Preparing for uni can be daunting. But don’t stress! With uni prospectuses available to order and university open days to go to, there’s plenty of time to think and prepare.
Updated: 29 Apr 2025
If you’re not in Year 13 yet, you might be thinking it’s not time to start thinking about university, or you might not be sure if you want to go to uni or not yet. You might feel like you’re not ready to start ordering university prospectuses or signing up to attend uni open days. However, Year 13 can be stressful and busy, so getting ahead with uni preparation can help a lot when it comes to Year 13 and A-level revision.
We're about to use a very overused expression, but it’s never too early to start thinking about university!
Even just having a think about whether uni is right for you is helpful early on. If you're still studying for your GCSEs, it'd be handy to do this now as it might make a difference to what qualifications you choose once you’ve finished Year 11.
As well as deciding if uni is right for you, considering what kind of degree you might want to study is also a useful thing to think about in advance. This helps you to choose the right subjects once you complete GCSEs.
Year 12 is the time to start thinking a bit more specifically about university. Year 12 is particularly important for anyone interested in studying at Oxford or Cambridge, or doing medicine, veterinary or dentistry courses, as these have an earlier application deadline than other courses.
So, you’ve decided that you’re probably going to go to uni after Year 13. You might even have a degree subject in mind. This is usually the first step after deciding you want to go to uni. Our course search tool will show you which universities offer the subject you’re after.
Even as early as Year 12, you might have an idea of your predicted grades, which will help you narrow down the right unis for you. The best thing to do at this stage is start ordering prospectuses, which give you more details about the course, entry requirements and the university itself.
Reading prospectuses will give you a bit of an idea of what the university is like, but not the whole picture. Late in Year 12 and in the first term of Year 13, universities host open days for you to get a better feel for the course, but you don’t want to be going to hundreds of open days, dragging your loved ones up and down the country as you check out every English literature course going.
NEXT: Find and book upcoming open days at the unis you're interested in.
Think about what kind of area you want to live in. Do you want to be close to home or further afield? Would you prefer to go to a university contained on a campus so everything you need is in one place, or one with buildings spread throughout a city so you can explore the local area more? Are you looking to live in a bigger city or smaller town? Are you longing to live near the coast? These decisions, along with the information provided in prospectuses, can help you build a shortlist of universities to visit when open day season rolls around.