To study for an undergraduate degree at Manchester or any UK university, you must make your application through UCAS. You’ll find the key dates for applying for a course starting in September 2025 on our How to apply page.
Before you apply
You can find all the information you need on our Before you apply page, including our course finder and course profiles to help you make the right choice for you.
Check the admissions entry requirements for your course. Specific grades and subjects may be required for some courses, and this information is available on each subject course profile. For some courses, you’ll be asked to take an admissions test or provide a portfolio. The course profiles will highlight if this is a requirement for your chosen course.
UCAS application form
You can discover everything you need to know about the application process, including research, the application itself, and your next steps, on the UCAS Apply website.
You’ll be asked to provide personal details including:
- An email address – we recommend you check your inbox frequently (including your junk/spam folders) as we will contact you via this email address.
- Details of your education and any qualifications you've already achieved, such as your GCSE results.
- A personal statement – an opportunity to tell us why you're interested in your chosen course.
Read the guidance from UCAS on filling in your application before you begin.
UCAS personal statement
Your personal statement is part of your UCAS application and gives you the opportunity to share information about yourself and your motivation to study your chosen course. It’s your chance to tell us why you want to go to university, why you’re passionate about studying a particular subject, and to showcase both your educational and extracurricular skills and achievements.
Use your personal statement to demonstrate that you have the qualities your chosen university is looking for and explain why you are the best candidate for your preferred course. For some of our courses, a strong personal statement can tip the balance in favour of receiving an offer for a place at Manchester.
You can only write one personal statement, so the same wording and information will be seen by all the universities you apply to. Your personal statement should therefore focus on the course that you want to study, rather than the universities you’re applying to.
The admissions teams for our academic Schools or Departments may use your personal statement in different ways during the application process. Our priority is always to ensure the application process is fair and consistent. We are aware that other universities may have different expectations from a UCAS personal statement, so if we are looking for anything specific this will be highlighted in the application and selection section of the individual subject course profile.
Applying for September 2025
If you’re applying to go to university in September 2025, your personal statement can be structured how you wish. Other than a 4,000-character limit (including spaces), there are no other rules about how to plan your statement or what to include. Read UCAS’ advice on writing a personal statement.
Applying for September 2026 onwards
The UCAS personal statement is changing for students applying to study in September 2026. The new format will make writing your personal statement easier and more structured.
Rather than a free text response, the new personal statement format will ask you to answer three separate questions. Each question will have a minimum character count of 350 characters. The total character count limit for all three questions combined remains 4,000 characters.
These changes have been introduced to help you focus on ‘what, why and where you want to study’. It is hoped that the new format will make writing your personal statement less stressful and more accessible, especially if you’re applying independently, or you’re an international student. The questions have been designed to help structure what you want to say and guide you to include the information universities are after.
Personal statement questions
You’ll be asked three questions that will act as a starting point for what you want to say. UCAS refers to these as ‘scaffolding questions’ and they’re designed to help you build your answers.
Find out more about each question below:
This is your opportunity to tell us why you want to study this course or subject area. You should focus on your academic interest in the subject, including what excites you about studying it; why you’ve chosen to study the programme; which aspects of the subject interest you sufficiently to want to study it at university; what attracts you to study this subject area; and what most interests you about the subject area.
If you're applying for a joint programme, consider how the subjects interrelate and why they appeal to you.
Include information on your future career plan and whether there’s a specific career you wish to enter after graduation. Consider how this course/subject will be a good fit for these plans.
Our admissions teams are looking for your academic ability and potential – they want to see that you are truly committed to the subjects you want to study.
This is where you can showcase all your relevant and transferable skills, including how you’ve developed your subject interest outside of your studies. It's useful to highlight things that have inspired your interests in the subject area.
You could highlight extracurricular activities related to your chosen subject area, such as lectures or online courses you’ve taken and books you’ve read to broaden your knowledge. Have you completed the EPQ or another research project on the subject area? This is your opportunity to tell us more about your research and findings.
Have you gained any skills from other subjects that complement your application? Have you participated in schemes or activities at Manchester or other universities (for example, widening participation programmes or summer schools such as the Manchester Access Programme)? What did you learn from attending them and how did they deepen your subject knowledge?
