This may include any adverse impact the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has had on your studies or assessments due to illness, personal circumstances or challenges with learning from home. With your permission, the reference could also include circumstances that have affected your academic work or performance, such as a personal problem, illness or any individual needs you may have. If your referee is one of your teachers, they can add your predicted grades for any pending qualifications you’re currently studying. They might mention skills you’ve developed from activities outside of education, so make sure they know all the great things you do from mentoring younger students to building your own computer. It might include your career goals and work experience, so make sure to talk to your referee about these first, as well as how well you’ve done in specific modules on course components. Essentially, they’re providing judgement on your suitability for your chosen course. It should be a full, written reference that is included in your online UCAS application. Again, keep in touch with your referee and as soon as they’ve completed your reference you can pay your application fee and send your application. Using the same application process as if your referee was a previous employer, just enter their contact details into the reference page of your application and click ‘Ask referee to complete reference’. If asking your former school or previous employer doesn’t apply to you, you can also ask someone to be your referee if you did charity, volunteer or freelance work with them. Keep in touch with your referee and as soon as they’ve completed your reference you can pay your application fee and send your application. If it’s an employer or supervisor who’s going to write your reference, simply enter their email address and phone number on the reference page of your application, and click ‘Ask referee to complete reference’. Make sure you contact them first, then enter their details here.

Just go to the ‘Options’ section on the reference page of your UCAS application and click ‘Ask a registered school, college or centre to write a reference’.

If you’re applying as an individual, you can still ask a school, college or other institution e.g. Your school or college will let you know how and when to pay your application fee, then they’ll send your application. Students don’t usually see their reference, so you don’t have to do anything at this point. your teacher or head of year will complete your reference for you and send it to UCAS. If you’re applying through a school, college or other educational institution, your referee e.g. This process depends on how you’re applying.

Ucas reference example for students