UCAS Application Guide.

Starting your UCAS application

UK based university applications are made through the University and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). To apply for one of our degrees, you’ll need to register with UCAS. This is a fairly straightforward process that should only take a few minutes. Once you’ve registered, you’ll be taken to your UCAS Hub dashboard where you can create an application.

There is a fee for submitting a UCAS application, this is payable directly to UCAS. For 2024 entry, the application fee is £27.50 for up to five choices.

Adding a course as a choice to your UCAS application

After you’ve registered with UCAS, you’ll be able to create an application and then add a course (or courses) as a choice to that application.  

UCAS allows you to apply for up to five different undergraduate courses. Most students will choose five similar courses at five different institutions. However, you’re able to choose more than one course at a particular institution if you wish.

Spirit Studios is an independent higher education institution whose degrees are validated by the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan).  Our courses will display UCLan’s name and logo on the course pages on the UCAS website.  You’ll see Spirit Studios as the location, as per the image below.  You’ll need to select University of Central Lancashire, rather than Spirit Studios, when adding a choice to your application.

To add a course as one of your choices:

1. Sign into your UCAS hub.
2. You’ll then be greeted with your UCAS dashboard. Scroll down and on the left hand side you’ll see a section called ‘Your applications’. You’ll be able to click ‘Add application’ and possibly ‘Continue application’ if you’ve previously started an application. Click the applicable option.
3. From your application, click the ‘Add Choice’ button. You’ll then be greeted with a pop-up box with a number of fields to complete.
4. Under University/college name, select ‘University of Central Lancashire’. Rather than typing the whole name manually, you can just start typing ‘Lancashire’ for it to create a shortlist to speed things up. Note: typing UCLan will result in ‘no matches found’.
5. Under Course, start typing the name of the course and then select it. We’ve listed our course names below.
6. Under Location, select ‘Spirit Studios’.
7. Under ‘Start date’, select the date at which you want to start the course.
8. You can leave the ‘Further details’ section blank.
9. Select the year of the course you want to start under ‘Point of entry’. Most applicants will select ‘1st Year’. Contact us before applying if you’re planning a later point of entry.
10. Select whether you’ll be living at home while studying or not.
11. Click Save. You’ve now added a course as a choice to your application. Repeat the above for any other courses you wish to add to your application.

Our courses:

• Electronic Music Production and Performance W383
• Entrepreneurial Audio Production W391
• Live Sound Engineering and Music Production J931
• Music Business and Event Management W390
• Music Production W37W
• Music Production (Foundation Entry) W375
• Popular Music, Songwriting and Performance J281

Demo of adding Music Production as a choice to your application:

Note: whilst there is an Apply button on the course pages of the UCAS website, it won’t add the course as one of your UCAS application choices. It will eventually take you to a page that states ‘You will need to manually add this course as a Choice in your new or existing application’. This is the case for all UCAS applications, regardless of university and course. Follow the above steps to add a course as a choice to your application.

If you’re having difficulty adding one of our courses as a choice to your application, please get in touch with us. We’ll be happy to help.

Completing your UCAS application

Along with choosing up to five courses, you’ll need to provide additional information with your UCAS application:

• Academic qualifications
• Personal statement (UCAS has a great guide to help you)
• Reference

Once all information has been provided, you can submit your application. Please see below for UCAS application deadlines and important dates.

How your application is considered

We’ll assess your application looking at your academic qualifications, predicted grades, and your personal statement. We look for evidence of your passion for the subject, as well as your ambitions, knowledge and skills, and any previous experience. However, we understand that not everyone will have had opportunities to study or gain experience in music technology, music production, songwriting, music buisness or sound engineering. You shouldn’t be deterred if you don’t think you’ve had enough technical experience. We’ll guide you through the basics.

Once we’ve considered your application you may be invited for an informal interview so we can find out a bit more information about you.