Guide
Our website has a guide about documents and information requirements from international students for UK university applications in ‘How to apply for university admission’ and other guide articles for specific nationals in our ‘Student Guides’ section. This article ‘Supporting documents guide for university applications’ is to supplement and complement those guides and provide additional advice on providing correct documents in correct format to create maximum chance of offer letters in comparatively quicker time.
Supporting document: CV
CV for university admission and CV for job application are different – the structure and content presentations of academic CV are purpose-designed for admission and the contents support other admission documents submitted with the application. Hence, it is very important to write a unique CV for the purpose, you can use our online tools ‘Build your personalised CV for university admission' free of charge and get yours done for university application. It is absolutely crucial that you must submit CV only with up-to-date information.
DOs on the CV
DON’Ts on the CV
Supporting document: Academic
If you do not submit the correct and required educational documents in acceptable format, your application may be considered incomplete and could be rejected. Please submit clear legible copies of each document required. PDF format is preferable; you may also submit jpg or png format documents. However, image/photo taken with your hand/toe visible, bed-sheet in the background, part of the document is folded, shaded grey/black, blurred, corners cut etc. give very bad image about your personality as a student and may affect your application negatively. You do not need to be a great photographer to take good images of your documents, just use 25% of your selfie taking skills! If you want to scan your documents and do not have your own scanner, you can obviously go to a shop that has scanner to scan your documents. You may also wish to install camScanner app on your mobile phone to scan your documents
DOs for academic documents
DON’Ts for academic documents
Qualification certificates
In some countries universities issue the main certificates after a few years and they give a ‘provisional’ certificate to graduates meanwhile. But UKVI do not accept ‘provisional’ certificates for degrees and hence universities will not accept these too. If you are a student with this situation, you should collect an ‘award confirmation letter’ along with Official academic transcript for the qualification and submit both these documents to universities.
Official academic transcript
A transcript is a summary of a student's academic performance and progress to date. It lists the modules taken during each academic year, and the marks obtained in each module. An Academic Transcript can also be known as an Academic Record, Diploma Supplement or Higher Education Achievement Report (HEAR), there are no difference between these terms; they are the same document - Marks Sheet/certificates issued in some countries are not considered as academic transcript and generally not accepted for admission.
Official Academic Transcript is the official record of your study printed on university transcript paper. You must submit an official academic transcript with your admission application. Unofficial copy of academic transcript i.e. screenshot taken from student portal, transcript water-marked as ‘student copy’ etc. are not official and won’t be accepted.
Supporting document: change of name
If you have changed your name recently and your name appear differently than it appeared on your previous documents, then make sure to submit documentary evidences to justify the reason for the changes i.e. with a marriage certificate/change of name deed/affidavit/birth certificate/ certificate of naturalisation or registration/ adoption order/certificate etc.
Supporting document: errors in name
If you find errors in your name on your certificates and transcripts and it is different on your passport and birth certificate, then get the errors amended to make sure all documents showing the same name of yours. Sometimes a statutory declaration or affidavit may be sufficient to resolve the issue but if the discrepancies are varied on different documents then you may need to overhaul a few things and get the common name you want on each document.
Supporting document: other
Supporting document: previous visa and visa refusal
Offer letters get delayed or applications get rejected when students do not provide sufficient documents or documents are not legible, documents are outdate, format and presentation look awful and so on. You should be mindful that university admission officers are human being like any of us, presenting right documents nicely to them makes their tasks simple and pleasant and they consider your application without negative impression at the outset. If you send insufficient documents with messy presentation and incomplete information, then admission officers are likely to keep your application aside or reject it outright out of dissatisfaction. Therefore, it is vital for you to provide the supporting documents for university applications correctly and in time to avoid disappointment.
A It is good to have all documents ready at the time of your university application. However, if you do not have all of these, then you can submit the remaining documents later via application portal or email. Make sure to provide all necessary documents before the application deadline.
A Universities do not require your hard copies of educational documents with your admission application. However, they will ask for these at the time of your registration after you arrive at the university with successful student visa.
A No, you do not need to attest your documents as you will be submitting copies scanned/photographed from the original official versions.
If you are an international student and are required to post your documentation to the University, you may keep your original documents to be used for a visa application and submit certified copies. A certified copy is approved as a true copy by a relevant authority. You can ask your university, your local British Council, a solicitor or another professional person to certify documents for you.
A If you're still registered for your current course, or your undergraduate or postgraduate results are still pending, please provide an attested copy of interim transcript of your results to date with your application. University will make you an offer with condition of submission of final transcript showing required grades and level.
A Total Student Care (TSC) is an official international education agent – our team of expert education counsellors will be happy to help and support you through the application process with error-free application to university,contact us today to start your prospective higher study journey abroad
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