Contextual admissions policy

Check if you're eligible

To qualify for a contextual offer, you must have Home-UK fee status and your most recent or current school is a state school.

One of the following must also apply:

• You live in an area where people are less likely to go to university – check your postcode below

• You have completed a UNIQ, Realising Opportunities or Sutton Trust programme, or have taken part in a summer school with the Sutton Trust or Nottingham Potential 

• You have refugee status from the Home Office
• You have spent more than three months in care – in this situation, you do not need to have attended a state school

Postcode checker 

Type in your home postcode – for example, NG7 2NR. 

Postcode eligibility is defined by national measures of participation in higher education, which are subject to change. The data within this postcode checker was last updated in September 2021.

The university will only take into account postcodes that are identified as eligible at the time of making an offer to study one of our courses.

 Interviews and tests

Some courses include an interview or test as part of the entry requirements. You will need to pass this before we can make you a contextual offer.

Our admissions staff know that applicants have different access to opportunities and support. They will consider this when assessing your application, qualifications, tests and interviews.

Specific courses

Medicine

We make contextual offers for our five-year medicine courses – A100 and A10L. If you meet the requirements for a contextual applicant and are successful at interview, your offer will be the contextual offer of AAB including an A in either biology or chemistry, with the other no lower than a B. Our IB requirements would be 35 points in total with 6,6,5 in Highers including 6 in either biology or chemistry, with the other no lower than HL 5. Scores exclude the core component.

If you won’t meet the entry requirements for the five-year courses, you can apply for our six-year foundation options – A108 and A18L. These courses are only open to applicants who meet the contextual admissions criteria detailed above. Your offer will be made using our standard entry requirements for our Medicine BMedSci and BMBS with a Foundation Year course (BBC).

Physiotherapy

If you are applying to start in 2022, you will need to make Nottingham your firm choice to qualify for a contextual offer. If you are applying to start in 2023, you will automatically be given a contextual offer if you meet the criteria above.

Veterinary medicine

We are unable to make offers below our standard entry requirements. Your contextual offer will be more flexible on the specific subject grades.

Nottingham University Business School

We make contextual offers to several of our courses at ABB, which is two grades lower than standard requirements. The courses include:

• Industrial Economics BSc
• Industrial Economics with Insurance BSc
• Industrial Economics with Placement Year BSc
• Industrial Economics with Insurance with Placement Year BSc
• Management BSc
• International Management BSc
• Management with a Placement Year BSc
• Accountancy BSc
• Finance, Accounting and Management BSc
• Finance, Accounting and Management with Placement Year BSc

Check if you're eligible

As well meeting the criteria for a contextual offer, to qualify for an enhanced contextual offer you must have successfully completed one of the following: 

• the Realising Opportunities Programme at any university
• a University of Nottingham Widening Participation Summer School (either via the Sutton Trust or advertised as Nottingham Potential)
• the Sutton Trust Pathways to Law at the University of Nottingham
• the Sutton Trust Pathways to Medicine at the University of Nottingham
• the Sutton Trust Pathways to STEM at the University of Nottingham
• Ambition Post 16 at the University of Nottingham as a Tier 1 member

Exceptions for specific courses 

For undergraduate courses with entry requirements of BBB, the lowest enhanced contextual offer we would make is BBC. 

For 2022 entry, enhanced contextual offers will not be made for Veterinary Medicine or foundation courses.

Medicine  

Medicine applicants applying for September 2023 who meet the following criteria will be considered for the interview stage without having to go through the UCAT/GCSE scoring stage of our selection process:

• meet the entry requirements for any of our undergraduate Medicine courses (A100, A10L, A108 and A18L)
• have completed the Nottingham Pathways Programme, the Nottingham Potential Summer School, the Nottingham Sutton Trust Summer School or Lincoln Medical School Summer School

Applicants will still need to sit the UCAT and achieve Band 1 to 3 on the Situational Judgement Test.