Information for applicants
Information and guidance for commencing your studies at the University of Dundee
If your circumstances are not covered here and you have further questions, please contact:
Applicant Enquiry Team – please use our online enquiry form
University of Dundee China Office - ChinaEnquiry@dundee.ac.uk
At the University of Dundee, we know that many of our applicants and partners are currently experiencing many challenges as a result of coronavirus and would like to extend our support to you and your families. You are all in our thoughts at this moment.
We also understand that many students’ study plans will be affected by coronavirus, therefore we are putting in place a series of measures relating to our admissions processes, pre-sessional English courses, and deadlines, to offset these difficulties.
Where we can, we have given answers to questions that some of you have raised with us:
Scotland
On Thursday 19 March the Scottish Government announced that the 2020 SQA examination diet would be cancelled. The SQA has developed an alternative certification model, which aims to ensure that learners receive their results on 4 August as planned. Further details are available on SQA website . Please also check the Scottish Government Student Information website and UCAS Track and the UCAS coronavirus page for updates. The University of Dundee will accept these grades as having equal validity to grades awarded in other years.
We understand that these are challenging times for all our applicants, and that your grades may be impacted as a result. Please be assured that we are taking this into consideration when assessing applications and offering additional flexibility in light of the disruption caused by coronavirus, both this year and for our intakes in 2021/22 and 2022/23.
England and Wales
On Wednesday 18 March the Secretary of State for Education announced that examinations in England and Wales would no longer take place in May and June, however candidates will still receive grades. See Ofqual’s announcement on how grades will be calculated. More information is available on the Department for Education’s website. Please also check UCAS Track and the UCAS coronavirus page for updates. The University of Dundee will accept these calculated grades as having equal validity to grades awarded in other years.
We understand that these are challenging times for all our applicants, and that your grades may be impacted as a result. Please be assured that we are taking this into consideration when assessing applications and offering additional flexibility in light of the disruption caused by coronavirus, both this year and for our intakes in 2021/22 and 2022/23.
Northern Ireland
Summer examinations have been cancelled in Northern Ireland. More information about how grades will be awarded is available on the CCEA website . Please also check UCAS Track and the UCAS coronavirus page for updates. The University of Dundee will accept these calculated grades as having equal validity to grades awarded in other years.
We understand that these are challenging times for all our applicants, and that your grades may be impacted as a result. Please be assured that we are taking this into consideration when assessing applications and offering additional flexibility in light of the disruption caused by coronavirus, both this year and for our intakes in 2021/22 and 2022/23.
International Applicants
We are aware of different measures in place in different countries and are continually adapting our admissions policy in line with these changes. Please also check UCAS Track and the UCAS coronavirus page for updates
If your examinations have been cancelled and you will instead be awarded calculated grades from a recognised examination board, then we will accept these as having equal validity to grades awarded in other years.
If your examinations have been cancelled and you will not be awarded calculated grades, please email contactus@dundee.ac.uk and one of our Admissions Officers will assess your application.
If your examinations are delayed, we will offer additional flexibility with the start date of our courses where possible.
We understand that these are challenging times for all our applicants, and that your grades may be impacted as a result. Please be assured that we are taking this into consideration when assessing applications and offering additional flexibility in light of the disruption caused by coronavirus, both this year and for our intakes in 2021/22 and 2022/23.
International Baccalaureate
IBO has cancelled the May 2020 examination diet. Details on how grades will be calculated area available on the IBO website. Please also check UCAS Track and the UCAS coronavirus page for updates. The University of Dundee will accept these calculated grades as having equal validity to grades awarded in other years.
We understand that these are challenging times for all our applicants, and that your grades may be impacted as a result. Please be assured that we are taking this into consideration when assessing applications and offering additional flexibility in light of the disruption caused by coronavirus, both this year and for our intakes in 2021/22 and 2022/23.
