance choices. UCAS will tell you the date by which you need to make a decision.

If you are unsuccessful we will write to you personally to explain the reason for our decision and offer advice for any future applications where applicable.

If you receive an offer it will either be conditional or unconditional.

A conditional offer means you still need to meet some of our requirements, which could be exam results, amount or type of work experience, English language requirements or other conditions such as deposits for international students.

An unconditional offer means that you have met all of our requirements and will have a confirmed place at ÎÞÂ붯»­ should you choose to accept it. We really hope you do!

Once you have an offer from ÎÞÂ붯»­, please visit the proceeding with your application page.

We receive a large amount of summer results  directly from UCAS for qualifications such as A and AS Levels, Scottish Higher/Advanced Highers, Irish Leaving Certificate and the International Baccalaureate. We also receive a large proportion of BTEC level 3 qualifications, including the Extended Diploma, City and Guilds Extended and Advanced Technical Extended Diplomas and Access to HE Diplomas.

We will need to receive evidence of other qualifications such as GCSEs and other level 2 qualifications directly from the applicant .

If you receive any results and believe we may not have them, you are more than welcome to send us a copy. If we do not receive your results from UCAS as expected, or we know that they are not coming from UCAS, we will ask you to send us a copy of your results as soon as you receive them. Scanned copies or clear photographs of the required documents can be emailed to the  Admissions Office. 

Congratulations!

If ÎÞÂ붯»­ was your first choice and you have met the conditions of your offer, or have an unconditional offer, we look forward to seeing you in September. Please ensure that you continue to check your emails as we will send you lots of exciting information and important updates until the start of term, including instructions on how to enrol. Don't forget to visit the applicants' section of the website. 

Don't panic! We value highly those applicants who have chosen us as their Firm choice institution so once we receive your results we will try our very best to ensure you are on the course of your choice or an alternative course that would lead onto it.

We will never automatically reject an applicant without fully reviewing their results and their overall application, providing places are available on an alternative suitable course. If we do offer you a change of course, and if you are happy with this, you will need to go onto UCAS to accept the course change.

Unfortunately we cannot guarantee that we can offer a place to everyone. In circumstances where we are unable to offer a place we will give advice on what can be done to improve a future application.

Congratulations!

If you have met your offer and you are happy with your place, there is nothing you need to do. If you would like to be considered for an alternative course with us, you are more than welcome to contact the Admissions Team and we will review your qualifications for the alternative course.

Only you can decide what is best for you but gathering as much information as possible is crucial. Visit the university, speak to staff and students, re-read the course information and evaluate which course best meets your needs and ambitions. Use the channels listed at the top of the page to ask questions or arrange to speak to someone in person. The Admissions Team are more than happy to help with any questions or to put you in touch with the right people to help with your decision-making.  

Thank you and Congratulations, you have taken a big step towards your future! Our admissions and student services teams will stay in touch with you and you will be invited to apply for accommodation and be given advice on applying for finance. You will also be invited to join an online community where you can meet your fellow future students and start to build your university network.

Please visit our additional FAQs for students due to join us in September.

We also have a page of FAQs dedicated to student finance. 

We will need a reference before we can offer a place for the course but if you are having difficulties with this please contact the Admissions Team and we will advise you.

If you are now considering applying to ÎÞÂ붯»­ please contact the Admissions Team  stating your qualifications and the course(s) you are interested in. Please do not withdraw from the offer you are currently holding until we have let you know whether we are likely to consider an application from you. 

The UCAS application facility opens in September and all ‘on-time’ applications must be submitted by the last Wednesday in January. Any applications submitted after this date will be classed as ‘late’ and institutions are not obliged to consider them. However, where we still have places available, we guarantee to review late applications, so please go ahead and apply, or contact us to discuss your options.