In addition to listing your experiences, take the time to evaluate them to show what you have learned and how they’ve helped develop your understanding of the subject.
Here you can include anything else you think will support your application.
Do you have a part-time job? Have you completed relevant work experience that you have not previously mentioned in your statement? If you did, how did this experience give you a wider understanding of the topics or skills you’ll need to study at university? Do you participate in hobbies or activities that have helped you master new skills that will help you while studying? Highlight how the activity has relevance to you studying your chosen course, or the skills you need to attend university.
Include personal life experiences and responsibilities that have helped you develop the essential qualities needed for university.
If you’re applying for deferred entry, as well as thinking about the questions listed above you may also wish to indicate (briefly) why you’re taking a gap year and what you plan to do during this time.
If you are applying as a post-qualified student (you have already received your final results), you may wish to mention briefly what you have been doing since your exams.
Top tips for your personal statement
- Make it relevant to you and your chosen course – it is a personal statement and everything you say should relate back to the course
- Be organised and plan it out
- Be specific and honest, don’t make things up
- Write clearly, with correct grammar and spelling
- Don’t go overboard with the thesaurus
- Don’t just list things, but explain what you’ve done and how it will help you with your university studies
- Don’t be negative – focus on what you’re good at. It's okay to be aware that something needs improving, but share what you’re doing to achieve this
- Don’t reference achievements from a very long time ago
- Don’t only focus on your career goals after university
- Don’t copy or paraphrase – UCAS uses sophisticated software and checks every personal statement for plagiarism.
Additional information for applicants
Don’t worry about including information in the wrong section, but try to avoid repeating it.
We are aware that some information may work in answer to both question 1 and question 2. For example, you may have done some further academic reading to support your academic study but undertaken this in your free time. This further academic reading may have increased your interest and desire to study the subject area (question 1) but it also relates to how your qualifications and studies have helped you to prepare for this course or subject (question 2). Choose what question you think the information best answers and don’t repeat it for another question.
The overall character limit of the personal statement is 4,000 characters.
Each section will have a minimum character count of 350 characters. This will be clearly labelled on the question boxes within the UCAS application system, along with an overall character counter, to ensure that you know you’re on track.
The majority of admissions teams for our academic Schools and Departments are happy for applicants to have an equal weighting across all three questions; however, a few programmes may expect to see the most information in answer to the first question (‘Why do you want to study this course or subject’). If an admissions team is looking for anything specific in your personal statement, this will be highlighted in the application and selection section of the course profile for that subject.
We believe that talented students should have a fair chance to join our University, regardless of their background. That’s why we have contextual admissions – a process where we review UCAS applications in the context of personal circumstances to better understand a student’s background, achievements and potential to succeed. If you’re eligible for a contextual offer, we’ll take into account that you may not have the same access to extracurricular activities or work experience when we consider your personal statement.
Your personal statement should be personal to you, and you should avoid using generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools to create your statement. Using AI may lead to a lower quality personal statement, or your work being caught by UCAS’ plagiarism detection software.
AI software can be helpful to generate initial ideas, or suggest reading materials or references related to your subject area. It can also be useful for proofreading your original writing.
Completing your UCAS application
As part of your UCAS application, you’ll be asked to provide an academic reference completed by your teacher or adviser. Information to support them in writing an academic reference can be found on our teachers and advisers pages.
Your application cannot be submitted until your chosen referee has completed and added your reference to your application. You should ensure you leave your referee enough time to complete your reference and meet your UCAS deadline.
Your UCAS reference is written by one of your teachers or career advisers and provides more context about you. If you have any mitigating circumstances affecting you and/or your studies, these should be included in this reference rather than your personal statement. Some universities will have a specific form/process to disclose this.
If you have a disability, there is an opportunity to disclose this as part of your UCAS application. This will not negatively impact on your application, but ensures the University can signpost and offer you any additional support you may need.
A fee payment to UCAS is required to complete the application process. How you pay this fee depends on if you’re applying through a school, college or centre, or as an individual, along with your individual circumstances. Details of the cost and process to pay the application fee can be found on the UCAS Apply website.