Contextual data and widening participation

St Mary’s University has inclusiveness as one of its core values and is committed to widening participation.

We actively encourage applications from a wide range of students as we firmly believe that helping more people from a wide mix of backgrounds to access education contributes positively to individuals and society.

We understand applicants to our undergraduate degrees have a range of different experiences, qualifications and backgrounds. Above all, we believe that your access to higher education shouldn’t be limited by circumstances that are out of your control.

Contextual offers

For many of our three-year degree programmes if you don’t quite meet our entry requirements, we might be able to make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background, your experiences, individual circumstances and whether you can demonstrate transferable skills that you have which will help you to be successful at university. This is called a contextual offer, and we get data from UCAS to help make these decisions.

Some of the factors we consider are:

• if you have been in care or looked after for a significant period of time 
• if you have participated in a formal St Mary’s widening particiapation programme, such as Saturday Club 
• if you have a home postcode from a low participation neighbourhood or a postcode assigned to Quintile 1 of the Index of Multiple Deprivation 
• if you were eligible for free school meals after the age of 14 
• if you have been estranged from parents or other family members responsible for your care 
• if you have been studying at one of South Thames Colleges Group – South Thames College, Kingston College, Merton College and Carshalton College.

As we receive this information from UCAS, you don’t have to do anything further to receive a contextual offer and these are automatically made to eligible applicants.

If you don’t receive a contextual offer and believe you are entitled to one, please email our UK admissions team at apply@stmarys.ac.uk

Mitigating circumstances

We understand that there are times when things happen that can affect your studies and exams. This would include illness or bereavement or perhaps adverse family circumstances. We recommend that you notify us of such circumstances, so that we can give your application the fullest consideration – any decisions to allow you a place on the course if you do not meet the grades would be at the discretion of the Admissions Office.

If you believe that you have mitigating circumstances that mean you are likely to achieve lower grades than predicted, please let us know by completing our online form by 30^th June at the latest.

Evidence

We will need official evidence of any mitigating circumstances, which would usually be in the form of a letter or email from your school or college, but we can let you know exactly what is required once you have submitted the form.