We recognise the potential of talented students from all backgrounds.
We understand that background and personal circumstances can have an impact on academic performance at school or college. So we offer alternative ways to allow these students to reach their potential and thrive at a world-class university.
If your academic performance doesn’t meet the standard requirements for your chosen course and you meet our entry requirements, you could benefit from a contextual offer or an enhanced contextual offer.
A contextual offer is a reduced conditional offer to study at Nottingham. These offers are usually one grade lower than the entry requirements on our course pages, however this can vary for some courses. Eligibility is based on personal circumstances that may have restricted achievement at school or college.
If our standard offer includes a specific subject grade, this will generally remain. For example, if the standard offer is AAB with an A in maths, the contextual offer would be ABB with an A in maths.
There are no additional steps needed to receive a conditional offer, simply apply for an undergraduate course at the university through UCAS as usual. If your UCAS application shows that you meet the criteria, we will automatically consider you for a contextual offer.
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:
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 August 2022.
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.
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).
Veterinary medicine
For courses D100 and D104, in addition to the criteria outlined above, we also make contextual offers to applicants who meet two of the following criteria:
- First in the family to enter higher education
- Have disadvantaging circumstances which the exam board(s) has not already taken into consideration
- Be a carer
Contextual offers will not be made for D190 Veterinary Medicine with a Gateway Year.
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
We make enhanced contextual offers to students who successfully complete our University of Nottingham summer school or pathways programmes, or the national Realising Opportunities programme.
These offers are usually two A level grades lower than the entry requirements on our course pages. Apart from Medicine with a Foundation Year (A108), as the contextual offer has already been applied to entrance requirements.
Apply for an undergraduate course at the university through UCAS. If your UCAS application shows that you meet the criteria, we will automatically consider you for a contextual offer.
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 2023 entry, enhanced contextual offers will not be made for Veterinary Medicine or foundation/gateway courses.
Medicine
For 2023 entry, enhanced contextual offers will not be made for Medicine courses.
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 a Sutton Trust Pathways Programme at the University of Nottingham, Sutton Trust Summer School at the University of Nottingham, or the Lincoln Medical School Summer School
Applicants will still need to sit the UCAT and achieve Band 1 to 3 on the Situational Judgement Test.
Apply for a course
Apply for an undergraduate course through UCAS. If your UCAS application shows that you meet the above criteria, we will automatically consider you for a contextual offer.
Apply for an undergraduate course