We understand that multiple factors can influence your grades, many of which are not within your control. The University’s Contextual Admissions Policy ensures that we note circumstances that may have impacted your ability to meet your potential. When assessing applications, our Admissions Officers look for evidence that your path has been made more difficult by circumstances outside of your control. This can include disruption to education through school or university closures or for personal reasons such as ill health.
If you are unable to obtain a copy of the transcript, we can accept a screenshot or photograph of the transcript, along with a letter from your University confirming that you have completed your degree.
The transcript and letter should both include:
- Full name
- Date of birth
- Name of award
- Date of award
- Grade/GPA/Classification
- Name of institution/awarding body
In addition, the accompanying letter should be on the institution’s headed paper.
We are still accepting applications for our 2020/21 intakes. If you are still waiting for a decision from us, please don't worry. Our Admissions team is working hard to continue processing application decisions as quickly as possible. However the Team is working remotely which is leading to some delays. Once we have made a decision we will notify you in the usual way, so please continue to check UCAS Track or MyApplications on eVision.
Undergraduate
Deferral requests will be considered on a case by case basis, with personal extenuating circumstances considered. Please email contactus@dundee.ac.uk to request a deferral, outlining the reasons you wish to defer. All requests will be considered and decisions communicated within 14 days.
Postgraduate taught
Should you need to defer because of a delay related to coronavirus, we will allow you to defer to the next date at which you are in a position to start. If you have already deferred once we will allow you to defer again. If you have been awarded a scholarship from us for your studies, this can also be deferred. A number of our courses have both September and January start dates.
Postgraduate research applicants
A number of you will have originally planned to join us sometime over the next few months. Given the uncertainty around when we will be able to welcome students and staff back to our campus, we have now decided to coordinate the enrolment of our most of our new research students into a cohort. Initially we planned that most PhD applicants who have an expected start date from now until 31 August 2020 would start their research programme on 14 September 2020 (subject to factors outside our control and supervisor availability). Affected applicants received an email explaining these changes on 27 March 2020. However, on 24 April the University decided to revise the start date of semester 1 to Monday 5 October 2020. This means that most PhD applicants who were hoping to start between now and 30 September will now start their research programme on 5 October 2020. Affected applicants will receive an email on 29 April 2020. There may be a few exceptions to this, and in those cases supervisors will contact affected applicants directly.
All interviews will now take place online. Further details have been sent to applicants who have been affected by this change. If you have not been contacted about a change to your interview, please email applicant-interviews@dundee.ac.uk
We have moved our Applicant Visit Days online. Further details have been sent to applicants who have been affected by this change. These online sessions will include presentations and Q&As with academics, student services and give you the chance to meet some of our current students. You'll receive a link to our Applicant Sessions via email.
Certain courses may ask applicants to pay a deposit. The University of Dundee does not have a deposit payment deadline, but if you are an international student who requires a Tier 4 (Student) visa, the deposit does need to be paid before we can issue your Admissions Letter and Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) statement. After you arrive in Dundee we will also reimburse you £200 for use of the priority visa reimbursement service.
Yes. We will also work hard to defer your place, should you choose to take this option.
We accept a wide range of English language qualifications. View our full list of accepted qualifications.
You can submit evidence of meeting your conditions up to two weeks prior to your course start date.
We also are offering Online Pre-Sessional English courses which you can apply to online.
Yes, as these courses are being delivered fully online this year we are able to accept a wide range of English language qualifications. View our full list of accepted qualifications
This will be considered on a case by case basis.
Like many other universities across the world, the University of Dundee has suspended teaching on-campus during this coronavirus pandemic. We are pleased to inform you that we will now be teaching our Pre-Sessional English courses online. To ensure that students are given enough teaching time and language support to achieve the grades you need, any students previously offered the 11 week on-campus Pre-Sessional English course will now be given an offer for the 14 weeks Pre-Sessional English course online.
We will also offer all our online students intensive English language support, if you wish/require it, when you do arrive on campus, with options including transferring to our on-campus Pre-Sessional courses, classes during Welcome Week and in-sessional English support during your studies.
