My audience for this column is grade 12 pupils who are unlikely to have codes 6s (70-79%) and 7s (80-100%) in their National Senior Certificate exam results. Those achievers can mostly fend for themselves.
I am writing for deserving students who receive codes 5s (60-69%) and sometimes 6s and who intend to apply to university from poor and working class communities as potential first-generation students.
That is, those who often do not have parents who attended university and can therefore help them with advice and the completion of application forms.
As someone who works in both schools and universities, here are 10 reasons why so many deserving students do not make it into higher education.
• You are competing with tens of thousands of other students — therefore your marks (codes 1-7) matter more than anything else. Bear this in mind when you apply to university.
It is a highly competitive process and therefore nothing matters more than the quality of your pass. Put bluntly, the more 6s and 7s you have, the more likely you are to get into your university of choice and your preferred qualification (degree).
• To be safe, apply to more than one university, all four Cape Town institutions or both Wits and the UJ in Johannesburg. Hedge your bets.
You will be sorely disappointed if the one university you applied to turns you down. There is also Unisa (distance education) if all else fails and your first choice, a residential university, falls through.
• If you are not the strongest student, look for other degrees in the same area, BA Law instead of LLB to improve your chances of getting in.
The LLB in this example is the premier law degree and the competition for limited spaces is tough. Therefore, consider allied qualifications, like the BA Law with the understanding that you can always transfer later to your preferred degree; in that case, know the rules of transfer back to front for the different degrees.
• Know the requirements for the degree, for example, you cannot study medicine without mathematics and physical science.
Many prospective students are disappointed because they did not study closely the requirements for a preferred degree. For example, most degrees in the sciences require pure mathematics and so mathematical literacy is not going to help you, unfortunately.
• Be realistic — don’t do degrees in which your marks make you less competitive, for example, marine biology when your life sciences mark is 50%.
Of course, it is important to be ambitious, but you must also be realistic. Do not apply for degree studies unless your marks match your goals.
• Get your foot in the door — you can always transfer later to a preferred degree provided your university marks are really good in the first two years.
You might not get your first choice on application but do not worry about this. You are young, there is time, and sometimes students change their mind with respect to their original interests. Get in first, and consider transfer possibilities later.
• Some degrees will take you four instead of three years if your marks are not as good; take the extended programme if necessary.
Depending on your marks, a university must ask you to do an additional year in which your academic content and experience for a particular degree needs more depth. Do it because the alternative is to drop out before you even began university studies.
• You must apply for admission and for accommodation/support (NSFAS) at the same time.
Most students from poor and working class backgrounds do not have parents who can pay for university studies. You must therefore apply for admission and funding otherwise you might be financially stranded.
• Make sure you have someone who can advise you on your application; university websites can be difficult to navigate. If you do not know, ask.
Do not become isolated in the long process of preparing applications.
• Watch the deadlines like a hawk. Universities, because they have so many applications, have no reason to extend application deadlines.
Make absolutely sure you know every university’s deadlines, noting that even within the same institution, there might be different deadlines for, say, dentistry than accounting.
With 5s and 6s, there is no guarantee that you will be accepted into your preferred university or degree of choice.
But if you follow these 10 guidelines, you significantly enhance your chances of being successful. Good luck!
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