All of our Pre-Sessional English courses are now available to study online.
We will also offer all our online students intensive English language support, if you wish/require it, when you do arrive on campus, with options including transferring to our on-campus Pre-Sessional course, classes during Welcome Week and in-sessional English support during your studies.
We opened the application system for our accommodation at the end of May. If you have firmly accepted our offer we will email you with further details. This email will be sent to your UoD account and the address you gave when you applied (remember to check junk/spam folders). Residences contract dates will align with the revised start date for the 2020/21 academic year. More details can be found on our Accommodation webpages.
In order to lessen the continuing impact of Covid-19 and to ensure the best learning experience, we have decided that given the current circumstances, teaching in semester 1 of 2020/21 will now begin later than originally planned:
- Semester 1 teaching will now begin on Monday 5 October 2020.
- Welcome (Freshers’) Week will take place in the week beginning Monday 28 September 2020.
- Students entering courses where professional practice requirements are in place, for example Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (Primary and Secondary) courses, may start before 5 October. The academic School will provide further details to affected applicants.
- Semester 1 teaching will end on Friday 18 December 2020.
- No other change is currently expected to the academic calendar. Teaching in semester 2 will begin on Monday 18 January 2021 as already published, and the remainder of the academic session will continue as already published.
This later start date allows the University the time necessary to deliver our learning and teaching provision safely and sustainably at a time of global uncertainty and in a way which protects students and staff. We also recognise that many of our international students may benefit from a little extra time in order to join us here on campus. Current applicants received an email to inform them of this change during the week beginning 27 April 2020 and another email giving more details about the 2020/21 academic year at the end of May.
We hope that you will be able to join us for the later start date of your course. However we understand that you may still face delays and will offer flexibility where possible.
If you are able travel to Dundee you should make every reasonable effort to arrive for the start of Semester 1. However, we understand that you may still face delays and we will offer flexibility where possible. If you are not able to travel to Dundee, for example because you cannot book a flight, because of your health, because of visa delays or because of government advice, we will do everything possible to enable you to matriculate (register) and study online in Semester 1 until you are able to arrive in Dundee. If you think you will arrive late in Dundee we will tell you how to let us know this from early September, before the start of Semester 1.
Please let us know the reasons why you will be unable to arrive before the final date on your CAS and the date you believe you will be able to arrive by. We will do everything possible to support you.
If you have to delay your arrival in Dundee you will be able to matriculate (register) and start studying online from home. We look forward to welcoming you in Dundee as soon as you are able to travel and would encourage you to join us as soon as you can during Semester 1.
Staff in our academic Schools are working hard over the summer to ensure that they can deliver teaching to enable you to meet the Learning Objectives for your course, even if you have to start studying online from home. This may mean that some more practical elements are delivered in Semester 2 by which time we hope that all students will be in Dundee.
We plan to offer courses wherever possible in a blended mixture of online and face-to-face teaching, to allow for the greatest flexibility in student learning depending on what public health guidelines are in place. As government advice allows, we will increase the level of face-to-face teaching, as quickly and as far as possible.
We will have to reduce some types of teaching, for example large-scale lectures, as the capacity of many of our teaching spaces will be reduced as a result of Scottish Government social distancing rules. In those cases where we simply cannot accommodate the normal number of people in one space then teaching materials, e.g. audio and video, will be recorded to a high quality and made available to you through our Virtual Learning Environment, called My Dundee. Alternatively, other learning materials will be made available to enable you to meet the learning outcomes of your programme.
We will offer as much as possible of our small group teaching, plus practical, studio, clinical skills and laboratory teaching, in a face-to-face format with appropriate social distancing in place. This will be heavily dependent on individual subjects/disciplines and programme structure, and we will provide more information about this during the summer.
We will carefully manage access to library and learning resources by increasing the level of online provision but by also making library access available within the social distancing rules in place at that time.